Well, the last week has certainly been interesting. Especially in the world of so-called ‘journalism’, where everyone but GameSpot seems to have reacted like a complete immature child to the whole Sonic Unleashed debacle. You know, real journalists. Especially in reaction to our news piece collated from an inside source, which has been debunked several times by some other sources (hey, we never said it was fact), claiming their sources are more accurate (only for them to spread false information). I don’t know if we should be considered the ‘most reliable’ website or not, and frankly I don’t care, but I know my sources are definitely trustworthy.

And on another note, this thought appeared in my mind; Why is everyone so worked up about this point of ‘trust’ anyway? Where did this petty ‘e-Penis’ contest come from? All of a sudden anything else that isn’t an “exclusive” by “X Website” is obviously a fake and thus the entire site in question is riddled with ‘shoddy journalism’. This news has turned the best of community sites (particularly general SEGA ones) to backstabbing and gossiping washerwomen. Hardly professional don’t you think? Oddly enough, I’m standing by the wayside, wondering just why the hell everyone’s out to embarrass themselves by going on some crusade to “show that they are the most trustworthy and reliable source!!!!11!one1!”

Yes… well, a word to the SEGA community sites out there – leave that dead dog to die… er, more. Trust me, the Sonic community has been there before, many years ago. Even TSS was a righteous “proper journalistic source” wannabe for a short period back in the day (despite the fact that I am, in fact, a journalist). Communities don’t survive on that. Communities survive on each other. Regardless of what you think, you’re not GameSpot or 1Up. You’re a fan community. And as such should be acting like one.

To everyone else, as an FYI to anyone interested, spoken from an actual games journalist (i.e. me, and not you):

• Making news stories that “iron out” details in spite of other websites is bad journalism and makes you look bitchy and unprofessional;
• Writing commentary and light-hearted opinion in a news article might pass for bad journalism – but only in ‘serious’ mediums. Nobody is qualified to call out such practices on a gaming blog, fansite or video gaming website which house style calls for such written prose. You don’t expect opinion in BBC News stories. You do expect opinion in video game magazine news stories. It’s all about context.
• The only thing you could assume to be true in Sonic Unleashed is that a werewolf is involved. Everything else – even TSS’ articles – can be laid to pure speculation until officially confirmed by official sources, and nothing less is accepted. It’s one thing getting a scoop, but scoops are obtained through unofficial channels, however true or false they may be.

I hope that the Internet is somewhat wiser now after reading this, and would kindly ask that everyone would just calm down and enact a little bit of humility in this torrent of undoubtedly exciting Unleashed news. The Sonic – and somewhat more SEGA community – have been acting extremely childish of the whole affair, and it’s time we put a stop to all the madness right now before somebody embarrasses themselves.

EDIT: Oh, and for some of our own SSMB members, shame on you. Can I ask all the plebs who mistook my article to go and re-read the news piece now to save some silliness. This is half the reason other websites are selfishly bitching at each other (and attacking me by default) as it is. Like I have enough on my plate as it is without some deranged fanboy yelling in my left earhole.

Whatever happened to just having fun?

You may have noticed the main site going wibbly wobbly the last few days. Well, here’s a bit of history: B’man and I are working on a new TSS that’s all fancy and has jazz hands and everything round the back here. Problem is, knowing how I am, this is going to take an age. I was kind of hoping that if I focused on just that new dynamic site, we’ll have it done quicker and then TSS updates could be worked on upon its launch. Well, it’s not likely to be finished any time soon due to many reasons, so I’ve currently turned to working my nuts off on the site as it is to make sure it’s up to date and such. That includes bringing in the new design into the current TSS system, which you can see the initial results of on any TSS page. You may have noticed I’ve bunched everything non-Game into a new section called ‘Info Zone’. It’s just easier that way. And I’ve revived the Downloads section. Enjoy.

Speaking of Downloads, look at the DefChamba. Go on. Take a peek. I’m finally getting round to finishing off the missing music. The cool thing is, I’ve re-tagged and filenamed all of these PROPERLY – DefChamba is just about the only place you’ll get Sonic music tagged with the real artist and named in a fashion that makes sense. So dive in guys. Still a way to go, but everything in the Music & Soundtracks archive are the real deal. I’m re-tagging and uploading new stuff all the time.

