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!

Nothing spectacular that we didn’t already know was revealed in the article for Sonic Unleashed except various controls for the Wii version.

• You move Sonic with the Nunchuk’s Control Stick and Jump with A.
• You do a quick side-step by holding B and moving the Control Stick in the desired direction (left or right).
• The new drift mechanism let’s you earn bonuses by holding B or Z to whip around tight turns.
• You use Sonic’s Homing Attack by shaking the Wii Remote
• Shaking the Wii Remote also lets you use a speed boost that’s filled from a guage at the bottom of the screen.
• While being the Werehog where you have a damage guage, you swing the Wii Remote for Sonic’s right hand and the Nunchuk for Sonic’s left hand.
• Pressing Z lets you block and by chaining together combos and mixing in advanced moves by swinging the remote and nunchuk up, down, or toward each other you can really dish out the pain on enemies.
• You can also use B to grab and toss the enemies.
• Pressing C let’s you activate Unleashed Mode; a powered-up state during which you gain new attacks and take less damage from your enemies.
• If you’re danging off an enemy, you can wave the Wii Remote to swing back and forth.
• You can climb poles by lifting the remote and nunchuk alternately, or raise a heavy gate by yanking up with both controllers.

Look for this game to arrive on November 18th in the US for the Wii, PS3, PS2, and 360.

As for the Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood review, it received an 8.0. The game was praised for the Elite Beat Agents style of attacks, the whitty dialogue, the great cast of characters each with an important role, how benched characters also level-up, equiping Chao to characters to boost their abilities, a series of Chrono Trigger inspired Team POW movies makes every new combination of fighters interesting, and the option to choose between lengthy chats or straight-to-business conversations. Some of the downsides being that the EBA sytles of attacks starts to get annoying after a while and some enemies being strong enough that you need to use POW attacks. Normal attacks do no damage to them. The game will take you about 15-20 hour to beat, but it will be well worth it. Look for it next week on the 30th for the US, or the 28th if you happen to be near the Nintendo World Store in New York City and wish to get the game a couple days early and an exclusive Chao.

Go out to a newsstand somewhere and buy issue 234 of Nintendo Power, which is November 2008. One other thing that I noticed about these two items is that the Unleashed articles was done by Chris Hoffman and the Chronicles review was by Casey L. Why didn’t Steve Thomason do them? He had always been the one writing anything related to Sonic in Nintendo Power. I would always check for his name, knowing he was a Sonic fan like us.

Source Nintendo Power #234