Sonic the Hedgehog

When you look back over the past ten years, what will you remember? The sparkly new consoles? The fantastic new franchises? The exciting, unforgettable moments that made you proud to be a gamer?

Yeah, we’ll certainly reminisce about those over the coming week of decade-themed features. We’ll pick the best characters, the sexiest stars, the most memorable moments and the important-est games.

We're used to being the good guys. But did you ever stop to think about it from the enemy's point of view? Wouldn't our heroes look completely different? 

Of course, just as in the real world, wartime imagery and alternative views of the enemy could undoubtedly be perpetuated with some propaganda posters… like these.

At first, he was a blue hedgehog sprite with feet that blurred because he ran so fast. But that was 18 years ago (yeah, where's the time gone?) and he's been redrawn over and over again to fit new technology. In fact, unbelievably, Sonic the Hedgehog has appeared on our screens in some 50 guises. Don't believe us? Take a look in here!

Since videogames are notoriously inept at rendering romance on the screen, we’re celebrating the Valentine “holiday” with these seven most embarrassing and excruciating moments. Beware - the following kisses are so bizarre, so disgusting or so damn awkward that they could literally cause you physical pain.

If you’ve been reading gaming lists - magazine, internet or bar napkin - for as long as we have, then you’ve probably noticed a number of inclusions that seem to always make it. It’s like you can’t have a “Defining Moments”, “Worst whatever” or “Underrepresented blah” list without mentioning what every reader assumes will be the top pick.

This is really weird, so brace yourself. Many years ago, while toiling away in the Toys "R" Us salt mines, I was in charge of the electronics department. This included the glut of cheapo PC software the company carries, from seven-year-old games that will never sell to brand new, hardware-crunching titles that no one shopping in that store could ever install. The amount of unsold software was so choking that some

Oh, Sonic. What's happened to you? It's no small secret that Sega's once-dominant mascot has slipped over the years, with awful games making things worse by the month. But worldwide love is still strong, and each time there's a new platformer announced we shuffle in line like a bunch of nice devoted fanboys and pray, deep down, that this will be the Sonic game that doesn't suck.