I’ve finally gotten round to reviewing Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. But before you go wondering what ‘definitive score’ I’ve given the game, I should let you know that I haven’t. I have brought in a new structure for reviewing Sonic games and scores no longer exist. Read it here and let me know your impressions of me reviewing in this way – I certainly feel all the more better for doing it this way, especially since walls of text put me off, and scores can change with age. If you like me reviewing in this way, I may use it for other purposes…

In other news, the SEGA Superstars Tennis website has been updated with character profiles. Back in February when I was doing some work for SEGA, that work involved writing a story for the game, as well as character profiles for everyone in the game. SEGA decided not to use the story in the end (I thought it was awesome – one day I may indulge you all in it) and the Sonic character profiles have been altered to their generic Sonic Channel ones instead, but all the other character descriptions (including the names of the special moves and descriptions) were written by yours truly. I quite like Bamboleo De Maracas. Took me a while to think of that one.

Finally, I want to update everyone on an upcoming addition to the TSS Network – we’re getting our own Sonic the Hedgehog comic. It’s by no means a rush job either – the guys behind it are very talented (some have dabbled in the STC Online comic) and the project was meant to launch some months ago, but it’s been delayed. It’s looking like soon may be the time you get to read the first edition of ‘Sonic Adventures’ as my man ‘Crystal’ has just informed me it’ll be launched this Spring. Check the Sonic News article for details.

There’s still a way to go with the site re-jig, what with all the content and info that’s passed me by for the last year or so. Along with some skin things to sort out (sorry, character skins are going to be away for a while on the main site guys). So bear with me. You can track latest game additions on the sidebar on any TSS page – I wouldn’t really trust the ‘Updates’ grid on the home page anymore. Speaking of which, the homepage is also due for a bit of a makeover, so look out for that too.

OK, I’m done talking, enjoy. Oh, and vote for Psykore. 🙂

The polls to name the mysterious race of bad guy aliens in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood are now open, so get down there and cast your vote! Read T-Bird’s Sonic News story on the event by clicking here. Here’s the kicker – some of the Sonic fan community were indeed given the chance to submit names for this race, including T-Bird/Echo Hawk (representing Sonic Wrecks) and myself and Roareye Black (representing TSS’ name submission). T-Bird and Echo suggested ‘The Gravitus‘, but I really liked another name that wasn’t used in the poll – The Anomalix. As for TSS’ name, we chose ‘The Psykore‘. P-K to da massive. Or something.

Other Sonic communities from France and Germany were involved in submitting names, and they’re… hm, well… er, that’s all we better say about that side of things really. I think BioWare went with ‘The Dusk’, but if you want my opinion, it doesn’t sound right. Especially when you look at the fully revealed creature, the Dusk just lacks punch.

But that’s my opinion and now it’s time for yours, so head to the Sonic City poll now and vote for your favourite name out of the list of possibles. This is about your own personal preference, so don’t go voting for ours just because you feel you want/have to. If our names are crap, then don’t vote them. Simple as. Although I thought Psykore was pretty cool…

You won’t break my heart really. ;P Go forth and vote! The link is in T-Bird’s Sonic News post, so use the link I just posted to get there.

Hey guys, because of all the changes we’re doing (and the work that comes with) there won’t be a Sonic Hour tonight on SEGASonic Radio. Plus, my toes are hurting; I’ve just been in an operation to have the toenails chopped off (yum, don’t read this while eating your dinner kids!) so am recovering for the next couple of weeks. It has its perks – putting my feet up and playing games isn’t that much of a raw deal in exchange. Especially as there are plenty in my collection I’ve not gotten round to completing yet.

T-TIME will be filling in on SSR though, so don’t tune out. 🙂

The changes seem to be going over quite well – there’s still some time for us to do some little tweaks to make things easier for everyone, and to help communicate the new rules in the Sonic forum better – we’ve seen a few posts that still involve people arguing about how their vision of a Sonic game is right and blah blah blah – they have been deleted on sight. If your post was a casualty (i.e. it’s not there anymore) then please do better next time kthx. Hopefully everyone will get the point soon.

And because the new Sonic forum rules kinda killed discussion of this, I’m-a put it here for some light-hearted weekend fun. A friend of mine Sam who has a website called Hoopla Net has written an article on the ‘most pointless Sonic games’. Now, most of the games here are in actual fact rubbish, so they miss the point there. But the article also features games that aren’t rubbish, but actually have just simply missed the point of Sonic. It’s a good list, personally there was an omission in Sonic Jam on the Game.com that I’d like to see burned from my memory, but that’s just me.

Read it here. Any Sonic games you feel have missed the point (not necessarily crap)?

