The Enchanting Existential Dread of Aussie Theme Parks: Chapter Three - The Hedgehog Came Down To Sydney
A scanned brochure map of Sega World Sydney, courtesy of SEGA super-fan, Cameron Hons.
I never loved Sega World the same way many of my generation do, but I do regret its brief flicker of relevance leading up to the Sydney Olympic Games even though I was traumatised by this indoor theme park whilst it was still open. Sega World Sydney was too loud and over-stimulating for me as an autistic growing up in the late nineties, and my wistful nostalgia for its outdoor playground equipment in Darling Harbour stems from me missing how colourful Sydney was back then - with IMAX theatre to boot it was an exciting time to be young. I’ll say right now to avoid controversy later, that my casual gaming self is no expert on SEGA properties, and most of my recollection of the park consists of Rail Chase and not much else. SEGA World deserves a eulogy befitting such a weird, obnoxious experiment which changed the shape of my city forever in our hearts, as well as a condemnation of the attitudes towards my autism special needs which made me hate the place when I was accompanied by day-care centre workers who had no idea how to handle me at the time. I have never beaten a Sonic the Hedgehog game, I’ve got The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon box set tucked away in my garage somewhere, but my first exposure to Sonic proper was on the Game Boy Advance. I was a bit of a Nintendo junkie and collected games such as Sonic Advance and Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town plus The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for my handheld console even though I was bad at playing them with my limited motor skills. I can count the number of games I’ve completed with one hand, and one of those is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. The Chaos Emerald mini-games have always frustrated me with the first Sonic the Hedgehog, which I played on my Playstation 3 I won from a Sydney Morning Herald blogging competition for my gonzo games journalism covering the Game On exhibition up in Queensland. I don’t consider myself a hardcore gamer by any stretch, but this literary prize I won is still cherished as one of the concrete examples of my writing prowess which got me a console I otherwise couldn’t afford that Christmas where I had to Charlie Bucket myself a prize or receive nothing. It’s not often you get to live out Juicy by Biggie Smalls, and although I might not be good at SEGA games, buying the SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for my PS3 to give it something to do besides play my Blu-Ray collection was a first serious step towards dipping my toe into gaming. It was there that SEGA’s bright and colourful game catalogue was exposed to me, and whatever criticisms I have of SEGA World Sydney do not apply to their games which for the most part brought me small glimmers of joy whenever I had friends over to enjoy those moments together. I got rather good at Valkyria Chronicles and I think I completed half the game, but never got around to finishing because I had to study for my HSC. Whilst I was trapped in my Pathways Program, my friends graduated without me, however a few of them stuck around to visit whenever we fired up my PS3 like we did when we were kids playing Super Ghouls N’ Ghosts on Dave’s brother’s hand-me-down Super Nintendo. There was a continuation of our companionship through these games, regardless of whether we sucked at the harder retro ones, we had DJ Hero at one point to play with and I recall enjoying that one a lot even if the controller was bizarre to handle. Now that the SNES Classic is a thing, I have my own copy of Super Ghouls N’ Ghosts to play whenever I want, and I bought the SEGA Mega Drive Classic Edition when it came out to complete my Notorious BIG fantasies. Sega might not be manufacturing consoles like they used to, but they still make great games as a third-party developer that are fun to play, and it’s been hard to write this Sega World Sydney part of my retrospective because writing down my reverse-devil’s advocate means letting go of a part of my past that is still a bit sore given how I was treated for my divergent opinions at the time. I was dismissed for my feelings about Rail Chase, and my blueprint I drew for a non-scary version of the ride was mocked by classmates I considered friends. Talking about SEGA World is painful for me because in hindsight I can see a lot of promise that was lost on me, because its attractions made me feel afraid and alone. I didn’t love Sega World nearly as much as I should’ve, due to the circumstances I was introduced to it. I wanted to love Sega World like the other boys, I was much more of a Wonderland Sydney kid, and over the years I’ve talked to my friends who remembered Sega World, and they wished they could’ve been allowed to play the games too which were the best feature of Sega World’s varied attractions. Sega World inhabited Sydney during a pre-Olympic age when the town looked like Oingo Boingo threw up on it, yet such awesome aesthetics were not sufficient to preserve the park for long.
