Welcome to the Archive site of The Sonic Stadium (2008-2023)
Please note that this site is no longer being updated or maintained; as a result, there may be design issues, and links to images and other media may be broken. Links to posts may redirect you to the same article on the current Sonic Stadium website.
Thanks to Sega Europe, we have a few Sonic Chronicles goodies to give away on The Sonic Stadium. Just in time for Hallowe’en too! See that photo up there? The Chronicles tin and stylus pack? There are five of those to give away. You could win a set of them, you could. There’s also a super-secret squirrel Grand Prize goody bag, which will be sent your way should you impress us the most.
Impress us, you say? Well yes. I don’t expect you to just come along and take this stuff. I want you to work for your meal. And what better way to prove your worth than on Hallowe’en? Here’s what you have to do to be in a chance of winning:
Pick any Sonic the Hedgehog character, and describe to us how they would Trick or Treat someone.
It’s as simple as that. Imagine a Sonic character of your choice, knocking on a house door. What does that character do when that door opens to get as much candy as possible? Funny, scary, or downright weird entries are all acceptable, so do your worst (on all accounts)!
Send your entires to dreadknux@gmail.com with your name, email address and what your chosen character does. Closing date for entries is the 7th November 2008. Good luck!
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One of the things that The Sonic Stadium is known for, beyond our eight-year history, is our bizarre sense of humour. This humour is usually implemented in our banner adverts, which we’ve had rolling for several years now. Although the banner advertisement service allows for other Sonic sites to get noticed via visiting TSS, sometimes we got bored and made our own stuff to put up on the rotation. These varied from adverts for articles and specific updates to the site itself to random ways of advertising the advert service itself.
Hit the jump for a gallery of past banners, used at some stage during The Sonic Stadium’s life. Not all of the banners have been saved unfortunately, but here’s what we have salvaged. Enjoy. Continue reading TSS History: The Banners
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To get you into the spirit of things, SEGA have made this awesome Hallowe’en trailer for Sonic Unleashed. But it’s not a trailer for the game. Nope, it’s a trailer for a special animated film that SEGA are producing, to tie in with the game. So it’s Sonic the Hedgehog’s “Thriller” then.
It’s done in a classic horror movie style, and features Sonic and new character Chip heading into a haunted house, with the blue blur unable to contain his dark secret when the full moon comes out… Almost reminded me of the intro to Luigi’s Mansion until Were-Sonic started beating the snot out of some Looney Tunes-esque bull.
Give it a watch, it’s ghoulishly good. Ahem. The full animated short will be available in November.
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Live in Australia? Picking up the awesome looking game that is Sonic Unleashed? Need more Werehog for your cash? Well EB Games has got something for you, a Werehog figurine. He stares, he snares, he scares, tears into your soul while you sleep at night… ok he doesn’t do that, or does he? Personally, with the evil Tails Doll out there somewhere in the shadows I won’t be trusting the Werehog Figurine. *Oh dear, what have I started?*
The deal is available for all versions of the game, online and in-store and is exclusive to EB Games. As of now, EB Games is listing Xbox 360, Wii and PS2 versions to be released on the 27th November and the PS3 version as Dec 2008, but no release date has been officially announced by SEGA yet.
Thanks to Game Boy over at the SSMB for informing us of this!
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Hey you. Excited about Halloween? Good. Got a pumpkin? Good. Want to make a Sonic pumpkin? You’re in luck my friend, as The Sonic Stadium has a set of pumpkin stensils that you can use to make your favourite character glow viciously in the twilight. These designs were submitted by Rally the Cheetah, who created all but the Amy pumpkin (which was created by ‘The Lioness’), but feel free to print any of these onto an A4 sheet of paper and go nuts.
You’ve got a choice of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Silver and Blaze. Click here for the stencils, along with a special tutorial made by Rally in case you’re unsure as to how to create your own Sonic Pumpkin.
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We thought we’d share this cool little gift we got from Simon, also known as ‘ForeverSonic’, at the Video Games Live concert on Friday. It’s a little card wishing the site a happy 8th birthday, along with a little present. And you know how the best presents are always homemade (unless they’re from Sega or us, of course). A lot of time and effort must have gone into making this fluffy Sonic head, although now we’re worried if there’s a fluffy Sonic body wandering the earth looking for it. It is Halloween this week after all.