There are times when a person can feel isolated from the Sonic community. ‘Grow out of it’, if you will. But when that person becomes someone who’s been running a large-scale Sonic site for nearly eight years now, it starts to get worrying somewhat. I look at the SSMB and feel completely separate from it – like the people in there posting are guys I really can’t associate with (or care to).

We’ve been here before, yes. A few years ago. But this is different. That was anger. This is near despair, somewhat. Call it over-dramatic, but I feel like I have out-grown my own community’s target audience. My duties when it comes to SSMB is simply to keep a tight ship, but because of my feelings about how things are going with certain topics, personalities and atmospheres, there are only two ways to go. Get some extra planks and nails or abandon ship.

This is the planks and nails option. And this is far from your usual forum reshuffle, this is big news. There are forums that are so far beyond the point of no return that we have to literally take them back ourselves and keep them on a tight leash. There are people that are so self-righteous it is almost childish; people who’ll believe any old rumour on Youtube; people that just won’t stop talking about tired and staid subjects.

Essentially, I have had to take a look at my own forum and ask myself “What do I want from the SSMB?”. It’s nice that we have loads of forums to accommodate what the members here want – a personal chat forum, role playing, video games – but none of it means squat if we as staff don’t have the drive to look after them and make them a better place for you guys. In my eyes, the SSMB has become a jack of all trades, master of none.

In asking myself the question, I thought about what the focus of the SSMB should be and what it has become. It should be a thriving, mature place to chat about Sonic – a place to have a laugh while doing so and not rag on anyone for disliking (or liking) a particular game or comic or whatever. Respecting one another’s opinions, chatting about what you love about Sonic, learning more about the games and merchandise and other things from others in a common ground.

SSMB has not become this. It has been a forum that has focused on everything outside of Sonic discussion, and then some. People who believe they are right in their opinions on certain aspects of Sonic games (i.e. whether they’re good or crap). Rumour spreading (and not even believable ones either). Speculation topics that almost always end up involving unbelievable garbage and waffle that sound more Concept: Fanfiction than Concept: Mobius. The constant discussion of whether Sonic is going downhill, or whether he’s going back to his roots, or whether he’ll make another ad deal with Coca Cola for over nine thousaaaaaand dollar. Watch this space kids, watch this space.

Then of course you have the additional forums, which although have inspired some good discussion, have not altogether demonstrated why they deserve their own specific forum in the first place. And others which were good ideas in theory but staff no longer have the resources or time to maintain.

You could call this the dawn of a new era for the SSMB. We feel that we have outgrown the kind of topics and discussion that I have mentioned in the last couple of paragraphs. We want to encourage fun, enjoyable discussion for all – but for a different mindset, and thusly a different audience. Bizarrely enough, that particular audience is sitting right under my nose and I’ve only just realised.

I’d hate to be using examples at a time like this, and this is in no way a personal attack on anybody; simply something that allows me to illustrate what I’m saying. This topic, and the negativity within it, is the kind of stuff I am pretty tired of. Not necessarily the ‘opinions against SEGA’ thing – regardless of our ties with SoE we’d like to think we’re independent enough to tell them where to stick it when something bad happens. But simply the overreaction and instant negativity over something trivial. We’ve seen it before with the anti-Jason Griffith arguments here too – who really honestly gives a shit?

If you put your hand up just now, to quote Die Hard 4, “That’s what makes you that guy”.

To use a counter-example, this topic – excepting my opening post by all means – is exactly the kind of stuff I’m looking for. People like these, to put it bluntly, are people I really want to be seeing populating my community and the fact many of them regulate themselves to the announcements forum only is something that is truly saddening.

I feel that fewer forums, more concentrated on the subjects that best befit the SSMB, along with heavily overseeing the kinds of topics and posts people write, will help make this place the fun, interesting and close-knit forum it started out as, and I hope it to evolve into.

Many people will not like these changes. Many will object. That is fine, that is your prerogative, being a member here for so long (or not long at all, depending on your situation). But these will pretty much not be altered and will go ahead as planned. So if you feel that these changes will result in your leaving, then sorry to see you go. This topic will serve as an advance warning, because there are going to be people that will want to save certain information in topics before things get rolling. So listen up please.

I will outline the forums that are due to be removed or changed following the pending cleanup.

