The Bizarre Story Behind the World’s Most Dangerous Video Game: Sonic Blast Man
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- For years a debate has raged on about just how harmful video games can be. While most of the dialogue has been if games harmed people mentally, what if I told you about a game that harmed people physically. That game was Sonic Blast Man, and in the early 90s it took American arcades by storm. It was one of the most popular arcade cabinets of that era, but it was also found to be too dangerous for consumers. This is the story of the quick rise and fall of an iconic Arcade Cabinet, and the hearts and hands it broke.
All relevant clips can be seen in this link here.
pastebin.com/RvwH0Zxc
Articles used/referenced in the video are here
i-mockery.com/minimocks/50arca...
Playmeter Magazine May-6-1994
archive.org/details/play-mete...
Wisconsin State Journal
Madison, Wisconsin · Friday, January 07, 1994
www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Re...
Music
Lands Unknown @FutureMono
Time Stamps
0:00 (Intro)
0:40 (Introducing Sonic Blast Man)
02:35 (The Gameplay)
03:40 (The Popularity)
05:00 (Sonic Blast Man on SNES)
05:41(Sonic Blast Man's Demise)
07:47(Conclusion) - Hry
It really says something about a game that has clear warnings on the front saying "Only hit with boxing gloves", and "Do not play while drunk".
And those warnings probably only encouraged people to go bare handed, just to show how tough they were.
Despite how well intended, one cannot stop human stupidity
Usually the boxing gloves would be very worn out or totally missing so people would punch it with their bare knuckles. There were cases where people would even kick it for fun. Those wrist injuries were real though. Had a few myself.
Boxers wrap there wrist for a reason without wraps the glove is only protecting the knuckles and hands your wrist is sol especially if your not well versed in how to properly throw a punch.
the wrist injuries are from a punch that wasn't straight
this game was AWESOME ! people were breaking their wrist and hands on it, but god damn did it gave you bragging rights when you were beating a character ;)
Such vivid memories of my dad locked in determined to destroy that damn asteroid
I had the second one on SNES and it was a blast. Never knew about the cool arcade until much later
Imagine a modern remake for One Punch Man 😎
@@PopCultureHyperfixations in europe it was 5 characters you had to destroy, punk, robot, alien, ... there was a versus mode , and you could also take a picture of your face using a camera and have it get deformed with every hit lol
Stop it! Get some help.
One of the same style I loved was the Fist of the North Star arcade cabinet where you had to quickly react to hitting paddles to deflect moves. Then do them in sequence to hit back. Then you'd have to rapidly punch all 6 paddles as fast as you can do to the infamous "Hokuto 100 Crack Fist" move. It made your "OMAE WA MOU SHIN DE IRU" fantasies come true with the same voice actors, awesome artwork and you actually PUNCHED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THE ARCADE MACHINE to earn it that sweet dopamine rush. And did some cardio while you were at it. =P
I was just about to type all of this. We had one in Gainesville, FL at an arcade. The most fun game I've ever played to this day lol.
i played that game too! it was timing more than force as i remember though
It's called Fighting Mania
Easily the best arcade game ever made.
Never seen one of these, sadly. The closest is the Crystal Maze "virtual" experience where you collect tokens in the dome by hitting lit buttons on a wall.
You could still play Sonic Blast Man in Mexico. Because we don't give a f#ck. It was only on the big arcades though.
La Onda forever Ese!
@@justman4891 I give my life to you, jefe.
@@dominikhader920 😆
A toda Madre, o un Desmadre! @@dominikhader920
I deport you, Pepe.
I worked at the Mall of America Arcade you showed briefly with the big green sign. I was constantly working on this game as the beating it took was insane
I can only imagine how beat the crap that thing was
Fwahahaha a stable repair job 🤣🤣👌
Only in the states would people sue a developer for their own stupidity...
...and WIN
Proof the us shouldn’t exist.
This hot coffee burned me!
This peanut butter nearly killed me, I have a peanut allergy!
