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Well, Sonic Gems now has a little trailer at http://e3.sega.com and I'm VERY pleased to say that Sonic CD, Sonic Fighters and Sonic R are all confirmed and definately on there.

Sonic Fighters was never released outside of arcades, so that's reason enough to buy. If Sonic CD has Japanese or both soundtracks, I'll be over the moon.

But, what REALLY catches my interest is the art work, and the "mystery game" which Sega are hinting at.

The art work features Sonic and Metal Sonic all over, this entire game is basically a huge publicity package for the raging robot, with all of the main titles featuring him as a big feature (last boss in Fighers, "main threat" (storyline wise) in CD and the first hidden character in R).

I was chatting to a friend about the logic of promoting Shadow and Metal Sonic at the same time, it made no sense to create a huge divide in the Sonic fandom over their favourite doopleganger (mine is Metal, all the way. Especially seeings as Heroes has turned him into a Copy Rezo type character, shallow and unoriginal, but far more interesting than angst hog).

They suggested that perhaps on a future occasion they would attempt to bring out the two fake hedgehogs against eachother, ala Pender's craptacular yawn fest of a storyline in recent comics. I'm not even entertaining the idea, but it's a nice thought, just the idea of having my beloved Metal crunching that gun-tooting whingebag gives me sweet dreams and warm smiles.

But, aside from my unusual obsession with a character who's only development has been fan speculation (ala Boba Fett), there's a much more pressing matter.

THE MYSTERY GAME!

What could it be? Chaotix is the obvious choice, but why would they leave it out of publicity? Surely the one game commercially released worldwide which every Sonic fan wants would be the best thing to put there, sitting right next to Fighters as "THE TWO YOU DON'T HAVE!"

Other possibilities include Sonic 3d, as Sonic R is also a Travellers Tales game, so there don't seem to be legal issues with it, or perhaps like Mega Collection it'll have some hidden games which aren't strictly Sonic. Like Ristar and Comix Zone on Mega Collection.

Perhaps NiGHTS?

Or even more mysterious, what if this game isn't included in the promo because it's not a full game. Maybe we'll be treated to the elusive Sonic Xtreme playtest demo.

There are a million and one things to consider, but at the end of the day, the realistic options are 3d and Chaotix. I'm so crossing my fingers for the latter. Afterall, it'd make this disc be the "Metal Sonic Collection" in a way, every single game he appeared in (including GG and excluding the 128bit games) will be on the disc.

We can only wait.

Oh, and Gamecube Exclusive in US. PS2 version to be released in Europe and Japan. smile

I said "Gamecube Exclusive in the US. PS2 version will be released in Europe and Japan"

*grins*

It has both of Tails' solo games on it. I'm happy. smile

I'd be fairly pleased with Sonic: the Fighters, and it's a pity that SegaSonic Arcade isn't there. But oit looks pretty good in the meanwhile. There's a good spread of games that the diehard fans won't have played in a long time and the target age group might not even be aware exist.

I suppose I might buy it so I can own the things legitimately...

How do you think SegaSonic Arcade'd function without the trackball control system? I've been wondering myself, so I'm just after your viewpoint.

I'll expand on that later. It's nearly bedtime...



Indeed. I'm still sulking over that bland collect-'em-up they reduced it to on the GBA. scream

The emulation of Segasonic Arcade seems to work tolerably with cursor keys, I thought.

I didn't use MAME. There's a specific emulator for that arcade format out there somewhere.
Try Googling.

No, there's a specific one for the arcade machine that ran Segasonic. I think it was called the System 32, but I'm not sure. The emulator I use is called Modeler, I think.