Gaming Easter Eggs & Trivia: Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic, and his sometimes annoying friends, have been on many grand adventures over the years. They've taken on an obese mad scientist named Dr. Ivo Robotnik, a confused and overly emotional hedgehog named Shadow, and even an aquatic devilish blob known only as "Chaos." Sonic fans have seen a lot. Some of these experiences have somewhat of a double or hidden meaning to them. While others are just quirky and just plain weird!

Sonic cameos.
Aside form his appearance as a carved mountain formation in Daytona USA, Sonic the Hedgehog's familiar spiky rendering has showed up in a lot of other SEGA video games. He was an unlockable time attack character in Christmas NiGHTS, plays soccer along side Knuckles, Amy, Tails, etc. in Virtua Striker 3, and hovered around in an inflated state in 1993's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Sonic was also featured in the Sega Saturn game Bug, the Dreamcast cult classic Shenmue, and in a quest for the role playing video game Phantasy Star Online: Version 2. Donkey Kong Country 2 has an interesting high score screen that pits your progress up against the likes of Mario, Yoshi and Link. Toward the bottom right hand part of the screen lies a trashcan and items belonging to two other popular, non-Nintendo characters. Sonic's trademark red and white sneakers can be seen along side Earthworm Jim's plasma gun.

Pump your breaks, kid.
The skid sound effect in the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive Sonic games, heard when pressing your d-pad in the opposite direction Sonic is facing to bring him a direct stop when running at full speed, was originally used in SEGA's arcade racing game OutRun. Don't believe me? Either go back and play those two titles, or watch game play footage on YouTube.

Blue toon with an attitude.
There have been four Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series': Sonic SatAM, Sonic X, Sonic Underground and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Of the four, Sonic Underground stands out for taking excessive liberties with the overall story and background of the character. In it, Sonic is the lead singer of a band that features his non-canon siblings, Sonia and Manic.

Archie Comics has been publishing a Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series since 1993. Spin off series' focused around Knuckles the Echidna, Tails, Princess Sally and events from the Dreamcast video games Sonic Adventure & 2. The current number of issues for the main Sonic comic book is just above 200.