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Sega this morning filed an official press release for Sonic Rush, the upcoming DS title starring Sonic and the new character, Blaze the Cat. (Read about it here) Whilst next to no new details were unveiled, Sega have said that they are aiming for a late 2005 launch for this title.
Stay With SONIC NEWS for more Sonic Rush information as it appears.
The latest Sonic game to be revealed will feature a new character known as Blaze The Cat, who will also be playable along side Sonic. So far the games graphics and gameplay look to be very simular to the Advance series. Below info comes straight from GameSpot:
The Sonic the Hedgehog series has gone all over the place since games went 3D. Sonic Adventure sort of took the game away from its high-speed roots, though Sonic Heroes certainly delivered its own take on Sonic’s fast-moving antics. But still, there’s something to be said for the classics. Sonic Rush appears to be on that classic track, delivering the high-speed side-scrolling 2D that the early games in the series is known for. But by taking advantage of the Nintendo DS’s dual screens, Sonic Rush is definitely a new spin on an old favorite.
Sonic Rush puts you in the roles of Sonic the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat as they run real fast and attempt to recover the sol emeralds. Blaze isn’t playable in the short demo being shown at E3, but she’ll have her own separate adventure that, of course, often crosses paths with Sonic’s.
Sega of Europe has recently opened their Official Project Rub Website with the release of the game. The website is almost as unique as the game itself, featuring mini-games, wallpapers, information on the game, as well as a trailer. The website also has 5 tiny blue rabbits that can be rubbed, which will unveil a special treasure.
Project Rub was released in Europe on the Nintendo DS recently and was known as Feel the Magic XX/XY in America, and originally as Kimishine in Japan.
If you havent had enough of Puyo Pop Fever, then theres new screens of its latest version, this time for the Nintendo DS. GamesAreFun has 30 shiney new Screenshots to drool over. The latest version will be developed by Atlus USA this time, and not Sonic Team/Sega. The game is scheduled to be released next month on the DS, and then a month later on a Sony PSP.
Sonic Team’s Project Rub hit European shores today as the Nintendo DS was released to the public.
The Nintendo DS has 15 launch titles; Sonic Team develops one of which. Project Rub (known also as Feel the Magic XX/XY in America) is an off-the-wall series of mini-games that revolve around pleasing the “girl of your dreams”. It has a wacky sense of humour and is full of Sonic Team’s trademark innovations.
A love-dating sim? It doesn’t seem to be Sonic Team’s style now, does it? And you’d be right – Feel The Magic is being developed, like Space Channel 5, Rez and Astro Boy before it, by the artist formerly known as United Game Artists. UGA have always had a flair for innovative artistic display, and Feel The Magic looks set to break the boundaries of at least the Sonic Team label.
The graphics are shaping up to be superbly unique, suiting the cult-like following and niche audiences UGA have recieved from their past projects. The graphics use both the 2D and 3D capabilities of the Nintendo DS console: at times the silhouetted characters turn out to be actual polygonal figures as well, and the design of the entire game produces an air of cool not seen since the ‘status quo’ already established with the Apple iPod adverts. And how much more niche could you get for the Western market too – Dating titles are very much a gaming delicacy best served in its native Japanese homeland, but this brave move to retail Feel The Magic to even America is as bold as the colourful graphics themselves.
Not that any of us should be complaining; it saves us all the trouble of importing it, doesn’t it? And far from being one of the generic and confusing love quests littering Japan, Feel The Magic actually keeps things as entertaining and as simple as possible. You play as yourself (albeit not ‘with’ said person, else that kind of denounces the point of the game), a guy who desperately falls in love with the hottest gal in town. But she’s not putting out so easily. She wants you to show how much you will dedicate yourself to her. She wants to be impressed. She wants a guy to truly love her, and treat her like a true gent (you being the gent, not her).
At this juncture, usually you would expect a bunch of annoying, tedious and rampantly agitating adventure quests and modes, chatting up her friends to maybe see what she likes best and all that tosh. Feel The Magic really does have some tricks up it’s proverbial sleeve, choosing to stick to short, amusing and downright wacky mini-games. Think more along the lines of Wario Ware on Game Boy Advance, but with an actual love interest theme. And the games revealed so far sound very innovative and promising:
In one mini-game, a random dude manages to eat all sorts of sealife animals. On the bottom screen of the Nintendo DS, using the touch screen you must push the animals out of the person’s stomach and up his throat so that he can then regurgitate them out of his fat gob (shown on the top screen of your NDS) with cheeky grin and all. Another allows you to clean the apple of your eye, as she falls face first into a pile of crud, while in a similar touchy game you must pick scorpions off of your potential Valentine, whilst being careful to not actually rub her up yourself (she’ll get a little annoyed you’re not bothering to pick the scorpions off her back if your hands start a-wandering…). One really imaginitive aspect that struck me as fantastic was the way even the Nintendo DS microphone was being used: one mini-game has you trying to blow out candles, and you do this by blowing into your DS Mic. The DS can detect how hard you are blowing (easy) and will show on the touch screen accordingly. Thus, if you blow too hard (oi) you could end up winding yourself.
The touch screen and microphone are apparently the only functions of the Nintendo DS being used for this game, to keep things relatively simple throughout, and with 30 mini-games like the ones mentioned above, including tapping bulls to avoid a stampede and digging for your love’s lost possessions on the beach, you can tell United Game Artists will help turn Sonic Team back into the cult original developer it once was during it’s Burning Rangers hey-days. This is going to be an incredibly quirky game that uses the DS’ functions and makes perfect display of the things that make the new handheld unique. It will be released as a launch title in Japan and in America too, and that shouldn’t leave much doubt for a launch title proposal for Europe too, pray the powers above.
