Cool Spot – Sega Genesis

When I play this game today, I pretty much just laugh the whole time. It’s an entire video game revolving around the 7UP logo. For the entire game you’re a red spot with some pretty rad sunglasses and arms and legs. You run around (snap your fingers to your own beat, play with a yo-yo, and clean your sunglasses when standing still) collecting non-living red spots in order to save other living spots like yourself. I feel kind of bad for the Cool Spot; I think he’s supposed to be on vacation when he has to go save all his spotty little friends. He’s also a tiny little circle, so things like toys and hermit crabs are a big risk to his fragile, flat body.
Let’s face it, this game is pretty lame. You defend yourself with what I believe are soda bubbles. Someone has captured all of the Cool Spot people for some reason, which I don’t believe you ever learn. 7UP is good and all, but they really didn’t need to make a game about the red dot on the bottle. The 8 and 16 bit generation was good at coming up with pretty ridiculous games. Even though these games are jokes compared to the video games that are made today, gamers still can’t help but to play these pointless games.
At one point in my life, I loved this game. Me and my cousin, Jessica, would spend afternoons running around as the little spot bragging about who could collect the most spots before rescuing our spot friends. She was not as big of a fan of video games as I was, but we definitely spent a lot of our younger days together playing this game. It was one of the few games she had for the Sega Genesis, so we spent plenty of time playing it.
I was a huge tomboy when I was a kid, and still pretty much am today. Barbie’s were never a huge thing for me. I had them, but mainly because society seemed to deem it necessary. Jess loved them though, so we would play with them a majority of the time when I spent time at her house. I’m still a girl, so I did enjoy them to a certain extent. I was just one of the girls willing to chop off all the hair on the Barbies so she can have an awesome haircut. I’m sure I’ve made some of my girlfriends cringe in the past when I did this.
When we played Cool Spot though, the tomboy within was able to shine. I didn’t have to be a girly-girl, and Jess was able to enjoy it as well. It definitely was not a great game, but it was one of the few games as a child that I could play with the cousin who was always like a sister to me. We could giggle at the silly noises he made and defeat the mini enemies of the world. We could shoot things all afternoon. We couldn’t do that with Barbie’s.
While writing this, I texted Jess and asked her if she remembered playing this game and her response was “lmao of course.” She remembers it now and hopefully one day in the future we can hook up the Sega Genesis and play Cool Spot at a family get–together and still laugh about the silliness of the game. Some games, like Cool Spot, may pretty much suck as a normal game, but they certainly have a way to create great memories.
By Heather Aug