• TSS Network Forums: Individual TSSNET forums are not getting traffic, and it makes no sense to keep them when a unified forum for them all can work better. In terms of the SEGASonic Radio shows, we will work on the new website so you can find out information on your favourite LiVECAST that way. Discussion on SSR and the Sonic Show outside of announcements will be allowed here, along with future TSSNET sites. Sonic Show previous episodes will be available in the unified forum.
• Community Feedback: Originally a forum to allow open suggestions to improve the TSS website, SSMB and other places on the Network directly under my control, it hasn’t really lived up to the original hope I had for it. With TSS currently serving a total overhaul, it has made it difficult to take on board any suggestions properly, so for the time being it will be closed.
• Member Introductions: This forum was set up years ago for one purpose – to expand on the Buddy Center idea that quickly died a death shortly after. This will be missed by many because of the opportunity to say hello to new friends, but the forum feels far too separate from the rest of the SSMB – in that posting in there is not like posting in the ‘actual’ forums and getting right in on the action. There will be an Introductions topic in the new ‘General Discussion’ forum however, so newbies can still say hello to you hairy lot. It makes more sense too as you’re making your first post right in a primary forum. A specific forum for Introductions has run its course.
• Personal Chat: Personal Chat was made to help members connect in such a huge Message Board, by expanding on the General Discussion idea to talk about personal likes, dislikes and such things. Instead it turned into a ‘Dear Deidre’ forum full of topics that, arguably, belong better on Livejournals.
• Debates Centre: Although some of these topics were quite engaging, there’s nothing to support a separate forum for it when topics of that calibre can simply be made in the ‘General Discussion’ forum.
• Sonic Game Forums, Game Archive: This was a trial that ended up cluttering the SSMB. Game specific forums will remain for upcoming projects, but will be removed shortly after the game’s release, with the best topics being moved to the main Sonic forum.
• Miscellaneous Sonic: The vast universes of Sonic can be discussed in one unified forum. Whether that forum be more heavily game-related is entirely up to those that post within it. We have seen awesome topics from people like T-Bird regarding OST’s and other merchandise – to have it on the same level as healthy game discussion would make the perfect haven for members.
• ROM Hacking: With the awesome Tweaker gone from the SSMB Staff, this forum has unfortunately become defunct by default. We at TSS or SSMB do not have the expertise to maintain this forum, so it doesn’t make sense to pretend to. As Hacking is not the primary focus of the SSMB/TSS anyway, it will be removed. Sonic Retro has many articles and forums regarding ROM Hacking which would be a much more suitable home for the serious and honest Hacker.
• Role Playing, Light RP’s, Character Profiles, RP Discussion: I personally have no interest in maintaining this one, sorry guys. No point making up a phoney excuse and sounding like a cop-out. It just doesn’t suit TSS/SSMB’s style, it’s always been the kind of black sheep amongst forums for a while. HOWEVER! Don’t despair. Roareye Black will be ‘adopting’ Role Play topics within the Sonic Showcase Network – he specifically asked to look after them, so I handed them to him, so thank Roareye for keeping the dream alive. There will be stricter guidelines on how to create them and whatnot though, so look out for more details from Roareye soon (maybe in this topic or in a separate one, who knows).
• SoniClans: It’s time we put this puppy to rest. There’s nothing we can do for SoniClans anymore to keep it going, even to humour it. The Clans was an idea from an SSMB staffer that was put to trial by myself – since then staff have left and the focus of the project was ultimately lost forever. Maintaining it further is just an exercise in the staff deluding the members here. Most things that were promised or flaunted in the Clans – badges, events, that sort of thing – are planned and can be done on a much wider scale on the SSMB as a whole anyway.

The Sonic the Hedgehog (one unified forum) and Video Games forums will see a MAJOR overhaul in what kind of topics and posts we allow. I will personally be overlooking many if not all posts in the Sonic forum and picking/deleting/locking posts that I feel aren’t appropriate, or outside the reach of this forum. The VG forum will get the same treatment – gamertag/friend code stickies will be removed and members will need to place their codes in their signature or profiles from now on, and we are currently discussing how to make the forum a non-Nintendo rabid fanboy Zone. We’ll keep you posted on that.

Finally, the manner in which staff will be treating posts and rules and such will take a dramatic change. We will be re-enforcing the Three Strikes system, re-writing the rules and modifying our own conduct so that the SSMB is a more natural, friendly place to be.

I hope you all can see where I’m coming from here, and I hope these changes will usher in a new era for TSS/SSMB – a place for the well-informed, mature Sonic fan. If your behaviour matches any of the ‘no-go’s’ I’ve mentioned earlier though, I hope you will straighten yourself up soon if you want to still be a part of our forums. The changes will happen over the next week or two – Role Players will have roughly three or four weeks to save and backup all of their work before we delete them in favour of the SSN’s Textual Showcase forum.