Wreck-It Ralph makes me guaranteed to cry every time, because Vanellope and I had the same struggle.
You would go into the park through the Time Tunnel, into realms of Past, Present and Future.
The defunct monorail sign guiding you to the nineties Sydney childhood landmarks.
The beautiful Darling Harbour scenery circa 2000 with McDonald’s restaurant.
The entrance to Sega World Sydney, as many a Sydney resident passed through in 1998.
When you went inside the Blue Cone, an image of a sporty kid flying with Sonic was on the wall.
Sega World Sydney was tailor-made for children of the nineties who had no chill whatsoever, and the story of how and why Sega World was built is told in an article for PC World written back in 2012, and from here most of the gist can be divined about the core purpose of the park. It was designed to make money off the back of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games with an almost guaranteed influx of tourists. Sega World was in many ways the last gasp of the Sega Saturn era of SEGA consoles, and several of the machines were hooked up within the premises to promote them, the problem is the two-tiered entry fee either let you ride unlimited rides or play the arcade games. I was there amid the confusion, parents were a bit intimidated by the proto-micro-transactions of the entry cards with Sonic the Hedgehog characters plastered onto them. You have to remember at the time that arcade machines were considered a mobster’s racket in Australia, and many Timezone arcades were nicknamed Crime-zone because of organised crime connections and muggings. The Nick Xenophon “arcade gaming is the same as gambling” mentality was in full effect because our parents barely understood our video game obsessions to begin with. The hostage negotiation it took to ease your Christmas present of a video game into the shopping basket at Toys R’ Us was bad enough if the game was rated above your station, now you had to deal with the intangible realm of carnival sideshow economies with credit cards which didn’t work anywhere else. It was a real shame because as terrifying as the prospect of riding Rail Chase or Ghost Hunters was to me, the arcade cavern dug into the side of the wall with an original Jurassic Park arcade cabinet on display would’ve been perfect for me to play even if I wasn’t any good at games back then. There were a lot of classic cabinets in the Past section of Sega World, and I regret never having the opportunity to try any of them due to circumstances out of my control. There was a lot of Sega World I didn’t get to see for myself, the first time I went Magic Motion Theatre was broken for example, but I never got to see the Sonic Live Stage Show when Sega World was still in its prime. Fortunately the live show has been preserved online through an audio CD which leaked onto YouTube, and the show from what I’ve heard is pretty dire. Something about Sonic the Hedgehog and pals calling the Sydney Harbour Bridge “the coat-hanger” encapsulates the tourist pandering nature of Sega World Sydney better than I could muster, and the less said about Dr Robotnik trying to seduce Sally with a “love potion” the better. The live show’s score is some premium nineties cheese with the tone on par with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Our Shells tour. With such hits as What Are We Waiting For? dissing Dr. Robotnik’s bad-nik team, it’s a fossilised relic of Sega World Sydney which oozes with nostalgia and synth-lines. It has to be heard to be believed, and the Sonic Live In Sydney show is a treat among items I’ve had to research for my assessment of the park’s legacy. Dr. Robotnik’s villain song Give Me Chaos is egregious in its cartoonish proclamations of “I’m proud to be mean”, Sally Acorn’s ballad Thank You For Being You doesn’t hide the actress’s Australian accent as much as the other performers, serenading Sonic for his rescue of her, with a bit of an R&B flair distinct from the rest of the soundtrack. It’s not as good as the B-Sides on the Space Jam soundtrack, but it is a testament to the character’s role in Sonic lore during the late nineties before Amy showed up in Sonic canon. proper. Sally singing about how she wants to hold Sonic close and never letting him go is a bit more adult than the material allows, and is a memorable tune that sticks in your head. Australian accents in Australian theme park attractions are nice to see here, sadly the Sonic and Sally actors stick to a yank-cent contrasted against the Antipodean narrator.. Dr Robotnik’s master plan is to conquer Australia, which was a popular plan for super-villains in the eighties and nineties for some reason. Sound effects from the Saturday morning cartoon and the games are utilised by the soundtrack of this show, which veers into opera as Dr. Robotnik schemes to have Sydney under his control. He calls the Sydney Harbour Bridge a Meccano bridgey-thing, and goes full pantomime with audience participation. Sonic and pals fat-shaming Dr. Robotnik couldn’t be excused today, Miles Prower doesn’t know what dismember means, conveying his childlike nature. He’s a bit whiny in this show, and crashes an old biplane at the beginning of the performance. The gang save the world by finding the Chaos Emeralds, and the stage show concludes with a reprise of What Are We Waiting For?. Overall the show was meant to appeal to really little kids, the most G-rated attraction at the park besides the Nickelodeon play area. Most of the older kids who went with me to Sega World Sydney didn’t bother seeing this show, preferring the various rides.
Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) photoshopped into the Sega World Sydney Time Tunnel.
One of the Sega World Sydney entry passes, courtesy of Sega World Sydney Memoriam.
This right here is why the park failed, complicated micro-transactions with a Sonics cryptocurrency. Is it any wonder that our parents/accompanying adult guardians told us an emphatic “NO!” when we asked if we could play the games?
Newspaper ad for Sega World Sydney, courtesy of Sega World Sydney Memoriam on Twitter.
A rare photograph of the Sonic Live puppet show at Sega World Sydney.
Sega World’s major flaw was that it couldn’t somehow reconcile the arcade part with its expensive indoor theme park gimmick, which was done and dusted within an alarmingly short timespan of operating, People on Twitter are cracking jokes about stuff that lasted longer than the American Civil War Confederacy, yet I’d hesitate to add Sega World to that list, as it barely made it into the new millennium. It feels so long ago when Sega World was with us, but the sad truth is after the Olympics came and went, Sega World just couldn’t go the distance. It cost a fortune to keep running and according to who you ask regarding the construction of this place, we’re lucky we didn’t see a second Luna Park Ghost Train fire due to the rush-job of safety standards. I may be biased trash-talking Sega World like this, to me it was an overstimulating hell with no escape. It should’ve been my paradise on earth, but no, I didn’t care for it much whilst it was open, because of what Rail Chase did to me. Everybody’s got that one ride that scares the piss out of them as a kid, their John Wick Baba Yaga they mention in hushed tones for the rest of their lives, and Rail Chase at Sega World Sydney was mine. I figured I could steer clear of Ghost Hunters, a ride which was meant to be a little bit spooky, taking my chances with Rail Chase which promised to be a wholesome Indiana Jones adventure ride. What I got was a traumatising roller-coaster with Suspiria lighting that scared the crap out of me, I held my head down clicking the non-responsive gun-turret buttons for most of the attraction’s length, the pre-show area had human hands poking out the tops of chrysalises like Heart of Darkness for the Playstation, apparently there were spiders in this ride as well which was part of why I curled over in fear inside my little mine cart. I’d have cried out for my mother if she wasn’t on the ride with me for the first and final time I rode this wretched thing, One part of the ride that remains crystallised in my memory was the loud scream from a woman, then a descent down a hill as you went backwards through a chamber with hologram torches on each side of your cart that you were meant to extinguish with your water cannons. I still don’t know how the effect was accomplished as a child, because the ride doesn’t exist anymore, but as a kid it felt like witchcraft and it was a welcome respite after the unpleasantness of the rest of the attraction. The pre-show area had these Rocky Horror Picture Show lips on a flaming background reciting plagiarised William Blake poetry about “ancient evil, burning bright”, and to this day I remain confused about this aesthetic choice. The second time I went to Sega World, I was accompanied by two daycare workers instead of my parents, and to stop them shoving me onto Rail Chase or Ghost Hunters I had to pull out my best Rain Man impression by hitting my head so that the diagnosed autism would register with these two ladies instead of being ignored. Sega World will forever be associated with the first time I was betrayed by the adults in my life, and my concerns not taken seriously, there was no third time I went to Sega World because I spent the day in my father’s office instead due to this mistreatment I received. I wanted Sega World gone from my city so that nobody would try to force me to ride it again, and by some bizarre monkey’s paw crossed with The Secret logic my wish was granted when Sega World went bust. That was not the end of my reviled Rail Chase however. During the auctioning off of their attractions, Sega World sold Rail Chase