That's why you have "the objects you see here are not real" written in every mirror, as if you're some kind of cats.
@@NateVHVT You should look closer at the whole 'hot coffee' incident at Mcdonalds. It's not as clear cut as you seem to think it is.
I only saw the 2nd version of the machine in arcades in Brazil. It was really popular due to the feature of taking a person's picture and punching. Hardly anyone played the regular levels.
Wow I didn't remember that feature! It was funny as hell! Also from Brazil here...
"Your honor, there was a hole! My client wasn't aware of its non-glory status."
Another dangerous game for similar reasons was the original Street Fighter. The original release didn't have the six button layout we all know today. Instead, it had a single large button for punches and kicks, and the harder you pressed the button, the more powerful the punch or kick would be. Unfortunately, people were punching the buttons so hard they began to break their hands, so Capcom re-released Street Fighter with the more familiar six button layout.
This is like the Action Park of arcade cabinets
High praise indeed. 😎
I used to bring my own 16 oz boxing gloves to the arcade for this game lmao.
Never knew of someone who got injured while playing it.
That sounds amazing
Philipines here, I never knew how rare it would had been later down the years, last machine I saw of this was around 2011. both my dad and uncle took ego-driven turns in this game, never witnessed the ending too of the asteroid. I only managed to play it once myself out of curiosity, which just embarrassed my 9 year old self and couldn't even beat the first level. Such a welcome sight though, fond memories of seeing it loud and proud next to my arcade go-tos like House of the Dead, Time Crisis, Metal Slug, Daytona USA, Marvel vs. Capcom, SEGA Rally and Armed Police Batrider.
The wear and tear was definitely notable, I still remember how progressively worse the padding got, to the point the arcade place themselves had to ghetto-fix it with their own padding and tape.
I remember this game at my local indoor amusement park. It was called crystal palace. I’ve tried it. I wore the glove, and I would run and punch the pad. I know I can get past the first guy, not sure about the truck, definitely not past the crab. I never heard anybody hurting themselves. I kinda remember a guy on a date showing off to her. I don’t remember if he wore the glove, but he was one of the few that didn’t run at it. I thought it was pretty macho.
Imagine walking up to a Sonic Blast Man arcade game, putting a quarter in, punching the target, failing so spectacularly that you injure yourself, then suing the maker of said arcade game.
This is the world we live in.
America's Sonic Blast Man related fatalities are still yet to be officially tallied.
When dad comes home drunk and plays the “home port.”
Kids: 💀
The media call them violent but I call them stress relief.
By their logic then boxing bags for training is violent and must be banned
I literally broke my wrist playing this game over 20 years ago and I can still feel the damage today.
My friend Tiago broke his arm when he punched the side of the punch. He came diagonally across the toy with all his strength to get a good score and broke the radio
Nice to see Gamesmaster getting a shout out. This game was pretty damm popular in the UK during the 90s. There was a Arm Wrestling game about the same time but I can't remember what it was called.
The one I always remember seeing was called Arm Champs I think?
@@PopCultureHyperfixations Yeah, that was it. Good memory.
I thought this game seemed familiar at the start of the video , but had no recollection of playing it- it was just as the clip started that I realised it was because I'd seen it on GamesMaster.
Wow. I always had no idea why Taito would ever have released a Sonic Blast Man 2 when Sonic Blast Man 1 for the SNES was so thoroughly mid, much less where it even came from. I had no idea this wildly popular arcade game started it all, no wonder they actually made a sequel.
Thanks for this, it's solved a mystery gnawing away in my mind for almost 20 years.
Part 2 rocks. Love having an extra attack button with an extra moveset for each character. I beat it a few years ago. It was a "blast."
This game had a sequel, where, instead of doing the superhero scenarios, you could take a photo of your face, and it places it on the villain's body. I think that's the "Real Puncher" game mentioned.
that was Super Sonic Blast Man.
