Scrap Brain

Wing Fortress Zone

Full Death Egg Zone

Hydrocity Zone

Quartz Quadrant Zone

Reactive Plant

Emerald Coast

Windy Valley

Casinopolis

Sky Deck

Final Egg

Metal Harbor

Radical Highway

Sonic Heroes: NOTHING

Apatos

Chu-Nan

Tropical Resort

As well as commentary on Already Confirmed:

Green Hill Zone – Well, how can you go wrong? This has gotta be cool.

Chemical Plant – I’m pretty excited about this too.

Launch Base – Never got this far in the game.

Sky Sanctuary – Or this far.

Speed Highway – Perhaps the most generic, non-recognizable level in the game (possibly excepting Ice Cap; even the traditional Casino level had that unique sewer section) One of the worst choices for the game, which REALLY frustrates me.

City Escape – Pretty cool, but another city level?

Seaside Hill – A Sonic Heroes level. This aggravates me to no end.

Crisis City – Don’t. Even.

Rooftop Run – Never played much of this.

Planet Wisp – This one looks like it’ll be a nice fit.

With E3 came a lot of game announcements, and I, like many others, am now highly anticipating New Super Mario Bros. Mii. Here I thought I’d list some of the features I hope it has.

-Online Multiplayer (co-op and competitive, please hold the friend codes)

-In-game stage editor (maybe you can even share these online?)

-Difficult bosses

-Unique worlds

-A time attack/score attack mode

-Secret/Hidden characters (Knowing Nintendo this is a long shot, but maybe Kirby or Ness?)

-An 8-Bit mode

-It was all quite spread out and felt like an open world

-There was an awful lot of running around

-It was nice and bright, with green grass and sun outside (though with clouds), while inside, buildings frequently had dark walls, pipes on the ceiling, ominous yellow lighting, lots of stairs and openings/exits, multiple ways to get anywhere, a lot of side rooms, the occasional dripping pipe, and lots of warning signs (Emerald Coast and Final Egg)

-There was a manhole cover on the grass (yes, there was a manhole under it) right near this complex of stair I frequently ran up that was sort of a gateway between the two parts where the Olympiad took place and the water underneath was SO LOUD I thought it might burst any minute.

-At the awards ceremony, our options boiled down to (a) sitting around for a really long time (roughly a total of six hours), or (b) just leaving.

There you have it. I’m not sure if this does an adequate job of communicating how it felt, but believe me, as a guy who’s logged over 100 hours in Sonic Adventure (on Gamecube) over the past 6 years, the experience was very similar – and a BLAST!

Sonic is seen running around in what appears to be Green Hill Zone and talking to himself. A robot that bears a resemblance to a grey (Sonic Battle-era) Chaos-Gamma appears and fights Sonic, using (Perfect) Choas-like powers. Sonic defeats him and a new Death Egg is seen launching into space. Just about every other page is an ad, and an issue with a “Total Scourge Lockdown” is advertised toward the end. 3/5

Scourge being, for those of you who don’t know, the green comic book anti-Sonic.

It is unknown how long the shutdown will continue. Hopefully the network will be back up by my birthday next month, as I am anticipating copious quantities of Portal 2 will occur just about then.

WAIT! HOLD UP! Who on earth would come up with a silly idea like that? Me, silly readers, for I am a music junkie.

Anyways…

U2 – Vertigo
Blood Red Shoes – It’s Getting Boring by the Sea
Pendulum – Witchcraft
Pendulum – Watercolour
The Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch
Survivor – Eye of the Tiger
Gorillaz – Punk
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
The Prodigy – Firestarter
Raybob Industries, Inc. – Neon Spring Blossoms

I think I’ll focus on the most definite stuff for this game. First off, the 3D Sonic still looks like he plays very on rails. Classic Sonic, meanwhile, seems to be relying too much on classic level design, while still carrying the baggage of poor vertical scrolling camera programming, and sub-par details – why does Sonic uncurl when he goes off a ramp?

In general, though, I think that Sega needs to REALLY look back at the old games and think about what it was that made them so great, not throw in old gimmicks. Yes, the fully functional gameplay looks nice, but with all that we’ve learned about gaming in the past twenty years, it depresses me to no end that Sega really hasn’t beaten their old accomplishments in the most basic areas. Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast was received like the second coming of Christ (not to be sacrilegious, this was just how people reacted) for certain reasons; Sega needs to look back at the core, heart and soul, of those games to figure out why it is that people loved – and LOVE – those games so much. If they just do that, it won’t matter if it’s 2D, 3D, classic, modern, HD, retro, if he’s got green eyes, belt buckles, or what. People will love it for the work of art it is.

Also, I got to play a 3DS in there, and must say that it excellent; it really felt like I was looking into a world there. Though, since the game was Street Fighter IV, I couldn’t tell how much it really helped 3D gameplay.

Also, if anyone’s interested, Kirby’s Epic Yarn is only $30 at Gamestop, and Sonic Unleashed is $10 – NEW – on 360. Yeah. it’s times like these I wish I had a 360.

In it, we see Sonic running through a sort of Green Hill Zone (purple and sunflowers are visible a few seconds in, not to mention the checkerboard soil). I really like the retro-designed Sonic; he looks like he came straight out of an HD-Sonic R remake.

It also looks like only Sonic(s?) will be playable at this point, which has rarely steered us wrong in the past. Now, even though I’ve been extremely cynical in the past, my experience playing through basically all of Sonic Colors and playing the Unleashed HD (demo), I think that if Sega just made everything “Classic” mode – i.e., no more egg pawns, no more Unleashed robots, just badniks – and slowed down and fine tuned the engine they’ve been using, and put it on HD consoles (only?! *grumble*) I think they could have a really cool game on their hands. Or we might get Sonic 4 3D. Who knows? Speaking of which, I wonder if this right here is Sonic 4 episode 2…

Oh yes, and could somebody please verify if that really is Classic Sonic? I ask because I haven’t been able to confirm if the original Sonic had the belt buckle or not (this one does). And SPEAKING of Sonic Shoes…

Yes, another project I had brewing for those Dreamcast contests..no, I never won anything : (

Well, here’s hoping for Sonic 5…WTH?! What is that “Kinect” logo doing at the end of the video in the fine print?!?!