So I’ve just spent the last few days working at SEGA Europe. It was fun. Can’t tell you all what for now, because otherwise I’d never hear the end of it (plus I did sign some stuff) so I’ll just say I went there and it was good. We also got Sonic Riders Zero Gravity in the house, so you’ll be seeing a review of that real soon (like, Friday) along with loads of crap I have on some asset disc I was given.

In other news, SEGA Superstars Tennis’ new site was launched the other day. I saw it the other night, it’s a really sweet looking website. Apparently people are excited about the fact that there’s a “Story” involved… er, I can say that yes, there is a ‘sort of’ story to the game. You won’t likely see it in the game, it’s just a premise that ties everything together. At least, I think it works pretty well so far. Don’t quote me on that though.

Finally, AAUK’s let us all name an alien race in Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood. BioWare have given SEGA Europe an important race of creatures that will feature prominently in the DS RPG. There’ll be a poll of names coming soon, and the winning name chosen by the community will be ‘the one’. The polls open on March 3rd, so we’ll have some more news for you when that time comes.

Hey guys, I know I’ve not been about a bit, have been scurrying things about like a squirrel for the site. Or something. Went to a pretty cool Mario & Sonic DS community event yesterday at the Wii Flat with some other Sonical chaps – although because it’s out on Friday and we weren’t given a review copy we ain’t reviewin’ it. So let us know what you think of it in the M&S Subforum in the games area of the SSMB!

Anyway, I’ve come to let you know that I’m planning something. Something rather big. You see, back in 2006, I headed up a side project called The Summer of Sonic, which was a successful collaboration of all the top Sonic fansites to celebrate Sonic’s 15th Anniversary. Despite rantings from now-dead forums claiming the idea would suck (yes FlashTHD, there is a reason the Sonic community is so separated, and that reason would be people like you), sites as diverse as TSS, Sonic Wrecks, Sonic CulT and even SEGA got involved in the festivities. Continue reading SoS! SoS! SoS!

It looks like you’re finally getting the hint. Now make a Sonic game that feels like this please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxjyC3ydT5A

Sincerely yours,
Sonic Fans Around The World.

Made you look. Now, a while ago Roareye Black and I participated in the Wrecks Factor singing contest. You probably thought that was over by now, but oh no. You still get a chance to vote for your favourite. Hint: It’s either mine or Rory’s. Well, not even Rory’s really. 😉 As a special gift to you, my friends, I give you the lyrics to Jingle All The Way: Continue reading Free Sex!

I would like to have everyone’s attention for a few moments, to pay tribute to a fansite that I have held in high regard ever since I joined the Sonic Online Community in 1999. People tend to ask me whether I had any inspirations when I made TSS, or what gave me the drive to start something like this website? First I tell them not to stalk me like I’m a celebrity, because that’s not where I’m at. I’ll sign breasts though. Secondly, I always have the same answer; a little website that I joined in ’99 called The Moogle Cavern.

The MC, like The Sonic Foundation before it, was the major inspiration for me to carry off my own Sonic site, but the Moogle Cavern has the sole distinction of being the website that truly rekindled my fandom of Sonic – a feeling I have always wanted to create in people who stumble to TSS – and made me take my first steps in the Internet Community.

At the time I didn’t know what I was doing with myself. I had literally burst onto the scene after realising that there were people who were fans of Sonic just like me, on this great thing called the Internet. What blew my mind was that on my school computers I could see all these pieces of art, and discussion and music from the Sonic series. The Moogle Cavern had quite a bit of content back in those days, serving Final Fantasy as well as Sonic and few other factions of cult gaming. It was the Sonic hoaxes I always went back to though – the concept of emulation was alien to me, and it was hilarious seeing edits of screenshots being submitted by like-minded folk all around the world. I think I was the only one in my school group who really understood what was going on – my friends all thought they were meant to be real screens of Sonic 3&K with Eggman in a tutu. Nice.

Soon enough, I visited the forums and became a regular at the Moogle MB. Yes, Dreadknux was a resident of somewhere other than the SSMB, you can stop looking so shocked. I made friends with the coolest bunch of people there – Kulock, who was such an approachable admin (something I aspired to be when I created my own forums a year or so later), H Hog, Andrusi, Joshu (who’s still around here somewhere, eating the dirty peanuts in the corner of the TSS IRC Chatroom like the monkey that he is! >:O Do some work!), Gold Sonic and more. I’ll never forget the fun times I had there, especially the nutty RP’s we used to do.