There was also an awesome Tails head made as well. You can see that above too. Happy birthday TSS – our blasts from the past continue tomorrow!
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I was browsing around UK retailer websites, checking up on Sonic Unleashed’s supposed ’28th November’ release date, and came across this alternate box artwork at Argos. It may be an early box art, due to the ‘TBC’ PEGI logo. That, and SEGA have already revealed the final cover and it looks slightly different to this. If that’s the case, then in my opinion they really should have stuck with this design. It’s more interesting and gives a hint as to the game’s story, with the world crumbling behind Sonic (rather than the final render which just has some pretty colours).
Still, I guess it doesn’t matter as long as the game’s good right?
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Despite no efforts to the contrary, we are still able to obtain access to Sonic Retro, including their forum. It was there that a photo was discovered that featured a disc titled ‘Sonic Proof’. To put it into some context, this disc was apparently found in a room at Sega’s Headquarters which contains almost all of their work, including Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive titles. The photo above shows (an obvious CD-R based) Sonic Proof wedged between some retail games.
But what does it all mean? Is it the working title for an old Sonic the Hedgehog engine? Is it a concept of another unreleased Sonic title altogether? Is it something unrelated to Sonic and even Sega (the ‘Sega room’ contained games from other publishers on PS2 as well)? Is it a massive hoax or a plant (although given the original photo is pretty legit, it might not be the case)? Who the heck knows? Not many at the moment, with speculation at a dead end pretty much.
We’re slapping this up as a rumour for now; Sonic Retro are pretty cool with getting information on old stuff, but until it’s verified it could well be a wild goose chase.
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Whilst the TSS crew were at Video Games Live last night watching things rock out, we were surprised that the set contained no Sonic the Hedgehog medley this year. We didn’t mind though, as someone on stage let slip that co-creator and presenter, Tommy Tallarico, is to be working on the music to Sonic and the Black Knight.
The reveal came during the evening show when the editor for the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition, Keith Pullin, took the stage to award Tommy with for his contribution to video game music (some 200-odd games he’s composed for, from Earthworm Jim to Disney’s Alladin to Metroid Prime). Pullin stated that Tallarico is working on a Sonic the Hedgehog game, whilst the presenter turned to the audience and shhh’d everyone down. Even ArchAngelUK, Sega Europe’s community manager, was surprised of the detail. Continue reading Tallarico, Jacques Working on Sonic and the Black Knight
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The Sonic Stadium is eight years old today (and it was Cephrien’s birthday a few days ago too, so happy birthday to you too). It’s hard to imagine that this little site of mine would be so involved in an international community like this, but we’re here today amongst other awesome websites like Sonic Retro and Sonic Fan Games HQ, and man is it all good.
As you may be aware, I’ve been chronicling the years of TSS, from beginning to end (we’re at 2001 at this moment in time, but over the course of the next week you’ll learn more about the last few years too) in celebration of what this website has achieved in its lifetime. Needless to say that (trumpet blowing time) the impact The Sonic Stadium has made on the Sonic the Hedgehog community is nothing to be scoffed at.
The Sonic Site Awards gave smaller Sonic sites (including TSS at the time) a chance to be seen amongst the big boys. The approach I made to Sega Europe in 2005 has led to the publisher gaining an interest in their target audience, which led to the creation of their Community department, the Sonic City website and the arrival of everyone’s favourite neighbourhood Sega-man, AAUK, to take pole position of what’s going on worldwide. The TSS Network helped raise the profiles of numerous fellow sites, including FastFeet Media and Sonic Cage Dome.
And then of course, you have my latest creation. Something that I am probably the most proud of besides TSS itself. The Summer of Sonic, which can essentially be called two creations under one name. Originally a website, it was born out of a concept I had waaaay back in 2001; that there should be a Sonic fansite where every single prominent webmaster should contribute to. At the time, the idea was to have a Community website that involved myself, Tristan from TSSZ (who was a lot less controversial than he is now arguably), Sonic HQ, The Sonic Foundation, Shadow of a Hedgehog… it would be a site where the whole community got involved and contributed to. Continue reading Happy Birthday TSS! PLUS BONUS ANNOUNCEMENT!
