Sonic the Hedgehog = the UK’s favorite videogame character

I’ve always believed that the hardcore Sega and Sonic faithful are nearly always British. It seems that Brit gamers have a stronger affiliation with the Mega Drive than anybody else, and also have a scary loyalty to Sonic the Hedgehog, despite the fact that for the past several years, his games have been utter garbage.

With that in mind, it’s somewhat unsurprising that the spiky blue one has topped a list of the UK’s favorite videogame characters. He narrowly beat Mario by a 3% margin, and wiped the floor with other classic characters such as Link and Pac-Man. Here’s the full list:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (24 per cent)
2. Super Mario (21 per cent)
3. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) (16 per cent)
4. Donkey Kong (11 per cent)
5. Pac Man (10 per cent)
6. Link (The Legend of Zelda) (5 per cent)
7. Max Payne (4 per cent)
8. Pikachu (Pokémon) (3 per cent)
9. Niko Belic [sic] (Grand Theft Auto series) (2 per cent)
10. Blanka (Street Fighter) (1 per cent)

The vote was cast with over 500 gamers as part of the London Games Festival. As someone who counts himself among those foolish Brit gamers who have a strange battered-wife-syndrome affiliation with Sega, I can’t help but feel a little sense of satisfaction that Sonic beat Mario. Okay, so the voting public wasn’t a huge slice of the population, BUT IT STILL COUNTS!

Also, this is a good place to build up my false hope for Sonic Unleashed again. It’s gonna be good this time, I got a good feeling. A good feeling! … I think.