Wow! Not only do I remember this game when I was 18, but one of the arcades I played it at was in a place called Starland in Hanover, MA (Totally fits the description with the bumper boats, go carts, and tanks)! Such a blast from the past! It was also at the Nantasket Beach, King's Castle, and Harborlight Mall arcades here in MA. I actually never knew what happened to Sonic Blast Man, but I guessed correctly...though I didn't know anyone who got injured. Thanks for this video!!!
The glove absolutely stank with all those sweaty palms in there.
This sounds like the type of fake arcade game you'd see in an anime where a character hits it so hard in f**king disintegrates.
DUDE!!! i'm from Brazil and this game was HUGE here, i played the sequo when i was a kid, in the early 90's... and yeah, the running start was pretty much a law, but i never saw any injuries, never saw nobody throw themselves into the machine... eventualy a dude would try to use kicks but the rest of the guys on the arcade would get him out of there really fast, so he woundn't damage the machine... we take our videogames pretty seriously... don't harm the videogames
I injured my hand playing this game. IIRC, it didn't come with a glove, and the pad was really worn out. I could still remember the nasty sound of my fist coming in contact with the steel frame. I still have a faint scar on my hand. Good thing nothing was broken.
The amount of old videos from my childhood on this one video is amazing. Great job i laughed my ass off
I remember seeing blastman as a guest character in Bust-A-Move 3/99
YES!!!!
I was only strong enough to be able to beat the truck before it got removed. Wasn't even 10 years old.
Bro..this game was a staple of UK arcades and seaside resorts, had no idea this awesome menace went worldwide 😂
The one "singing" line from Nick Arcade i still remeber to this day is: He's a driving homeslice!
Someone has gotta make a supercut
I rented the SNES version one weekend and remember really enjoying it. It's been a long time, but if I remember correctly, the way they simulated those punching sequences from the arcade was to rapidly move the d-pad left and right to build up power and release it to throw the punch. Simply moving the tip of my thumb left and right could only do so much, so I discovered that I could slide the joint of my thumb across the d-pad much faster and build up more power. I spent all weekend playing that game and mastering that technique to throw bigger punches...and eventually got a really nasty blister on my thumb when I wore the skin off. So I guess the SNES port simulated the physical injuries of the arcade too!
Fantastic video, loved all the footage and clips used
🤘💻
can still remember feeling that iron rod when I played this game at the local arcade.
As a kid at the time, I remember I couldn't beat that first level because I was never really that strong. It frustrated me to no end... But I look back now and wish I had another shot today. Would be nice if we could see this old classic remade. Of course, the cushion would need to be replaced, and it'd likely be made of memory foam instead of a cotton cushion.
You'd kick this game's ass if you had a chance these days
@@MyPalJimbo True. As a kid I didn't have the strength to do it, but now, it'd be a piece of cake... Though honestly I'd mule kick the damned thing instead of punching or throwing my full body into it. My legs always were stronger than my arms. Though I guess I should get into training all over again and hope I can get to an arcade that still has one of these old machines.
Really nice channel, man. I've never encountered this game in the wild, but you got a new subscriber just off of this one video. I really love this kind of channel, talking about more niche gaming topics and having a small community but very high quality of video with obvious passion. I hope you keep it up and get some much-deserved success.
2:40 - "In the first stage you must stop a woman from beeing mugged" that's kinda unfortunate wording to describe the situation xD
Great Video, I believe you are referring to Starland in Ma. I loved that place as a kid but was such a long drive from Brockton. Not really but felt that way in the car. Remember playing this a handful of times there. Frequented Great Times in Abington more often but don't recall them having this game. Man I miss arcades, closest thing you can get to bringing back that nostalgia is going to Funspot in NH.
That's literally what's happening in the level though what do you mean "Unfortunate wording?" Are you implying she's about to get raped? That's not whats happening and is a weird projection bro. Nice Freudian Slip dude
I will say, more and more barcades are popping up and that's mainly where I get my fix now. They never have everything I want to play, but enough I have a blast even if I'm not drinking
That clip from the bootleg 3 Ninjas was a great touch! Nostalgic af!