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Is this the face of a man you can trust? We sure hope so. Yoshihisa Hashimoto, Game Director and Lead Designer on ‘Sonic Unleashed’ over at SEGA Towers in Japan assures us the upcoming title in the series will be nothing short of revolutionary. Previously updated by Patrick Riley, Hashimoto joins in on IGN’s ‘Sonic Unleashed Blog’ page with a lengthy post on how much awesome Unleashed contains along with a couple of brand new screen shots to top things off.
Hashimoto discusses how him and the team conjured up the concept for Sonic’s latest adventure and elaborates on why certain design choices were made over others. There’s some talk on the coming to be’s of the ‘Hedgehog Engine’ too explaining exactly what it can achieve and how it will allow future Sonic titles to benefit from it.
Click here for a direct link to the blog and thanks to Spyne for pointing out the update over on the forums earlier today.
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It is that time once again for another installment in The Sonic Stadium’s own podcast, The Sonic Show. After a one month delay, caused by me (my bad, but school comes first), the fourth installment of the second season is ready to hit your iPods with style. What is jam packed into this episode?
Turbo, from “Turbo Drive Live,” guest hosts!
All the latest Sonic news
New Unleashed and Black Knight footage and trailers
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This is part of an ongoing series of features that looks back on the history of The Sonic Stadium. You can find out more about how this website changed the Sonic community, what it looked like back in the day, and even special images and update notes from the archive.
She’s Got The Look
The launch of The Sonic Stadium had a very good initial response – some thirty people or so were regularly visitng the website in just a few weeks since it’s opening, which is pretty admirable considering that it did so with no fanfare or anything. The first few months in 2001 would prove to be much tougher, as beginner’s luck would set in and the casually interested visitors would drop off and head to more interesting sites like The Sonic Foundation and Sonic HQ.
To combat this, towards the end of 2000 I began work on a new site design. One with a dark background, two sidebars and room for a lot of links to different pages. Still feeling my way around web design, I took a free template and fiddled with that to get the look I wanted. It wasn’t a very good idea at the time because I missed several updates because of this, but it taught me a lot about how to achieve certain things in a webpage.
While I was preparing this new design, I realised I needed more space than Angelfire’s 50Meg service provided. As a result of weeks of searching, The Sonic Stadium was moved onto a supposedly limitless, free host called Stas.net which included no ad-banners whatsoever. This became my undoing, as the bursting bubble of the dot com boom meant places like Stas ended up disappearing without so much as a ‘We’re closing down, bye’ message. There aren’t many images and backups of this design, as the only copies were on Stas. This meant I had to start from practically scratch. Even worse was I had my GCSE exams this year, so the revival would have to wait until several months later… Continue reading TSS Timeline: The Year 2001
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What fun is in todays episode I hear you ask? Well the following!
Our Chronicles review
Turbo guest hosts!
Slingerlands sexy corner
Red Hedgehog visit G.U.N
UFAliens round up of the news
A special suprise for those of you who may think Slingerland sometimes goes to far <3
Plus more bits of joy
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Wiiz.fr have got their hands on some China screenshots from the Wii version. The screens look a little grainy and you can see the jaggies in places but overall they look good because of how well the background and foreground are designed. Continue reading China is looking lovely on Wii
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What’s Sonic got to be happy about in that picture? The reason he looks so happy (yet malnourished) is that he’s topped a poll of the UK’s best loved computer game characters ever. Yes, he’s even beaten Super Mario. The blue hog commanded 24 per cent of the overall vote aimed at gamers in the country (or set of four countries, whatever). Mario had to settle for second with 21 per cent.
It’s not altogether surprising, considering Sega’s consoles always had such a great reception in Europe during the 1990s, and given that Sonic the Hedgehog titles tend to be some of the biggest selling games on the Nintendo Wii. PS3 and Xbox 360 not so much (Sonic 06? Chortle), but Sonic Unleashed may be the game to change the mascot’s fortunes on the high definition consoles.
In the interests of fairness, we’d let you know that Mario beat Sonic at the ‘Greatest Computer Game Ever’ with Super Mario Bros, but we’re so awash with retro feeling that that good old mascot fanboy rivalry’s seeping through again. So we’ll just stick our thumbs up at Nintendo fans instead, ignorant in the knowledge that the Mega Drive Sonic the Hedgehog title reached #5. If all else fails, blame Cornwall. Because it’s cool to do.
