Stuck on that Carnival Night drum since 1997 1994

Sonic Riders was released and has promptly joined the recent legion of Sonic games I have thus far been unable to motivate myself to play. If you count Sonic Gems, the total number is now up to 4, or 4˝ if you include Advance 3, which I left unfinished. I am now farther behind in my Sonic playing than I ever have been since the inception of the series. However, though I may yet be ignorant to hoverboard-riding bird gangs and flame-wielding lavender cats, I am still quite on top of my hedgehogian lore. All of the museum pages up to Sonic & Tails 2 have been brushed up yet again, and I am, for the moment, satisfied with them. I've added some new info here and there, so if you haven't checked up in a while, it might be worth your time (relatively speaking) to browse through the museum articles through the year 1994. (Special thanks yet again to HarihariSonic of Act Select, whose relentless crusade to educate the masses in the most obscure knowledge of the entire Sonic continuum has allowed me to update the Gameworld and Music Maker pages with the same level of info found elsewhere on the site.)

Actually, in regards to the Sonic & Tails 2 page - some of those enemy names I hesitate to toss around as canon. The manual uses some very peculiar kana combinations, and my translations are halfway to being wild guesses. As usual, the original kana is included on the museum page, so if anyone can come up with some better romanizations, by all means, have at it.

A couple of months ago, Game Pro (which is, against all justice and probability, still in publication) ran a short article on the upcoming 360/PS3 Sonic game. As is to be expected, the article is puerile and contrived and wouldn't be worth mentioning at all except that it confirms the game's director is Shun Nakamura. That is, not Takashi Iizuka, who is presently #1 on my list of "People I Want to Bitch Slap", who has directed every major Sonic game since Sonic Adventure, and who ran out of ideas in 2001. Nakamura's only major credit that I can find is director of Samba de Amigo - which, mind, is a good credit, but that's a very different sort of game. It's hard to speculate at this point just how effective a talent shift will be, and the early crop of screenshots trickling from Sega's PR regions, while they have offered some small relief, have also failed to impress. There is tension in the air.

Sega's updated the Sonic Channel website with all the usual schtick. The layout has been improved and the excruciating flash interface has thankfully been eliminated. Of particular interest is the character survey, which rounds up 28 of the more prominent cast members and invites readers to select their favorites. The results, the site promises, will be posted on June 23, Sonic's 15th birthday. The poll, unfortunately, is only in Japanese, but here I offer my clumsy 101 C- translations for we happy foreigners who would have our opinions known in this affair:

1. Pick your 3 favorite characters in descending order.
2. This one is either asking which character you like playing as, which character you would like to become, or which character is best in bed. I'm not totally certain.
3. Which character would you like to see more of?
4. If you were going on an adventure, which character would you choose as your partner?
5. Which character would you choose to go on a trip with?
6. Which character would you like to play sports with?

Reminding the people of Earth once again that I do not play World of Warcraft and never will. -- Green Gibbon!

• Hurricane Rita dumped her load on the gulf coast around the Texas/Louisiana border. Power here went out for about 24 hours. The roof lost a shingle. A huge disappointment from what was supposedly the fourth most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. Category 1 Lili packed a bigger punch.
• Sony released Wander to Kyozou, aka Wander and the Colossus. Despite an average framerate of about 7fps, the game manages to be beautiful, effectively stripping the makings of a quality action RPG down to the overworld and boss fights. That's a bit of an understatement - I should say the best boss fights ever. Regardless, I'm probably one of the few people who had more fun just roaming around the vast landscape, gazing in awe at the attention to detail so minute it will be sought out and appreciated by myself and maybe two other people on the entire planet, and we're the same three who consider Shenmue the best game ever made. Still no sign of those damn sailors, though.
• Microsoft released the Xbox 360. Its debut marks the first time I haven't bought a new console at launch since the N64. I also haven't been this indifferent to a new piece of hardware since the 3DO. Sterile launch line-up aside (as that is now par for the course), I really can't see where the evolution is supposed to be. Motion blur effects?
• Sega released Sonic Rush. It seems to be popular with DS fanboys masturbating furiously over the Hideki Naganuma soundtrack. It does not seem to be especially popular with any other groups. I have yet to play it.
• Sega released Shadow the Hedgehog, crushing a hope I've long held that its announcement was simply mental backlash from some prescription drugs I was taking at the time. It is not even popular with Nintendo fanboys, much less anybody else. I have yet to play it.
• Hwang Woo-Suk's breakthrough stem cell research turns out to be a fraud of stupendous proportions, reaffirming South Korea's role as the ghetto of the technological world. Criminal charges will likely be dropped, however, as the government put the investigation on hold when it became apparent that the whole affair would interfere with their Ragnarok Online time.
• Dragon Quest VIII was released in the US. It's the first time since the 16-bit era that Squaresoft character design has been based on the traditional approach (ie, "I bet a character like this will be fun") as opposed to the modern approach ("based on our market research of popular trends conducted in Hot Topic retail outlets across the nation, a trite, gaudy, and hopelessly sterile character such as this will be popular with our target demographic, so make him look like this but change his weapon"). It's no Eternal Arcadia, but there's still a heart and soul in DQ's very traditional approach to the genre that I'd long abandoned hope of ever seeing again in a Square-Enix game. I believe the talented underdog team at Level 5 is exclusively to blame for this unexpected spike in quality.