I saw a "Sonic Blast Man" arcade in Portugal, Costa da Caparica around 2012! There was a camera above that took photos of the best players.
This vid was awesome! Great content from such a small channel. Keep it up!!
Thanks a ton!
I actually never saw it in arcades to my knowledge. As a kid I used to read a Bubble Bobble and Taito game fan site where I stumbled upon a little bit of info on Sonic Blast Man. I didn’t pay much attention to it but the name immediately burned itself into my brain all those years ago. Not much of a story but there ya go.
I wonder why the people in the clips are grabbing their hand with the other hand and making a weird side-fist thing, it looks awkward as hell!
I love Sonic Blast Man, played it around '93 here in Chile, but just normally with the boxing glove and regular punches. I got to see the machine maybe 2 more times at different locations in my country, and then never again. I played Sonic Blast Heroes in Japan, and it was cool, but I wanted to play the original one again... mostly to see how far I've come from being a pre-teen to a grown up puncher.
Games, movies, pro wrestling and anime perpetuated the myth that two-handing a punch doubles its power. Of course it doesn't, but it's still prevalent today. Also, interlocking fingers is specially dangerous, since phalanges are some of the most fragile bones in the human body.
Played this in the early 90's at the kinda local bowling alley, boxing glove was long gone, sprained wrist, but did get to the asteroid. Biggest miss I remember was seeing a Street Fighter punch pads cab, but never got to play it.
I'm surprised it's considered so dangerous. It's not so different from those carnival attraction punching bag machines and they don't get banned. (though I guess having the target hanging instead of standing on a thick metal rod is a bit safer) Now I wonder if someone could bootleg Sonic Blast Man with a punching bag machine and some MAME magic...
SBM was badly designed. You were effectively punching a rigid metal rod with no give. Carnival punching bag games are designed obviously differently for a very good reason.
I've never heard of this game but yeah me and my friends would have absolutely torn our rotator cuffs to shreds if we'd had access to this in our teens
I don't believe the SNES version of Sonic Blast Man was a fairly conventional side-scrolling was due to concerns of violence but practicality. How could a home version be implemented for a cost acceptable to the home video game market? This was far from the first game to use this kind of action. Such games can be dound at least as fr back as my 70s childhood. One I recall had no video at all. It was a full size portrait of an opponent dressed in a gi and ready to spar. You punched and kicked the somewhat padded surface at various locations corresponding to body blows. Later, the largely ignored Street Fighter, before Street Fighter II conquered the universe, featured big rubbery buttons the player pounded to make attacks. Likewise, the earliest arcade of Nintendo's own Punchout! had a kinetic input aspect, too. There was also a spin-off arm wrestling game that likely cause a few players to injure themselves.
They could have used button mashing like some Olympic sports games. But it wouldn't be a game that people would pay full price for
Great video. I qas surprised to see you only have 609 subs. I prefict many more in your near future.
My favorite arcade gimmick as a kid was Lucky & Wild.
thank you!
Bro. That office dude at the beginning had a real bat on him!
"You better file those reports Barry! I won't tell you again."
"Y-y-y-yes boss. Sorry. It won't happen again."
i have such a dim and dark single memory of a game called FUNKY FIGHTERS or something, it had like a huge multi pads , like maybe 9 of them on the machine that u needed to hit or punch or something but i was too small and dad didn't let me play it since he said the bigger kids are hogging it and i would just feel sad and embarrased if i played it and failed...gotta go research this game...FUNK FIGHERS, FUNKY FIGHTERS...DUNNO....
The game was called The First Funky Fighter. In case you're still wondering.
@@manduradic7902 thanks, went looking after this comment and found it, really thought the buttons were much bigger or maybe i was too small back then....anw, it was a fun game, now i remembered LAZER GHOST, that was an insane light gun game.