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This is the first in a series of features that looks back on the history of The Sonic Stadium. You can find out more about how this website changed the Sonic community, what it looked like back in the day, and even special images and update notes from the archive.
Prelude
I’ve always been a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, ever since I saw the Mega Drive game that my friend owned (which resulted in me accidently getting a Master System in my childhood ways). Every bit of my pocket money would go on the games, and any other merchandise I could fit in too. As time went on though, the Sony PlayStation became more popular and that (along with adolescence) made my interest in Sega and Sonic wane throughout the late 1990s.
My interest was to be reignited during my last year of school. Sometime in 1999, we had a new computer centre built, which brought Internet to the masses of kids attending there. Soon enough, every kid had a floppy disk with Genecyst and a Sonic 2 ROM that they would play during lunch break whenever the admins weren’t looking. Seeing the game being enjoyed again (and playing it a heavy amount myself) kick-started my love for the games all over again.
I eventually came across a website called The Moogle Cavern (now dead). It appeared during a random Yahoo search for ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’, not expecting to find as many fan sites as I did. In its prime, the ‘MC’ was known for its mish-mash of Mario, Sonic, Squaresoft and other assorted franchise information. I quickly joined the forums and became a solid part of their community. Continue reading TSS Timeline: The Year 2000
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We’re a bit late to the party with this one, but during the Tokyo Game Show a few weeks ago Sonic and the Black Knight got its first proper showing. As you could probably tell with all the trailers and mp3s flying around. Now you get some screenshots of the game in action, courtesy of SEGA Europe. They don’t really show anything new, but it’s nice to have a good look at what we’ve already seen, right?
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Showgoers to the Tokyo Game Show this year were treated to a special performance from Crush 40 members Jun Senoue and Johnny Giolei. Adam broke news of the legendary concert on TSS a while ago – and you can trust our ardent readers to find a way to grab that music for themselves. Regular contributor TMS was kind enough to send us mp3 versions of all seven tracks played live. So now you don’t have to hit Youtube to memorise those lyrics to Knight of the Wind. You can download them straight from TSS’ Media Portal; link’s below. Hop to it, soldiers.
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Sega of America have updated their product page for Sonic Unleashed. The page now has 2 copies of the China trailer and states that the PS3 version is OUT NOW. So U.S. gamers, how is Unleashed? Any good?
On a serious note though, what a mistake to make. Does this mean we’ll be getting a release date soon or are Sega of America’s web site staff as bad at noticing errors as Sonic Team are at noticing bugs in their Sonic games?
In other news if you run your mouse cursor over their Egypt trailer it says ‘Petra trailer’, I haven’t seen that name anywhere on the official Sonic Unleashed site so could this be the official Egypt stage name?
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I was attracted by the title alone, but I was even more pleased after I clicked it. This flash short by DeviantArt user, coycoy, features Sonic…being an asshole…to Shadow. SIGN ME UP. Click the image below to go the movie, broskis.
The visuals are great and the animation is pretty rad, especially considering that this video is coycoy’s first Sonic related flash video. I thought the premise was simple and entertaining, something that I am rather fond of. I don’t like a movie when something, either the premise or the joke, drags out too long. After chuckling at Shadow getting owned, I looked in the description to find this:
sonic and shadow belong to Sega yo.
Best copyright listing ever yo.
Would you or a friend like to be featured here at The Sonic Stadium? Send a PM to Slingerland on the SSMB!
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Sega have updated the official Sonic Chronicles website’s and added Behind the scenes 3 to the U.S. and European sites and also added TV Commercial to the U.S. site. In Behind the scenes 3 the Bioware explain in-game teamwork and how it affects battles and tasks in the field that you can only overcome with certain party members. Bioware also talk about Sonic fans, how passionate they are and all the e-mails sent their way. Also in the video you can see what look’s like some new artwork on Bioware’s computers.
You can check out the video on the official Sonic Chronicles site – UK U.S.
