With the game coming out to a majority of American retailers tomorrow, the excitement is high! As I’ve done with the past few games to be released, I’ll start putting up pages of info about the various items and features in the game tomorrow afternoon/night when I start playing. (Hopefully, unlike the other games, I won’t stop after about a week and leave everything partially completed). Let’s do it to it!

Sega finally announced and put up a teaser video of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. The game will, of course, be set in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. You can check out the HD video over on SegaEurope’s YouTube page.

Source Joystiq & Sonic City Blog

Showing part of the intro movie this time! I’ve loved the opening and closing movies that they’ve done since Shadow the Hedgehog. They’ve been amazing. A blast to watch! These videos also contain gameplay! Woo! Once again we’ve got an instrumental/vocal video. The first one is more gameplay involved while the second has more of the movie.

Sources Gamekyo & IGN

The Feb. 2009 Nintendo Power has a small bit about the Black Knight in it. A couple interesting facts from it:

It uses woodcut-esque cut-scenes aside from the opening movie (like Sonic and the Secret Rings did with storybook scenes).

Shadow is Sir Lancelot, Knuckles is Sir Gawain, and Amy Rose is the Lady of the Lake.

Shadow and Knuckles are playable in the multiplayer battles after you’ve defeated them in the one-on-one duels in single player mode.

The multiplayer mode lets you either go sword-to-sword against up to three others in a free-for-all or you team up together to defeat a giant baddie as quickly as possible.

This time around I’ve scanned the entire article instead of just the images for you guys. Aren’t I nice? I suggest you still go out and buy the Feb 2009 issue of Nintendo Power to see the article for yourselves. It also has an interesting reader question. The reader mentions that Sonic X-Treme (the cancelled Sega Saturn game) kind of has a Super Mario Galaxy feeling to it. Chris Slate responds saying that he wrote a cover story on Sonic X-Treme for Game Players back in the day and does see a small resemblence now that he looks back. I wonder if Chris has any other inside info about the game from the press side of things…

Source Nintendo Power #238, February 2009

It’s gone live! View it at the official site. I’m not going to say anything about it for fears of spoiling the story to you, but it’s different then what the preview got me to believe. I enjoyed the short a lot, though. Good job, Sega. I like your new animation studio. The movies are a blast to watch. (And whoever said the characters don’t talk was mislead. I heard a couple “woah” and “okay”. Totally counts as talking.)

Source Night of the Werehog

I’ve finally finished putting together the archives for the Sonic the Hedgehog Archie comic series. If you click on the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) link on the left, you’ll be able to browse through all the different series/spin-offs/miniseries and check the cover and description out of the different comics. I’ve even included the first few pages of the more recent comics. The first looks, if you will. Browse through, relive memories, and become informed. Most of the info about the older stuff was taken from Sonic HQ, who sadly stopped updating near the beginning of this year. After sending off an e-mail, they were fine with the format. No angry e-mails from people saying I stole it!

On a more playable note, Sonic Unleashed came out today. While playing through my copy, I’ll be updating the page with info about the game. I’ll be playing the Wii version, so until any major differences between the versions come out, that will be what is written. In the meantime, I suggest you all go out and pick up the game now!

Sega has sent out an e-mail informing us that you can get a $5 instant rebate and free shipping when you pre-order Sonic Unleashed from Amazon.com! When you get to the checkout screen, enter the code UNLEASH5 in the box labeled “Do you have a gift certificate or promotional claim code?”. This only works for Amazon.com and will not work at Amazon.co.uk or any other Amazons.

Sega has a new Halloween treat for us in store. They’re putting out a movie based on Sonic Unleashed! Who knows how long it will be or what it will be about (Other than Sonic and Chip in a haunted house), but it looks like it will be fun to watch. I’ve always loved the CG movies that Sonic Team has put in their games, and this looks like it will be a good watch. A 1 minute 22 second trailer went up today and you can view it if you head on over to IGN. A release date of November 2008 was given. Keep looking here for more news.

Source IGN

Sega’s FTP site put up the NA box art for the four systems that the game is going to come out on. It’s unchanged from what Europe is getting, aside from the ESRB logo now. No big change was expected, though. I do find the different color shades a bit interesting. Look for this game to come out on November 18th in the states.

Source Sega FTP

Sega’s FTP site uploaded a few new screens today. We’ve got some day and some night from Shemar, one of the levels. This game still looks spiffy!