Extra little not about the Sonic outfit: The shoes are a separate award, earned in Sonic Adventure by registering ten hours of playtime. They're the least creepy part of the outfit, and look okay with other avatar clothes.

Like previous YDNJ titles, this won't be available outside of North America, as they would have to localise it so heavily that over half of the content would be changed. It's a damn shame!

Spider-Man 2 on previous-gen formats. The only truly negative thing you can say about it is its use of that regular, pained wail of "I LOST MY BALLOOOOOOHNNNNN", putting you off your fun webswinging time, or worse, forcing you to divert course and go retrieve the balloon so you can earn 100% completion.

I'm surprised that FB hasn't been a haven for re-released titles. The only official instances I know of are Tetris and http://apps.facebook.com/monkey-island/.

Still, original ideas are what a 'platform' needs to stand out and be relevant, so well done to that dev team. Many of us will pass you over because of your platform, but those that play this game will help to bridge the casual/hardcore divide just a little bit better.

I have zero doubt in my mind that Spirit Tracks is the greatest Zelda game since Majora's Mask, and may be the best game in the series overall. It fixed the problems of the Phantom Hourglass engine, it's astoundingly unique (and not just 'for a Zelda game'), and all of the key aspects (sound, graphics, story progression) balanced perfectly. It's also dangerously addictive; for the first time since the N64 days, I was spending roughly 8 hours per day on the darn thing, which consumed 95% of my free time over the Christmas holiday and well into January.

If you dismiss this game without playing it, then you are a fool or trying to justify a reason not to buy it. It was the most important DS game of 2009, without a doubt.

The only major worry I have left about this now is the music; the instrumentation in the earlier preview versions was extremely low-quality, making for songs that sounded sub-Mega Drive in their depth and quality. The new part about the music speeding up as Sonic does doesn't sound that great at first, but I have no right to judge it until I hear for myself.

Now, if only they'd return to updating the official website! The only recent additions were that YouTube contest and downloads for the (old versions?) of Splash Hill Acts 2 & 3.

The origin story already got told in the first Halo novel, Fall of Reach (8 or so years ago?), but it glossed over most of the details after the training began. This is probably an attempt to retell and expand the fiction that was (vaguely) in-place.

@Redeater
One of the previews of the Wii version by Official Nintendo Magazine clearly stated, about the Special Stages, "This is the only time you’ll be tilting the Remote in the game, and it works". Therefore, we can assume that the Wii version no longer has the minecart stage (which was motion-based), and if the Wii version is essentially identical to the XBLA/PSN one then they won't have it too.

However, the iPhone version is now touting '2 exclusive levels that take advantage of the phone’s touch and tilt capabilities'. It's a safe bet that this is where the work they already did on the minecart stage(s) is going to end up!

The collective Internet will probably wait for the confirmation of a 'sexy' adjective before they're sold.

I started buying OPM quite late into its run, so this is the demo disc tune that I remember:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHWoRTUMOxw

I'm a member of the 'Played SCII with Bongos' club that JNewman belongs to, except I actually managed to complete the arcade mode with 'em.

Bullet-Point Version (for those of you yet to click the links or got bored reading them):

- A portion of the taxes UK residents pay are used to fund the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

- The BBC has no commercials (besides their own) whatsoever, and they legally cannot charge you to view their media unless they 'proxy' it (eg. Give a DVD publisher the rights to distribute a show).

- The BBC iPlayer is an online service that anyone in the UK can use to view hundreds of shows that were broadcast in the past week (with occasional multi-week 'catchups').

- The PS3 and the Wii both have full iPlayer integration (dedicated 'channels' in their interface).

- When the BBC approached Microsoft to offer an iPlayer license, MS decided that they would only allow Gold LIVE subscribers to use it.

- The BBC had no choice but to withdraw their offer, saying that "Restricting it to Gold is like asking people to pay for access", which they cannot legally do.

- The only possibility that currently exists is for Microsoft to allow Silver (basic) Xbox accounts to use the service. This would mean no direct profit for them, although it could increase interest in Gold accounts from those who want to see what other online services the Xbox offers.

I had an eyebrow permanently raised when I saw Sonic Chronicles at the #3 spot, and it escalated further up my forehead when you cited its music as one of its strongest aspects. Aside from one or two decent battle tunes (which you provided), every soundbyte and music track seems to have fallen out of a cancelled Game Gear cartridge or else been composed with the assistance of Synthesiser For Dummies.