Unfortunately, as SSMB got off the ground my focus was needed elsewhere and so I said a farewell to my chums. I always tried to return properly, and did so every now and then, but it was all so short-lived due to work, uni and the ballooning of TSS amongst a few things. In fact, from what I hear (I’ve actually been away the last few days) there were some nostalgic moments upon the final few days of the Cavern being active. Had I known about such an unfortunate turn of events for the website, I’d have been at the forums like a shot to say one last goodbye to everyone. Alas, I never turned up, and it really bums me out to not give a website that has inspired me so much a great goodbye, so I’m doing it right here.

The Moogle Cavern, despite its run-ins with other sites and all the other drama surrounding it over the years, has always been one of the main talking points of the Sonic Community. During its peak it was a healthy website with a booming community, over time the website became lost but the community really grew to be one of the go-to places for Sonic discussion. I wish all the old members of the MC, and Kulock, all the best. The Moogle Cavern and the Moogle MB means an awful lot to me, but in its closing I think we should be thinking about its relevance in the entire Sonic Community and how much it has done for all aspiring webmasters and Sonic fans that walked through it’s virtual doors.

Here’s to the Moogle Cavern, 1997-2008. Another Golden Oldie respectfully closes. Kulock, it’s been an awesome run, dude.

Hope the first few days of 2008 are going well for you guys. I’ve been busy the last few days recreating skins for the SSMB. Last Friday I sneakily replaced the narrow Two Foxy skin with a new widescreen/liquid version, which even though it’s the same colour scheme, I really think is an improvement. Yesterday those who were advocates of the Knucklehead skin noticed that their favourite red skin had also been updated, stretchy-pants design and all. Today, I’ve finished a character skin of someone I started 12 months ago but never finished. At last, you can view the SSMB in the ‘Creamed’ skin design in all its light coloured glory. (Note: I know the buttons are still from the Knuckles skin — hopefully we’ll get that fixed soon). Let me know what your opinions are of these new skins; hopefully they’re making up for the loss of the Halloween and Christmas skins. I’m not stopping either; expect updated and new skins soon.

For some of you, the year’s going to get a little bit better – the SSMB and TSS staff have judged amongst the entries of the three competitions held over the last month and have come up with winners! Read on to find out who clinched the prizes![break]

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Christmas Card Contest:
For this contest, we asked you to grab your pens, pencils or computer writing tablets and design a new Christmas Card for the TSS crew. It was Violet94’s festive picture of Sonic in a Santa suit that won her first prize. Click here to see Violet94’s entry. Violet94 wins a promotional copy of Sonic Rivals 2 on PSP, plus an exclusive Sonic Rivals 2 T-Shirt.

The cute and funny style of Gabz Girl’s nativity picture earned her the second place prize. Eggman as the saviour of the world? WTF indeed! Click here to see Gabz Girl’s entry. Gabz Girl wins Issues #177 and #181 of Sonic Archie comics, Issue #25 of the Sonic X comic and a blue ‘Sonic Team’ themed Mario & Sonic T-Shirt.

Finally, the third prize goes to Christmas Band, for his uniquely colourful entry – it made us all think of candy canes and random chocolates you get at Christmas. Because I love chocolate coins, CB gets third place. Click here to see Christmas Band’s entry. Christmas Band wins a Sonic and the Secret Rings soundtrack sampler, plus a kid’s size Sonic X T-Shirt.

Honourable Mentions:
Alex Sly Cooper: there’s nothing better than getting Chaos Emeralds on Christmas Day. Just don’t let Eggman get them;
Sonaos: the fact that Black Doom was jingling away on the piano almost won her a prize;
Diogo: An awesome recreation of the nativity play using Sonic characters. Reminds us of Sonic and the Secret Rings, actually.
Supersaiyanneo: Cute picture of Sonic and the gang singing Christmas Carols. And, it’s a Christmas Carol as well (everyone knows of my well-documented hatred of ‘Carollers’ that don’t actually bother. Welcome to Essex).

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Photograph Contest:
Imagination was the name of the game here, as we asked everyone to take a photo relating to Sonic and Christmas. Supersaiyanneo was the clear first place winner here with his awesome use of Sonic plushies and set pieces to take a snap of a scene. We especially like Tails’ uncharacteristic apathy at Eggman nicking off with the toys. Click here to see Supersaiyanneo’s entry. Supersaiyanneo wins a Phantasy Star Universe soundtrack sampler, a choice of either a Sonic or Tails action figure, plus a yellow 15th Anniversary Sonic 1 sprite T-Shirt.

