Socket: Time Dominator

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Socket: Time Dominator
Developer(s)	Vic Tokai
Release date(s)	1994
Genre(s)	Platformer
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Mega Drive/Genesis

Socket: Time Dominator (also referred to as simply "Socket") was a game on the Mega Drive/Genesis gaming system created by Vic Tokai. Released in 1993, Socket was a platformer style game.

[edit] Game description

Socket played very similarly to Sonic the Hedgehog; so much so that it is often called a Sonic ripoff. Its sense of speed and platforming gameplay contributed to this thinking. In this game you had to collect energy (Represented by lightning bolts) which Socket consumed when he moved. This energy also served as the "life meter", rather like the golden rings in Sonic. The stages were named to reflect this fast paced gameplay. All the zones followed a three-act pattern, beginning with a fast-paced racing zone, followed by a more platmormer-style area, and ending with a more puzzle-style labyrinth. Then came a boss battle.

For the Magazine Sega Zone, Stuart Campbell gave it the lowest possible score. In 2006, he wrote on his forum:

I gave piss-poor Sonic ripoff Socket 0%, yes. On an issue of principle, really. In its own right it wasn't the worst game in the world by any means, but it was so completely ripped off from Sonic, yet so inferior, that there was literally no point in ever buying it rather than a proper Sonic game. Therefore, in the sense that reviews are a buyer's guide, it deserved 0%. The body text of the review was a single sentence, and the two pages were meant to be left mostly blank as a pointed illustration of the concept, but the art team ruined it by insisting that the space be filled up with screenshots, and the whole business left pretty much everyone in the universe pissed off for one reason or another.