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The people at GoNintendo have posted a new article to follow up on the comments from Akinori Nishiyama, the GM of Sonic Team, where it seems that he has changed his mind. Nishiyama’s translator said the following to an interviewer:
“Actually, he has been working on Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush and is very keen on keeping the 2D game. But, having said that, he also thinks 3D Sonic [is good]…And he has been thinking so hard to incorporate those good things from both 3D and 2D. And this is one of the reasons that in Sonic Unleashed we have both 3D and 2D mixed gameplay, kind of switched, going back and forth…Although he thinks that the original 2D game was really good, he doesn’t intend to publish kind of a remake of the original game.”
Hopes elated, then deflated. Oh, well. I knew it was not going to happen anyway. If you need a fresh, 16-bit fix, I know a place where you could get it. (lol plug)
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Be still my beating heart! Be still dammit! Kotaku went to the Tokyo Game Show recently and spoke to Akinori Nishiyama from Sonic Team. Asked if any of the classic games could be remade in HD – or if in fact, a new 2D Sonic title could be done on XBLA or PSN, the Sonic Unleashed producer said this;
There’s always the possibility. Whether it would be viable remains to be seen, but having a new game – or even a remake of the GBA games, which we now can’t use [thanks to the DSi] – would certainly be possible… One of our ideas has been that on older consoles, you may have had only 16 colours. One thing we could do is make a game like Mega Man 9; do a new Sonic, but in an old style.
Looks like someone’s been keeping an eye on TSS lately. One thing we would have to note though – a stipulation if you will – would be that such a project would really have to take on board all the classic mechanics of the Mega Drive originals (level design, physics based stages, epic-but-not-lame storylines, Sonic-Tails-Knuckles, Robotnik) to truly be something worth getting excited over. I mean, there was no point doing Mega Man 9 if it was just going to be Battle Network in NES graphics. If Sonic Team want to be serious about this, shit has to be taken back to the drawing board. Specifically, 1990’s drawing board.
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Finally! the mighty guitar skills of the legendary Jun Senoue, and the vocal tenacity of Axel Rudi Pell lead singer Johnny Gioeli have reunited to perform what can only be described as an electrifying medley of classic Crush 40 tracks at the Tokyo Game Show on the 12th of October. I had been talking to Jun about a month ago, and although he told me to keep it all very hush hush, he said there would be a little surprise for those in attendance; that being a live performance of the new title track for the upcoming Wii title Sonic and the Black Knight, “Knight of the Wind”.
Johnny and Jun crash onto stage with an extra long opening version of “I am…All of Me”, before burning rubber into their version of “His World” (which we all know rocks the hardest, sorry Zebrahead). Other performed tracks include the “Sonic Heroes Theme”, “What I’m Made of” and of course, the obligatory “Live and Learn” theme from SA2. Continue reading Crush 40 Rock Tokyo Game Show
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Guess who has been busy? Me! Sorry for you Crossfire fans who have had to wait an entire month, but them’s the brakes. With college kicked into full gear, in addition to more Sonic Nexus development after the surge of popularity, I never usually get time to myself. Working on the project, with it being a classic Sonic title and given the positive response that it has received everywhere, got me thinking about something…
In the past week, I have played the absolute hell out of Mega Man 9, Capcom’s return to the original Mega Man series and 8-bit gameplay and presentation. I am enjoying every minute of it, because I am not just riding a wave of nostalgia, but I am also impressed with the refined gameplay. The fact that a game straight out of 1988 can be successful in 2008 is downright admirable and eye-opening. It makes me wonder, as a Sonic fan, if a retro reboot is in order for another blue hero: Sonic. Would a 16-bit foray treading new ground be a commerical success or another step towards irrelevancy? Today, we take a look at whether or not SEGA has the potential to make some magic, akin to Capcom and Nintendo, and if looking backward has the potential to push forward.
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IGN(6.5/10) lets everybody continue the Sonic community’s on-going trend of bias (ridiculous, by the way) against Sonic with their latest Sonic review. “Sonic Chronicles isn’t a bad game overall, but it does suffer from a list of things that keep it from being a title we can recommend to just anyone. The character balancing is strong, the game is simply beautiful, and there’s more effort put into the front end and general flow of the game than most DS titles out there. On the gameplay front though, players will need to suffer through tedious point-to-point fetch quests with very little story to push the experience, and a battle system that gets too repetitive far too fast.”