Stratoss-Phere earned second prize because the crappiness of his photo added a layer of intrigue to his entry. We can see Knuckles in a Christmas hat, but just what’s going on everywhere else? It’s like something you’d have in a nightmare on Christmas Eve. Click here to see Stratoss-Phere’s entry. Stratoss-Phere wins Sonic Rush Adventure for Nintendo DS, a blue ‘Sonic Team’ themed Mario & Sonic T-Shirt and either a Sonic or Tails action figure (whichever is left from Supersaiyanneo’s first pick).

Although we tend to think grabbing a load of plushies and lining them up is pretty lazy, we have to hand it to Sonaos for at least putting it into a decent Christmassy context. Decorating a tree with merchandise in place of baubles and tinsel earns you third place. Click here to see Sonaos’ entry. Sonaos wins SEGA Mega Drive Collection for PS2 and a red ‘Team Mario’ themed Mario & Sonic T-Shirt.

Honourable Mentions:
Narstyle: Just missed out, but we just love those massive Sonic and Tails things. I think Adam had a heart attack.

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Writing Contest:
NB: In checking out these entries, ignore any instances of the ‘Ó’ character – they weren’t typos in the entries but rather artifacts that appeared when converting the entries into txt format, which I couldn’t be arsed to fix.

There were four prizes to give away for this contest; potentially the easiest but in reality much harder to win because… well, we get sent a lot of crap. The mission was to simply write what Sonic and Christmas (together) means to you. Stratoss-Phere just clinched the top prize, with a very bizarre story featuring the TSS Staff. It was very difficult to read, very difficult to understand and involves a pointless and gratuitous use of the word ‘fuck’. Had this been any other entry we’d have pushed it off the face of the earth, but it just made us chuckle incessantly. Click here to read Stratoss-Phere’s entry. Stratoss-Phere wins an ultra-rare Mario & Sonic Olympic Shirt, a Mario & Sonic carrier bag to put it in and a Sonic 06 mug.

Elf Tamer came a very close second, with a story that includes a self-reflecting message within it. It’s a good vehicle to detail your fan-ness of Sonic and we loved reading it. Click here to read Elf Tamer’s entry. Elf Tamer wins a red ‘Team Mario’ and blue ‘Sonic Team’ themed Mario & Sonic T-Shirts plus a copy of Sonic Rush Adventure on Nintendo DS.

Third prize goes to Jelly, who spoke from the heart and told all about what being a Sonic fan means. It’s a more literal account of the ‘Sonic, Christmas and me’ statement we set for our members, and it’s well written. Click here to read Jelly’s entry. Jelly wins SEGA Classics Collection on PS2 and a blue ‘Sonic Team’ themed Mario & Sonic T-Shirt.

Finally, but perhaps not least, is the fourth prize winner, and that goes to Sonic_Fan due to its sheer absurdity. We certainly weren’t expecting a complete hatred of Mario fans, instigating a death of the Mario fanbase while TSS apparently dances from their sadness. I’d like to say we wouldn’t endorse that kind of actions really, but we would endorse this entry because it’s quite silly and made us laugh a lot. Click here to read Sonic_Fan’s entry. Sonic_Fan wins a Sonic and the Secret Rings T-Shirt and a Mario & Sonic branded pin and keychain.

Honourable Mentions:
Kadosho: Sonic is a Christmas gift in itself he says. We tend to agree.
Nintendogs: We liked that Sonic spindashed Santa right in the face.
Supersaiyanneo: Told us a cool account of what made him a Sonic fan, and what Christmas means to him with Sonic merchandise.

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Those who have won prizes, please PM me with your mailing address so we can get these to you as soon as possible! Supersaiyanneo also needs to tell me which out of a Sonic or Tails action figure he would prefer. Many thanks to Kevin from SEGA Europe, Adam (T-Bird) and Turbo for providing all of these prizes, and thanks to all that took part in the contests and the rest of the advent calendar.

It’s New Years Eve people. Well, it is for us British folk right now. Antipodean chums like Hawkz and Elson might have had it already because they like to gatecrash a party early (I’ve heard about Andrew’s stories…), but by and large… New Years Eve, OK? And that means 2008 is right around the corner. Also means for me, that I reflect on the last 12 months and reckon where it is I’ve gone wrong. I’d be lying if I said that 2007 has been good – it’s been bloody fantastic, all things considered.

