After months of teasing fans with the rumor and wild speculation of Project Needlemouse, Sega has finally announced the worthy successor to the company flagship: Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1.
The teaser trailer for the new game, which demonstrates first a retrospective of older Sonic titles before demonstrating the hedgehog’s speed on next-generation platforms, can be found below.
According to Gamestop, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will be available this summer as a downloadable title for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii.
Although fans of the series have been begging Sega for a 2D release since 1994 - the last release of a 2D Sonic game - Sega has steadily released franchise spin-off titles and 3D versions of the game. Some titles, such as Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for DS, did reasonably well, garnering a 74 score on metacritic. Others were received poorly by critics - the most recent Sonic game, Sonic Unleashed, stands at the abysmal Metacritic score of 54.
In an interview with Gamespot, Ken Balough, the Sega associate brand manager, brought to light a number of other features about the upcoming game. Gameplay features, such as the spin dash and power sneakers, will be further incoproated into the gameplay. Sonic 4 will also contain online leaderboards, in which players can compete with one another for ever-increasing high scores.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 trailer
Comments
This is easily the biggest news in Video Games in the past 10 years!!
So excited!
Yai! Wait, isn't that project needlemouse?
NinjaGayden: More or less, yeah. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry -
"The game's existence was first revealed in September of 2009 (the 10th anniversary of the Dreamcast's North American launch) under the code name Project Needlemouse, with the release of a brief teaser trailer[3], and an interview with Sega's Ken Ballough who acknowledged that "old-school Sonic fans have long asked to see Sonic return to a more 2D style of gameplay", and that "Needlemouse is that critical first step that brings Sonic back to his 2D roots". The codename is derived from Sonic's prototype name, Mr. Needlemouse, when he was being pitched by his designer Naoto ?shima."
I am psyched. Big new indeed for those who played the original games on the Sega Genesis
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