However, 100% agreed about the ending. MY GOODNESS was that anticlimactic. Try going to the start of that embedded YouTube video and watch the final boss battle. You'll get to see some of the combat mechanics (the game's best aspect), but also what is undoubtedly the worst Super Sonic encounter ever made.

(Actually, if you take this, Sonic Advance 3, Rush Adventure and a few others, you could probably make a Top 7 Worst Super Sonic Encounters article)

reCaptcha: verschiedenen Berkeley (seriously?!)

I won't tell if you don't...

http://schtserv.com/

I play PSO in online mode even today (though my method for being able to do this obviously has to remain hush-hush), and so I picked this up last week.

It takes PSO as a base for gameplay and adds the best aspects of PSU, making for what should theoretically be the best modern Phantasy Star ever. Frankly, it's a serious contender for that title. And the single-player mode isn't as maddening as Geraint makes it out to be; it maintains a tradition (even present in PSU) of using the One Player mode to teach you the necessary basics of gameplay and 90% of the plot, leaving you very prepared to leap into Online mode once the single-player story is concluded. That's the way I'm playing it, at least (not touching Online until SP story is concluded).

Here's a rundown of things fans of PSO should know before playing:

- There's a 'rolling dodge' button in the Action Palette.
- All twelve race/class combos are back.
- 'Photon Arts' from PSU have been added, but they now subtract from your Technique Points when used. These are basically 'super' attacks that depend on the type of weapon you're using.
- MAGs, as far as I've seen, will accept any item for consumption except Photon Drops. You can also feed them 6 items at a time.
- Photon Blasts don't pause the action, and are much more of a thrill to watch as a result.
- The most major gripe is that there's no more Quick Menu. You'll either have to use the Action Palette or got through the Main Menu for anything non-standard (however, Photon Blasts aren't in the Palette any more, so all 6 spaces are permanently available).
- Single-Player dialogue branches a little, giving you two or three responses of varying assholishness per pause. It's otherwise quite linear.
- The difficulty curve for bosses is absurdly steep. Don't try to solo a boss until you're well past that point in the story.

(Also, big thanks to NGamer (or, as they were back then, NGC Magazine) for getting me into Phantasy Star in the first place with their monthly PSO section of the magazine)

Blizzard actually came out with SIX gags! Six!

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/equipmentpotency.xml was a joke aimed at the hardcore playerbase, who have been known to judge others purely on their 'gear score'...

While http://eu.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=221003857 is something we can all get a kick, smell and taste out of.

Between this and Sonic 4, it's looking like a terrific summer for platforming goodness.

I have to agree with Tingler about StC; a mix of staff per issue meant a healthy balance of lighthearted/serious stories (but still sensibly simple), it faithfully interpreted the Mega Drive/Genesis games while providing some welcome backstory (Sonic/Robotnik's origin), and the changes it DID make were extremely interesting (Super Sonic is cast as a demonic alter-ego, there's an entire army of Metal Sonics, etc).

The bad news is that the later issues were forced to carry increasing amounts of reprints by the publisher (Egmont Fleetway), a practice which killed the publisher and took the comic with it.

The good news is that it was so popular, fans have been producing a semi-official webcomic continuation for 7 years, and it's not half bad!

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_The_Comic

You never have to read more than 2 paragraphs of an NGamer article to know it was done by one of their writers. The nail is frequently hit on the head, and nails are discovered in placed where nails aren't meant to be.

Whereas Mario 64 made recycling the same environment for different objectives an art form, Galaxy benefits more from a linear-but-fresh structure (ie. Very little retreading through places you saw on previous objectives). That's not to say that the 'playground' (64-esque) levels don't have a place; it's just that they needed to be used more sparingly in the original. Galaxy 2 seems to be putting much more emphasis on well-designed linear routes, which has rekindled the ol' fires of hype in my heart.

Highlights of the article:
- Hammer Bros are back!
- The brain-breaking FlipSwap and Upside Dizzy galaxies.
- "Wall jump off a coin"
- Secret stars are back!

There's one unique feature that I'd like to see brought back, and I can provide a video to show you what it'd be like!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlDtdGTm3pE