The Sonic Stadium has played host to many great meetups involving growing numbers of Sonic fans. In May Elson ‘Darkspeeds’ Wong took a trip around the world and landed in London, planning to meet up with myself and Adam along the way. Somehow more people invited themselves along and it became what was known as ‘Wrecksfest’. It couldn’t have been a better turn of events though, as a group of 12 or so guys and gals waltzed the city, went to the pub for several hours and had dinner at Pizza Hut. We also arranged another meetup later that year which was dubbed ‘BirdCon’ for Adam’s apparent move to Japan (which never happened due to certain issues with the company involved). TSS was also there for Video Games Live 2007 in November and a special trip to SEGA Europe to play Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games weeks before the UK release. It’s ironic that not one meetup has been named after us yet, really.

Speaking of which, Sonic Cage Dome’s Zizou is heading to London in a few days time, an event to which I am invited to, so I’ll be out to see the Cage Dome guys round about then. If you fancy tagging along, see this website for more details. We’ll have more meetups in 2008 though, and when I can be bothered to fix one up you guys will be the first to know. It’ll probably be sometime in the holidays so as many people as possible can make the trip.

We’ve also been to Japan! Aw yeah. TSS was able to sneak into the Tokyo Game Show and take sordid pictures of a guy in the best Sonic costume ever created. We also played the new NiGHTS before the whole world and got a taste of manic Japanese gaming action. It was an experience to be sure, and we’re currently pulling the video we made so we can show you some of the stuff we took at the event too.

Games-wise, it’s been a mixed bag. The good news is that we haven’t had any real horrors the likes of which we’ve only seen in Sonic 06 (I tried to play that again the other day, almost threw my controller around in a rage), but on the flipside we’ve not had a proper canon Sonic game this year. To be honest, I don’t care as long as when it does come around, it’s as polished as possible. I want 2007 to be the year SEGA realises that they have to go back to basics on some level with the franchise – evident when America bossman Simon Jeffery spoke exclusively to TSS in October.

It wasn’t all mildly amusing spinoffs though, especially not on the handheld front. Sonic Rush Adventure has been a standout game, slapping everything else Sonic flat in the face and being the first TSS 10/10 in aeons. It could be argued that the game only got top marks by comparing it to recent Sonic games. Not so; there are elements in Rush Adventure that could rival the Mega Drive classics and that is a pretty big feat for SEGA – especially the SEGA of this day and age – to pull off.

We’ve had our fair share of competitions too. Sonic Rush Adventure in particular had a cool Treasure Hunt contest to win awesome branded gear, and this Christmas in particular has had a crapload of free goodies that’s asking for your collection. I’m posting the entries sent into me to the moderators later today and we’ll be judging those over the next few days, so hang tight for that!

In terms of TSS and progress and things, it’s been a bit of a less impressive year. The site’s not been so active lately and 2007 has been more of a transitional period for us than anything else. Next year we’ll see some things come together properly, like the re-organisation of the TSS site, the completion of the new Sonic Show website (that’ll be first thing on our list of ‘to-do’s) and plenty more besides. I’ll be pursuing my journalism career much more than before, and with this I’ll be a little bit more set on sorting the site and everything else out. 2008 is going to be a pretty good year, let’s hope we can make it even better than this one just gone!

Make some new years resolutions that you’ll probably break later, be sure to go out and get completely wasted, and I’ll see you on the other side. Before I go, a massive thank you to a few people who without them couldn’t have made this year possible – Adam Tuff for his Sonic madness, the TSSNET and SSMB staff (every one of you) for your extraordinary efforts this year, B’man for his sexy codingness, Kevin Eva for his continued work in the links between community and SEGA in which I started in 2005, Roarey for just being totally awesome and having the time to dedicate to stuff no matter what the issue, and of course you guys – the members and visitors, who have stuck with us no matter what kind of bullshit we’ve had in the past.

Here’s to you. Go 2008!

Today’s Christmas update involves some updating of the Sonic Cartoons section at long last – Roarey Raccoon is deeply involved with writing up episode synopses for Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and you can catch the first three episodes in the Cartoons > AoStH section. Down over in the DefChamba you can also download high quality versions of the AoStH opening and ending themes, plus the legendary ‘Sonic Sez’ from Episode 3 (that’s NO good).

In other news, to keep you up to date with what’s actually happening with the Sonic Site Awards to hand out, the award designer DarkNoise appears to have been having problems for the longest time with his art program, generally messing up both his plans and our plans to get those awards to the winners. Rest assured, the moment they’re all ready I’ll wing them direct like.