Preparing for Presentation

For my presentation, I've chosen to go with how nostalgia is, for me, the greatest form of immersion. I've written a short piece to prepare myself, but I will be shortening it down into note form so I can present it within the ten-minute time slot:

When playing a game, it’s not always the story alone that drags you in. Characters, settings and the gameplay itself make up a huge part of a game’s immersion factor. As a child in the early 90’s I was utterly captivated by the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The character oozed attitude, while still retaining a heroic presence, and he was genuinely a hero young kids like me could look up to. The world he lived in also played a huge part in this, since the lush hills of Green Hill Zone, the water-filled Chemical Plant Zone, the utopia that was Sky Sanctuary Zone were all places that we’d never seen the likes of before. They were memorable places, and the games just kept you drawn in, kept you wanting to get to the next stage and eventually defeat Dr. Robotnik for that huge sense of achievement. Beating a level or boss made you feel like a hero, like you were genuinely in Sonic’s shoes. That feeling was even greater amplified if you managed to speed through the level and maintain your momentum for as long as possible, whizzing through loops, dominating the slopes and ploughing your way through any obstacle that stood before you. It made you feel invincible, like you were unstoppable. You could free Sonic’s friends from Dr. Robotnik, and nothing would stand in your way.

Fast-forward to 2011. The young, naïve kids we once were are matured and wiser. We know these are just games we’re playing. Sure, we’re still immersed into the worlds and stories, but we always know they’re just games. However, there is one way that those same feelings that you had as a child can be felt again. Nostalgia. Nostalgia is a feeling that normally describes a ‘yearning for the past’, to re-live the feelings you had from a certain time in the past. Recently, with the recently released Sonic Generations, SEGA have made nostalgia the key selling point by introducing ‘Classic’ Sonic and setting the game in a ‘best-of’ of the series’ levels.

When I played the game for the first time, I instantly had that feeling I had when I was young flow back into me. The entirety of Green Hill Zone was how I’d pictured it looking in real life as a child. It’s like SEGA had plucked the image out of my mind. The music, the visuals and most of all, the gameplay made me feel like a kid again. That is what immersed me so much into the game, I was in the same little world I’d put myself in all those years ago. As cheesy as it sounds, it was a magical feeling. I’ve still stuck with the franchise over the years, but no game has given me the same feeling that this one did.