The First Funky Fighter, yeah. That's a surprisingly violent game, too, at one point you rip a shark in half with your bare hands lmao
The problem was, the rod only moved backwards. But people came punching in odd angles, leading them to aply force against a well constructed machine. I hurt my hand on it, 2 weeks of sore wrist. It was amazing!
The one Sonic Blast Man cab I've ever seen was at a super shady arcade in a rundown mall in the late 90s. It had a pillow (or something that sure looked like a pillow) duct taped to the punching plate, and the entire punch area looked like it was hit with baseball bats or something.
I remember a Fist of the North Star game that was similar. It was more about speed than power, but God knows we wore ourselves out trying to see who had the hands to beat it.
Nick arcade guy: "Here comes sonic, he's a hedgehog" My friends and I would sing that all the time.
You totally deserve more subs man, keep it up! Subbed.
Much appreciated!
Your local arcade was at the Mall of America! I miss that arcade, no one knew it was there
I actually had no idea this arcade game existed, I was only familiar with the two games released on the SNES
I actually saw this game being played in person back in the day at the brickyard mall. The dude playing it was definitely doing the Running Start method
I fractured my wrist playing this. I kinda wish there had been some kind of compensation in the UK because it was very painful and despite going to A&E that night and getting an x-ray and cast it's never really been right.
i can only imagine how many other people had the same problem and it also never got reported
@@PopCultureHyperfixations Yes. I didn't report it. Who would I report it too? Everybody thought it was really funny that I fractured my wrist playing an arcade game so I just started telling it as a funny story.
I mean there is a point where "don't punch something hard if you haven't practiced how to throw a punch" is kind of incumbent on a person, but man this was aimed at kids and teens. They had no hope haha
Brilliant, highly informative and original content mate. Im English, and only recently learned of Japanese snes games. Didn't even know of the coin-op.
I played it this summer in Santa Clara del Mar, Argentina. It was very fun :D It made a lot of noise when you hit the mitt (in fact it was the noise of it hitting the machine to measure the strength of the blow).
Oh my god, thank you for telling me about this. I was a 90's kid too, but never saw this at any arcade I went to. I love what an obvious disaster waiting to happen this is.
In retrospect it does seem insane
Please more of Phil Moore singing along to the Nick Arcade theme. He did that CONSTANTLY
I still have a receeded knuckle from barefisting this game. It wasn't that I had no glove on, but someone had ripped the stuffing out.
Your Dad is 100% haunted by not destroying that asteroid.
When i saw the title i was thinking how was a super Nintendo game so dangerous?! I never knew there was an arcade game.
I remember a diverted flight lay over in gatwick air port, as a kid. Sonic Blast man.... but it would take your picture; and then simulate the black eye etc. And adult was throwing money into this machine so all the kids could have a go. Good times.
I have a vague and unreliable memory of playing this at a theme park. Without the boxing glove, as there wasn't one attached to the machine. Though, again, vague and unreliable memory as it's several decades ago at this point.
As I've read comments, the more and more I think about it I wonder if a lot of arcades just didn't have the glove but wouldnt take the machine off the floor
I saw it at the Boomtown casino on the way to Reno when I was in... probably third grade. I was able to clear the first level now and then! I thought I was doing okay. Then some guy went after me and he would do a roundhouse kick to the pad. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen!
It wasn't just the people playing the game who could get hurt. I remember dudes running across the arcade so they could do a flying kick at the pad. Surely there had to be incidents of innocent bystanders catching some damage from this thing.
I never tried beating the game, but I have memories of seeing people trying, the closest I involved myself is allowing my face to be captured by the camera for punching
There was a similar game I played, it was using the anime property Hakuto no Ken. It had 4 different points to punch that popped out from the left and right sides. I would love to play Sonic Blast Man someday (safely).
Great seeing someone talking about this game.
I played it last year in an arcade in the UK (Skegness) the machine seemed in fairly good condition (possibly reconditioned) but the gloves were long gone.