WorthPlaying.com(6.5/10) goes against their initial perception of the title by labeling Sonic Chronicles a completely average RPG: “If [Sonic Chronicles] wasn’t for the fact that it had Sonic characters in it, it wouldn’t stand out at all [against other RPGs]. The combat system is interesting but flawed, the gameplay is slow and rather tedious and the plot is as cookie-cutter as they come. There is very little attempt made to make the game feel anything like a Sonic title, and if it weren’t for the occasional loop, you could easily replace Sonic and friends with original characters without losing anything but name recognition.”
VideoGamer.com(8.0/10) makes note that Chronicles is not the greatest RPG out there, but is still a title worth your time and cash: “If you’re not a Sonic fan and instead are simply looking for a quality RPG, there’s better on the DS, but Chronicles still comes highly recommended. If you’re a Sonic fan Chronicles really is an essential purchase. It’s one of the best Sonic games we’ve played in ages (given the quality of some Sonic games in recent years this doesn’t come as a surprise) and, despite it not being as in-depth an RPG as we’d hoped, it’s really a lot of fun while it lasts.”
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A Sonic community member, Sonicsuperstar1, has taken the rumor of a DS fighting game, featuring SEGA and Capcom characters duking it out, and turned it into some cool fan art. Check it, son:
Would you or someone you know like to be featured on TSS’ Fan Spotlight? Contact Slingerland on the SSMB and link him up!
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Joystiq’s PS3 blog PS3 Fanboy have updated their list of upcoming games that have PS3 Trophy support and among the list is Sonic Unleashed. No sign of a list of the Trophies yet or the Xbox 360 Achievements list yet but no doubt they will be the same like alot of other multi-platform games. Good news though for PS3 fans looking to get the game and get their moneys worth or owners of both consoles who might only opt for the Xbox 360 version over the PS3 version for Achievements. We’ll update with both lists as soon as they are available.
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No sooner did those Sonic and the Black Knight videos hit the Internet, that people just had to rip the theme songs and offer them for download. Who are we to say no? TMS has done a good job of ripping both the instrumental theme heard in the video we posted earlier, and the full theme in the Japanese trailer featuring vocals.
We’re quite sure that’s Johnny and Jun back in the saddle for this theme, making it a Crush 40, super-cheesy rock extravaganza. Is it just us, or are C40 really trying to be more “80’s children’s cartoon rock” with each passing Sonic title? Although, that never hurt the Transformers.
Give Sonic fans ten minutes to learn it and we’ll be seeing everyone sing it like they did ‘Endless Possibility’ at Summer of Sonic. Thanks for the rip, TMS!
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Like many on The Sonic Stadium, I have been fairly pessimistic regarding Sonic Unleashed. With severe frame rate problems being reported from several sources, as well as “boring looking” Werehog levels, it seemed like Unleashed may be more of the same. What’s more, due to bad magazine scans, the Wii version appeared to be a shoddy port.
The more I see of the game, however, the more it begins to win me over. Are the first, incredible looking videos from the Wii version enough to win you over? Is the latest preview good enough to get your hopes up? Decide for yourself. Here’s the first video. Two more videos and a preview after the break:
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Sega decided to show a trailer of Sonic and the Black Knight at the Tokyo Game Show this year, which is quite an unprecedented move given that we still have no firm release date for the next Wii adventure. It expands a little bit on the three-second teaser that was contained in the Wii showcase we posted a few days ago, and much like Secret Rings, involves Sonic going into storyland to beat an evil force. It’s his destiny, apparently. It still looks like Sonic-on-rails to me, so the jury’s still out here.
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Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is further proof, beyond Sonic Spinball and Sonic Riders, that the classic hedgehog formula can be applied to just about any old genre SEGA sees fit (not always successfully, mind). The idea for this game apparently came about during a discussion with Bioware’s managing directors and SEGA America’s President Simon Jeffery. Obviously the concept and challenge of putting Sonic the Hedgehog in untested waters was just too good an opportunity to pass up, but also came with a worrying premise for gamers. Because we’d all been there with Shadow the Hedgehog.
With the standard Sonic games not doing so hot, was a spinoff – which happen to be extremely hit and miss in the history of the franchise – really the best way to go about repairing the damaged reputation the blue blur has? Would the franchise be in good hands with Bioware, an excellent developer known for their more mature RPG projects? Read on and find out, in TSS’ definitive review.
