Who wants to know what Sonic 2 used to look like before it came out on store shelves? I know I certainly do! Well, one way is to read our review of the Sonic 2 Beta, but another way is by watching these cool videos from Nickelodeon TV in the 1990s, where kids were tasked with playing a beta version of Sonic 2 long before the game was finished.
The TV game show ‘Nick Arcade’ allowed contestants to play various computer games in order to win points, and on early 1992 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was one of them. The challenge was to collect 25 rings within a 30-second time limit – which was quite a hard task for young children, with a game they had never seen before. Take a look at Derek and Gina attempting it below.
Sonic 2 also appeared in a further episode of ‘Nick Arcade’, during a ‘Clarissa Explains It All’ special where actors from the hit TV show featured as contestants. Melissa Joan Hart (who also played Sabrina the Teenage Witch) gave the 25-ring challenge a good go as well, but couldn’t seem to get past a loop-de-loop (otherwise we’re sure she would have completed the task).
These videos were found and kindly shared by Sonic Area 51 Message Board user Hyper Saiyan Sonic, and encoded into MPEG by Ryoga Masaki. You can find them yourself by clicking this link.
2017 Edit: The original video rips have since been lost, but we discovered higher-quality versions which we have used to replace the old videos – Dreadknux.