Most levels in Sonic the Hedgehog games (and I’m strictly talking about the first two because those are the only two that matter) make sense, or, as much sense as a game starring a blue hedgehog that runs really fast on two legs can make. You’re either outdoors, underwater, in a factory that produces nothing but fire, etc. But something always bothered me about
Casino Night, a game-of-chance themed level from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It’s a gigantic outdoor casino, so they already broke the first rule of casinos – gamblers need to forget that the outside exists. There are pinball plungers and flippers all over the place, no one’s taking my drink order, and I’m fighting robot crabs. The only available games in Casino Night are two-story tall slot machines, which I can play by curling myself into a ball and throwing myself INTO them.  If I win, gold rings are thrown at me, and if I lose I’m pelted with spiky balls. This casino kind of sucks!
Why was this casino built, and who’s supposed to be gambling here? My first thought was Dr. Robotnik, the evil egg-guy that hates Sonic for whatever reason. After a long day of turning chipmunks and bunny rabbits into robot monstrosities, who doesn’t like to unwind with a few thousand rounds of slots? But what’s the point of gambling in a casino that you built for yourself and winning or losing your own money from yourself? Hey, three bars! I won 100 gold rings, I guess? I can’t do math, but it doesn’t sound like Casino Night is ever going to turn a profit. Plus, Dr. Robotnik can barely walk, and the only way to play slots in this cockamamie casino is to jump into an oversized slot machine. Here’s a real world comparison – Larry Flynt spends $150 billion building the world’s deepest swimming pool, rolls his wheelchair over the edge and drowns. I regret everythgurgle gurgle gurgle.
So, this wasn’t some casino paradise built by Dr. Robotnik for Dr. Robotnik. And it can’t be for his henchemen because they can’t jump, and jumping is necessary for both gambling and navigating this casino. I’m forced to believe that Dr. Robotnik built this casino solely to torture Sonic by throwing his gambling addiction in his face.
That’s pretty low. Like that level in Mega Dana Plato Adventure World III where the mini boss is a giant pill that spits out smaller pills, and the smaller pills shoot streams of alcohol down her little 8-bit throat. It’s sick, and no matter how much I love videogames based on the world of Diff’rent Strokes, I feel dirty every time I play it. Don’t get me started on Mr. Horton‘s bicycle shop level.
Maybe Casino Night doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s like a mixture of Leaving Las Vegas and Groundhog’s Day… a drunken nightmare that Sonic must live through day after day until he realises that he can conquer his addiction by running really fast and jumping on shit. If that’s the case, then Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was like 5 or 6 years ahead of its time. If that isn’t the case (and let’s face facts here, this totally isn’t the case) then the makers of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 have no idea how to run a casino, and I want to be removed from their Casino Night mailing list immediately. I’ll keep my ringtone though.