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THE ONE-SIDED TALK SHOW RETURNS TO SEGASONIC RADIO NEXT TUESDAY AT 3 PM EST.
Tristan Oliver, you’re on notice.
Not only will I be taking calls to get opinions on the new game, Sonic Chronicles, but I have a personal axe to grind. Since TSSZ News finds it appropriate to make clean laundry dirty and then show it to the rest of the Sonic community, I’ll happily play along. Since TSSZ News finds that making controversial stories is the best way to get page views, I’ll gladly play that game, too. The mud-slinging continues, because as of right now, I am extending an invitation to Tristan Oliver to be on the show to lose in a debate that he never even had a chance winning. Tristan, if you are reading this post (which I know you are), give me an answer in a PM box anywhere that you so choose, be it SSMB, SFGHQ, or whatever. Get Skype, a microphone, and some bandages ready once you accept this invitation, which in turn, is accepting your inevitable defeat.
The One-Sided Talk Show has had its share of heated debates, but this one looks to be the most personal of them all. Fair warning, Tristan: when you mess with the best, you go down like the rest.
UPDATE: Sorry, 3 PM EST. Typo, there. Sorry for the confusion, guys.
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Bioware have put out a new poll on their front page regarding Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Bioware would like to know:
In Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, who is your favorite[sic] playable character?
Sonic
Knuckles
Amy
Tails
Rouge
Big the Cat
Other, read my comments
Could this be for feedback for the next game since we know it’s already being developed and it’s story being written. Could the least voted character be canned and well voted characters be given more game/story time? We’ll have to wait and see what comes from it. Currently Sonic’s winning with over a 3rd of votes, Knuckles in 2nd and Tails in 3rd.
You can place your vote here and discuss the poll over at the SSMB.
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The Sonic and the Black Knight Artwork contest has come to a close, and community art pieces from around the world have been judged by SEGA for inclusion in the upcoming Wii title. TSSZ has reported on several winners residing in Sonic Retro – and it turns out from the European side, some of our own SSMB Forum members have won too!
ArchAngelUK has been emailing the 20 European winners throughout the last day or so, but the full list has not been publically released, leaving us a waiting game to see who will pipe up in sheer joy and euphoria. Among the winners that have publically claimed WinRar is Violet who is a regular at our UK Sonic Meetups and was one of the main contributors to the Summer of Sonic convention this year. Word has it that TSS Merch Hog T-Bird has also won a place in the game. UK fans Mahzes, ENVY16, Sock-fox and Adamis from Belgium were also rocking winning pictures yesterday.
Other community members that voiced joy at the Sonic Retro forums was well-known community artist Purity; other namedrops include G. Silver, known best at the Green Hill Zone forums; Radrappy and DeviantArt member Aedelthryd.
The annoying thing? None of the winning entries are allowed to be shown until the game’s release next year. Bummer, I’m sure all the winners will want to show their piece to every man, woman and child right now. Congratulations to all the winners all over the world!
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<3
Be still my beating heart! Be still dammit! Kotaku went to the Tokyo Game Show recently and spoke to Akinori Nishiyama from Sonic Team. Asked if any of the classic games could be remade in HD – or if in fact, a new 2D Sonic title could be done on XBLA or PSN, the Sonic Unleashed producer said this;
In the past week, I have played the absolute hell out of Mega Man 9, Capcom’s return to the original Mega Man series and 8-bit gameplay and presentation. I am enjoying every minute of it, because I am not just riding a wave of nostalgia, but I am also impressed with the refined gameplay. The fact that a game straight out of 1988 can be successful in 2008 is downright admirable and eye-opening. It makes me wonder, as a Sonic fan, if a retro reboot is in order for another blue hero: Sonic. Would a 16-bit foray treading new ground be a commerical success or 
No sooner did those Sonic and the Black Knight videos hit the Internet, that people just had to rip the theme songs and offer them for download. Who are we to say no? TMS has done a good job of ripping both the instrumental theme heard in the video we posted earlier, and the full theme in the Japanese trailer featuring vocals.
The Sonic and the Black Knight Artwork contest has come to a close, and community art pieces from around the world have been judged by SEGA for inclusion in the upcoming Wii title. TSSZ has reported on several winners residing in Sonic Retro – and it turns out from the European side, some of our own SSMB Forum members have won too!