as well as other assets to Haaland amusement park in India. I took a look at the difference between our Rail Chase and the new Haailand amusement park version, and the most prominent difference is… the rollercoaster has converted to Buddhism. Yes, gone are its violent water turrets, with either a Buddha or Bodhi figurine on the cart, it’s committed to its new faith better than most Western converts have managed. Hasn’t India suffered enough colonialism without the Commonwealth dumping our trash there? I thought Sega World had died completely, yet one part of it lives on as a dinky tourist trap far on the other side of the sea. Seeing this image was a lot like finding out your high school bully has taken up a spiritual path of mindfulness training since making your life miserable, I wish Rail Chase the best of luck in its ashram residence.
Ernie Dingo saying “My mate Sonic the Hedgehog” broke my brain a bit.
Ernie Dingo riding Rail Chase with the gun turrets clearly visible.
The trauma cocoons that continue to haunt my imagination.
Entrance to Magic Motion Theatre (Source for above four panels: Rlan3)
Reconstruction of the Rocky Horror lips from Rail Chase pre-show monitors.
Rail Chase at Haailand theme park in India, never thought I’d see you again.
The corridor of my nightmares, preserved as a photograph.
Ghost Hunters entrance with the green ghoul on top.
Entrance to Aqua Nova, which I preferred to Rail Chase.
The entrance to Mad Bazooka, courtesy of Sega World Sydney Memorium.
The AS-1 machine at its new home in Luna Park, Melbourne.
The VR-1 attraction at Sega World Sydney.
I have very vague memories of Aqua Nova, a motion simulator ride at Sega World which was underwhelming compared to the other rides like Mad Bazooka, basically you were in an underwater mine and you had to fight the CGI squid with your mining equipment lasers or something, I can’t remember. All I recall is that squid, it begins and ends there for me. I was a little spooked by the squid jumping out at me, other than that I don’t have much to say about the attraction which was dated as N64 graphics by today’s standards. I could rank the quality of the CGI as somewhere around Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie -impressive for the time but has deteriorated like milk over the years. There were other rides I never got the chance to try because I was so disorientated like VR-1 and AS-1 which implemented early virtual reality motion simulators, but all I can find of those are grainy VHS recordings of Australian lifestyle programs documenting the park’s interiors which you weren’t allowed to record with your own equipment. Part of the problem with reviewing Sega World is the lack of video material to work with, you’ve got two episodes of Healthy, Wealthy and Wise and The Great Outdoors and that’s about it. I should probably talk about Mad Bazooka, my favourite ride at Sega World, where you shot ball pit balls through a dodgem-car cannon at people, I wasn’t very good at aiming the gun turret but considering the scariness of some of the other rides in the park I was in no position to complain. Mad Bazooka was often touted in the commercials for Sega World Sydney, and was one of the most popular rides with kids, the ads for Sega World exemplified the nineties in-your-face attitude of the park itself which geared itself to energetic pre-teens running around the place on a sugar high. Sega World may be gone, but its adverts pushing unhealthy snacks remain on YouTube as a digital tombstone for the park. It truly was “TOTALLY OUT THERE” for a brief glimmer, a bright shining moment when Sydney was an interesting city to live in. The interiors of what once was Sega World became the home of a Chinese furniture warehouse and Commonwealth Bank offices respectively, The lease-holders of the park JacFun sued the latter for misleading conduct over what was left when the Japanese investors pulled out of Sega World after the Olympics were done and nobody cared anymore. For years there was silence, the Blue Cone had long been demolished, but then word got around that some of the statues of Sonic and Sally from Sega World were hidden inside an Australian junkyard. Brian from Since Spacies YouTube channel was the first to break the news, and he chronicled his attempts at saving Sonic and Sally which were then picked up by Kotaku. The story spread over the internet as gamers tried to negotiate the best way to obtain the statues from the junkyard, but to no avail, as the owner of the statues wasn’t willing to sell. There was a brief period where there was a possibility of trading the statues for a Castrol sign or nineteen-fifties petrol bowser, however not much hope was in that option either and the statues remain a victim of the elements for the moment. It’s a miracle that even this much of the statues survived, even in their terrible condition.