The Sonic Blast Man 2 for SNES was awesome. It was my first run in with the franchise. I was hyped when I got to play the arcade game years later.
Wow.... I don't remember ever seeing this game and I practically lived in arcades all through the 80s and 90s 😮
I am today days old discovering that Sonic Blast Man was originally an arcade game and that people went this nuts for it. I consider myself somewhat of a huge fan of arcade games and history so this blows my mind.
I think it could be revived with modern motion controllers. They'd just be punching the air while the accelerometer in the controller measures the speed of the punch as well as the sudden deceleration after throwing the punch to calculate the total transfer of kinetic energy that would occur if the punch actually connected with a solid object.
i love those bars with the punch machine. i never seen that game before.
A couple of things. was it before or after those weird Street Fighter (1) cabs with the giant rubber buttons you punched to make strikes harder? And no mention of how much SONIC and rings look like the Sonic the Hedgehog logo? and blue hero to boot?
SF1 was before SBM. I've heard about some broken wrists from guys hammer fisting the pads and hitting the edge of the cabinet. Plus some other people jumping on the buttons for max damage. I think Capcom swapped the 2 pads for the 6 buttons pretty early on.
Loved this game but managed to break a knuckle when the arm bounced back up after I hit it. The glove was knackered and offered zero protection. Didn't stop me playing it the next time I saw one. They disappeared shortly after that.
I'm 46 so I remember this game. Everyone got injured in some way. Every single one.
I remember seeing the sequel "Real Puncher" playing an young using an skate !!!!!! each punch had high score deforming the captured player photo .. was absurd
Every time I’ve seen this game and Arm Champs II in public, the machine is out of order for some reason 🥊
I didn't know it was supposed to have a glove.
The one at the bar by me didn't have one.
This gave me a chuckle...5 minutes well spent. On a side note, something about the art style of most of these games just screams "Excessive"
I've had memories with this game because I had a cousin that was a boxer. A very good one and decided that the gloves where for sissies and then went on. He didn't break his hand though. He beat the entire game but not as the highscore which he says was unfair.
I saw this in London Luton Airport. Sadly never got the chance to play it because I had no time for it.
Understanding how the machine works is more important than strength. Same as the hammer game, same as actually punching anything.
I clicked because I saw Jonathon Hoenig in the thumbnail auto play 😆. Nice video, well done.
I loved Sonic Blast Man but I was lucky enough to have a Fighting Mania: Fist of the North Star in my local arcade. Where Sonic Blast Man was all about power Fighting Mania was all about speed and it was crazy fun to punch the 6 pop out targets.
Oh I remember seeing this game. The game where the Boxing glove was so damaged that it did nothing anymore and people just kept shoulder charging or running punch this thing bare knuckle or like a WWE star/local boxing star.
I remember this when I was like 15yo. I think I got up to the crab a few times. I was like 5'8" 120# and never actually _beat_ it.
A service tech came into the pool hall to work on the machine once while I was there. Shortly before he left, I watched him roundhouse kick it for almost 300 HP.
Was that service tech Jean Claud Van Damme?
I was in arcades a lot in those years and i don't remember ever seeing this game
Imagine if the system somehow detected the motion of the gloves themselves and used that to autozero any punches that had no gloves.
My favorite was punch mania. You also punch it. Based on fist of the north star. There was a sequel.
That game told you to hit lightly, as it was more timing based.
any chance you talking about Starland in Hanover? Spent many weekends there, never played blastman though. Too much time playing The Ninja Warriors
Honestly, this game was before my time. See, I was born in 2001. About 11 years after the game came out and 6 years years after it was recalled.
But if I was alive at the time, I would have played it safe. They put safety instructions on things for a reason. Just like how seatbelts are a requirement, not a suggestion.
6:40 I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers Paul Timberman.
God Bless Will Sasso
I broke my hand last year on those punching bag machines because my hand continued to travel after the bag was hit and went up. I smashed it in the plastic part behind which shows your score. I didn't beat the record which was set by a friend the night before.