  Don't know what you're smiling about, Naka... you're next.

• Ryuu ga Gotoku was released in Japan, and it touches my Shenmue nerve hard. I really want to play it.
• On the topic of recently released Japanese games that I want to play, I should mention Rogue Galaxy, Exit, and Karakuri.
• Animeigo has just released the final boxset of Urusei Yatsura DVD's, which marks the first time that the entire series has been available in the US and is also the precursor to my imminent suicide because once I've finished watching all the Lum there is to watch, I'm not really sure what I'll have to live for. I guess I should schedule counseling sessions in advance, except that death really just seems like less trouble and a more permanent solution.
• Facing charges of crimes against humanity for his recent work, Sonic Team director Takashi Iizuka agrees to commit seppuku and restore his honor as the once-great creative force behind such triumphs as Sonic 3 and NiGHTS. (Actually this hasn't happened yet, but I'm working on it.)

Despite the silence on the front page, site maintenance has never ceased, and some dusty corners have been swept up as per usual. I've updated the museum pages for Mean Bean Machine 8-bit, Cosmo Fighter, Sonic Drift, and Sonic 3, with the S&K page underway. Minor updates have been made to the museum timeline (mainly some European release dates and box art I had hitherto been missing), the cameos page (a couple of new screenshots courtesy of PMM), and the Sonic Café page.

Alot of people have been asking about the as-yet nonexistant Sonic Advance 3 page, I guess because the recent releases have made the extent of my languor evident. I've actually yet to beat Sonic Advance 3... I would not anticipate a museum page for it until I've totally caught up in rewriting all of the stale ones. At the rate I'm going, that should be around 2023. Needless to say, museum pages for Gems, Rush, and Shadow are even further down the line, especially considering the only way I think I'm going to be able to motivate myself to play through them is if the PS3/360 Sonic turns out to be as amazing as it needs to be, and well... I wish I could say I expected that to happen. -- Green Gibbon!

I think it's a beautiful piece of footage, both technically and aesthetically. The changing daylight is a particularly nice effect that could be utilized for some cool ambience. I think there was a general feeling of relief all-round as soon as we concluded that the game was not hideous (as some recent Sonic titles have been), and furthermore, that there were no obvious gimmicks such as "team action" or weaponry. But at the same time, this is new technology we're talking about. It's supposed to be gorgeous; that doesn't qualify as a special feature. The short of the matter is that what I'm seeing, at least, is a very, very pretty Sonic Adventure 1. Granted, I have defended the original Sonic Adventure for years and will do so even now - I still think it's as close to a totally successful 3D Sonic game as Sega's ever come. However, that was 7 years ago on hardware half as powerful. It may still turn out to be an altogether solid platformer, but it most certainly is not the "reinvention" that Sega was promising.

Moreover, I think Sega's brouhaha could turn out to be the deathblow. Of course this PR pageantry is nothing new, but Naka has really been talking the proverbial talk this time. Reverting to the original, undecorated series title is a particularly ballsy move. They are, in effect, advertising, "Okay, this time we're doing it for real." It's easy (for a fan, at least) to brush aside misfires like Sonic Heroes and Shadow with the ever-potent, tried & true "Well, it's not really a Sonic game." This time, however, Sega have ventured to take away even that pillow of reassurance. The ice is thin, and we are skating on it. A prettier Sonic Adventure is not going to be enough. -- Green Gibbon!

Of possibly more significant ramifications, Sega's also announced a new Sonic for the next crop of consoles. I don't think any of us ever doubted that such a thing would be attempted, so that's no big surprise (indeed, I'll be thrown for a loop the next time I hear that there are no new Sonic titles in development). So far the only screenshots they've released are four stills from the E3 tech demo, and while they're pretty, they don't possess much visual flair - that's a fairly generic landscape Sonic's running around in. Still, there's no indication as to what extent, if any, these shots represent the mystery title. Naka speaks mighty words about "reinventing" the series, but such PR squeal is of little worth, so it's really impossible to determine yet whether we should be thrilled, terrified, or flat-out indifferent. Interestingly, the title of the game seems to be simply "Sonic the Hedgehog." Disregarding all sequels and reverting to the original title is not uncommon for series that have been dormant for years, but it's a bit awkward for the Sonic series which has, of course, never been dormant. Ideally it would reflect their desire to jettison the excess baggage and maybe, finally, really give us a new Sonic game - but pardon me if I've become a bit skeptical by this point. Mr. Naka, please make sure Iizuka remains placated with Shadow and don't let him near this one, then we shall see what we shall see.

Anyway, shifting to more immediate concerns, the Sonic Spinball and Mean Bean Machine pages have been updated. The latter will, of course, be excluded from the encyclopedia, but I'm still not totally decided on the former. With references to Sonic's early 90's TV cartoons, some serious Chaos Emerald continuity discrepancies, and a grossly off-model Eggman, it's not a game that is entirely kosher. But I still think the Veg-O-Fortress is cool, so I dunno. What say you happy children? -- Green Gibbon!

Written content and original graphics copyright © 1997-2006 Jared Matte. Sonic the Hedgehog characters, logos, and images are trademarks of SEGA Corporation. The GHZ is an independent fansite and is not affiliated with SEGA Corporation. Webhosting provided by Emulation Zone and Emulation World.