2B - Thursday, October 18, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 28 - Thursday, October18, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom CALENDA R The Daily Arts guide to the best upcoming events Today 10.18.07 Kelly Joe Phelps a P.M. $15/$20 At The Ark The Setup with special guests Farewell Republic and Danny Freeman 5:30 p.m. $5 21+/$8 under 21 At The Blind Pig Andy Kirshner: The Musical Image 5 p.m, Free At The Michigan Theater Tomorrow 10.19.07 Ellis Paul $15 At The Ark Screening: Tokyo Kid 7p.m. Free At the Lerch Hall Askwith Auditorium Cudamani with Odalan Bail p.m. $1o-$38 At Hill Auditorium Saturday 10.20.07 Paris is Burning: film screening and discussion 7 p.m. Free At South Quad, Down Under Lounge Please send all press releases and event information to artspage@michigandaily.com. REDUCTIVE REASONING Putting one and one together. l SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2(1992) A Nintendo guy's Sonic' caveat WEEK IN REVIEW * Oh, Paris. Britney hasn't eclipsed you, yet. PARIS HILTON is planning a trip to Rwanda for charity, and you know what? She's pitch- ing the trip as a reality show called "The Philanthropist." Good. Lord. " Not so fast, Paris. BRITNEY SPEARS's upcoming album Blackout has been leaked to the Internet - apparently she wrote two tracks. Uh, oh. @ Because we needed it: HYUNDAI developed a cell phone-camera watch, complete with Bluetooth and a stylus. @ Sesame Street's "news network," GNN, was visited by ANDERSON COOPER, who interviewed the show's newscasters - Walter Cranky and Dan Rather-not - about the connotation of the letter G. It was ... cute. YouTube it. By MARK SCHULTZ Daily Arts Writer The designers of "Sonic the Hedgehog" must have had a woe- fully misinformed knowledge of animal physiology to make such a lethargic animal so fast. When I purchased my pet hedgehog at age 7, I was disappointed to find he didn't wear ruhning shoes, didn't spin at high enough veloci- ties to destroy any animal in his path and certainly didn't run loop-de-loops and bounce off flippers and bumpers like a pin- ball. My hedgehog mostly just laid around, curling up in a ball when- ever a finger would touch him. Sonic used this same technique to fend off mechanical crabs and robot chickens. I only bought this hedgehog - and named him Sonic, of course - as a replacement for a game I rarely got to play. I was a Super Nintendo kid. When kids of my generation reached a certain age, usually6 or 7,our parents -some- times under the guise of "Santa Claus" - bought us a Super Nin- tendo or Sega Genesis. We usu- ally had no say in which one we received, and even if we did, our parents could never understand the difference between the two systems anyway. The thing is, whichever system your parents broughthome would be integral in sculpting your early conception of video games. Sure, if you were a Sega kid you'd go to your friend Sam's house to play "Super Mario World," but you had your allegiances. No matter how many hours you wasted away in Sam's base- ment drinking orange soda and playing "Mario," you always liked "Sonic the Hedgehog" bet- ter. But I was the opposite: I was a Nintendo kid, raised on "Super Mario All-Stars," and I believe this is why, 12 years after my par- ents bought me Super Nintendo, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" seems absolutely fucking amazing. The brilliance of "Sonic 2" is that, after seeing just a few seconds of footage, you would assume it's a generic platform game that suckles at Mario's teat - with an even more expendable sidekick, the orange fox Miles "Tails" Prower. If playing Mario is like a fun run through a paranormal won- derland, playing "Sonic 2" is like a roller coaster with broken brakes and harnesses through a quasi-futuristic underworld. King of this underworld is mad scientist Dr. Robotnik, who lusts after the seven Chaos Emeralds needed to power his new warship. In his free time, he transformed all the animals on Sonic's home of Westside Island into malevolent robots. Sonic's task - with a little help from his floating friend Tails - is to free his animal buddies and collect the emeralds first. "Sonic 2" creates a stark con- trast to "Mario" by playing up Sonic's one crowning attri- bute over the mustachioed one - speed. Whereas the original "Sonic is fettered by slow-mov- ing screens and excessive obsta- cles, Sonic in "Sonic 2" runs like a coke addict trying to catch a mid- night cab. With fewer enemies and pitfalls than the original, there's very little in "2" to slow the hero down. Does this addition of speed make "Sonic 2" revolutionary enough to be held in the same annals as "Mario"? Probably not. But it does welcome a debate: Which is the more admirable video game hero characteristic, strength or speed? This was what Sega let gamers decide when they Which are you: a Nintendo kid or a Sega kid? made Sonic's fast flashiness a counterpoint to Mario's meticu- lous jump-attacks. Mario moves slowly but rarely gets hit, while Sonic gets smacked around all the time (with the game's sys- tem of collecting rings for health, there is virtually no limit to the amount of times Sonic can get hit). So the question is, would you rather have something done right or done fast? Remember the tor- toise and the hare? I'd rather have something done right, but then again, I was a Nintendo kid. . I U - International Opportunities Fair Thursday, October 18th 2 - 6pm at The Michigan Union Today!. Meet with over 50 organizations: -Volunteer & teaching abroad opportunities -Internship/work abroad programs -Study/internship abroad programs -Full-time/internship opportunities *Graduate programs For more information, visit: http://www.inteationaleenter.uinich.edu/swt/work/resources/CP RANDOLPH COURT APARTMENTS IE 2 Bedroom Apartment Homes Ground Floor Ranch Style! Private Entrancel Patio! Spacious Kitchen! Air Conditioning! Laundry Facilities! 24-Hour Emergency Maintenance! Pets Welcome! And much, much morel Call today to reserve your new address! 734-97-2828 Equal Housing Opportunity I 6 Help Michigan Beat Ohio State in an mtvU Marketing Case Competition Delight pour taste buds at the SINGAPORE FOOD FESTIVAL presented by the Singapore Students Association East Hall (Math Atrium) 7.00-9.30 pm Saturday, 20 October 2007 *FREE Admission* Come check out the 2008 Ford Focus! Thursday, October 18th, 2007 11:30 AM - 3:00 PM Outside of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity House Directly Next to the Union (548 S. State Street) Free Food, Live Music (The Great Divide), A Chance to Win a New iPod Nano For more information about the competition, visit @ELEEF@W@.@@ a 0