Free Sonic bag with an unlimited rides pass.
Contents of the unlimited rides pass offered Free Sonic Bag.
Roaring Skull is from Ghost Hunters, according to my friend Josh.
Mad Bazooka CGI promotional shot, probably from pre-show area.
Ghost Hunters augmented reality footage (Source for above five panels: Zampakid)
The horribly dated CGI Aqua Nova squid monster.
People riding Mad Bazooka in its prime. (Source for above two panels: Zampakid)
Not since the days of Howard Carter has such an exciting discovery been made by archaeologists.
Sonic the Hedgehog as a franchise has endured a lot of hardship, Sega World Sydney included in that vast canon of stuff associated with this blue creature, and people were dreading the then-upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie due to the trailer showing some ghastly animation of the iconic character with awful human teeth. I went to see the Sonic the Hedgehog movie with my twin brother this year and whilst he wasn’t impressed (film school graduates, am I right?) I found it fun and entertaining enough and I was participating in the meme surrounding the film’s release. SEGA’s glory days might be behind them, yet if the box office for Sonic the Hedgehog implies anything, interest in SEGA’s characters is far from dead. Perhaps Sega World Sydney as an indoor theme park was doomed from the start, yet I’m rediscovering SEGA’s classic games like Golden Axe and Dynamite Headdy on PS4 ports and I reckon they hold up. That’s what SEGA is to me, the games rather than the rides adapted from them. Struggling through Shinobi III’s learning curve appealed to me more than Rail Chase, not gonna lie, and I wouldn’t get used to the scarier theme park rides until my visits to Wonderland Sydney. It’s a shame Sega World wasn’t for me, it was irreplaceable even by my standards. The first time I visited with my mother, we walked out of Sega World near the fountain and the ibises and despite being disturbed by some of the attractions, I couldn’t deny there was magic and enchantment in the air then, a peace after the storm which I never again felt in Darling Harbour. Today the ibises, the sons of Thoth patrol the streets as bin chickens like they always have, and I’ve always liked them without knowing why. They’re the one part of Sega World that stuck around, apart from the aforementioned statues. It would be years until I’d see the great sphinx in Egypt with my own eyes, standing in awe of the ancient civilisation that persisted from antiquity. There would be no such monument for Sega World Sydney, a park scavenged for its valuables and left to rot. At least the Egyptians put their ancestor’s treasures in museums, Australians are far too short-sighted to preserve what’s important to us even if they are passing fads of the moment. Now that Super Nintendo World is opening in Universal Park Studios, Nintendo must take heed of its short-lived predecessor to survive in today’s climate. The mistakes and fumbles of the past make way for the future, however uncertain that future may be. Memento mori, I guess.
The ibis basking under the shadow of the colossal wreck that was Sega World Sydney.
