[B] [SIZE=5][URL="http://superphillipcentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/sonic-classic-collection-ds-review.html"]Has a console this gen died on you? Vote on the poll![/URL][/SIZE] [/B]


We've been looking at non-recent games this week, so let's dive into something more current with Sonic Classic Collection for the Nintendo DS. It has four classic Sonic titles in it, all from the Genesis days. Is it worth picking up?

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Sonic the Hedgehog's gaming history is vast and varied. There's the good such as the titles listed in the Sonic Classic Collection for the Nintendo DS, and then there's the long list of bad. SEGA, being too busy and/or incompetent to emulate their own games contacted a third-party to do so, choosing the majority of Sonic's Genesis days. Is this collection one that you'll want to keep in your own collection?

Sonic Classic Collection comes with four Genesis titles including the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. Rounding out the games is the ability to link up Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with Sonic & Knuckles in order to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2 or play the epic Sonic 3 & Knuckles which can be played with either Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles. Each game has a save/load option where you can save anywhere you like. These aren't like save states, mind you, as won't be loaded at the exact point of saving. Instead, you'll start at the beginning of that act or zone.

For those who have never played a 2D Sonic game, it's really pure bliss. The early Sonic games are all about a perfect balance of speed and precision platforming. While the Green Hill Zone is all about scampering to the end of the level, the Marble Zone is more about slow, controlled jumping and timing. Rings are the lifeline of Sonic the Hedgehog. If he's caught without a ring and he gets hit, Sonic loses a life and has to start at the nearest checkpoint. No worries though as there's plenty of rings to be found and collect with 100 giving him an extra life. There's also chaos emeralds to collect which are purely optional, but these give way to secret content and special endings within each Sonic game. Overall, if Mario is too slow, try the speedy blue hedgehog for a change instead.

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One of the cooler Robotnik vehicles.
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To delve into the history of the Sonic titles, the first Sonic the Hedgehog game used "blast processing" as a marketing buzz term. What does it really mean? Well, nothing. It was just a cool term to tell the kiddies into buying Sonic's first adventure. The game was blazing fast, and it was common for SEGA to market that while Mario, Sonic's once main competitor (his main competitors now are incompetent developers), was slow, Sonic was blazing fast. And indeed he was. Each of the six themed zones concluded with a boss fight against one of Dr. Robotnik's mechanized monstrosities. Unlike later Sonic games, Sonic 1 would utilize a three act, or level, structure to each zone. There was also the ability to collect six chaos emeralds in a rotating maze. Collecting all six would give the player the ability to see the secret ending.

Moving onto Sonic the Hedgehog 2, this title was bigger and arguably better than the previous game. It had more zones, more enemies, and a new partner for Sonic by the name of Miles "Tails" Prower (a take on the phrase Miles Per Hour). Tails, as he preferred being called, could temporarily give Sonic some extra height by flying him. This and further games would allow two player cooperative gameplay though Sonic Classic Collection does not have this in any of the games. This time when all seven (one was added) chaos emeralds were collected through playing down a bobsled-like course collecting rings and avoiding mines, Sonic could transform into the ultra-powerful Super Sonic. He had faster speed, but lost rings at a steady pace. When his rings were depleted, Sonic would revert back into ordinary but still butt-kicking mode.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 moved the festivities to Angel Island where Dr. Robotnik was at it again. This time a feisty echidna named Knuckles would constantly get in Sonic's way, stealing his chaos emeralds, destroying bridges, and doing everything he could to stop Sonic from going after the Master Emerald. Unfortunately, Knuckles had been tricked by Dr. Robotnik. It was actually Robotnik who wanted the Master Emerald! Like Sonic 1, Sonic 3 was six zones long ranging from dense jungles to circus carnivals to underwater cities. Each first act concluded with a battle against a mid-boss while act two always ended with a battle with Dr. Robotnik himself. Originally, by putting the Sonic 3 cartridge into the Sonic & Knuckles game cartridge, a brand-new adventure awaited Sonic, showing the true ending to the Sonic quadrilogy.

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Sonic & Knuckles also featured Robo-Robotnik!
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Sonic & Knuckles allowed players to choose from either Sonic or Knuckles as you played through six more zones ranging from hot deserts to active volcanoes! Linking up to Sonic 3 with the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge allowed players to play though both Sonic 3 and then Sonic & Knuckles with all of your chaos emeralds intact. In fact, one could collect the seven Master Emeralds to transform into an even stronger version of Super Sonic or Hyper Knuckles. For Knuckles, the adventure ended in the Sky Sanctuary where he'd face off against Mecha Sonic while Sonic would have one more zone to go through before entering the Doomsday Zone where he'd take on Robotnik in a timed space battle as Super Sonic.

On the technical side of the things, the resolution of the DS just isn't enough when compared to the Genesis. To fix this, the screen was squished to make the proper resolution work for the games to run. It's a noticeable difference, but nothing too bad. Incidentally, there's something to be said about the amount of glitches and slowdown. Once I fell straight through a floor in the Green Hill Zone and died. It's odd when SEGA isn't even competent enough to handle emulating their own games that they have to give their games off to one contracted person to do them.

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The menu presentation is basic as can be.
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Regardless, Sonic Classic Collection is very much bare bones in its extras. You get some art, and that's it. I would have liked to have had a jukebox to listen to the game's music or something of that design. Additionally, if this is a Genesis/Mega Drive collection on-the-go, then why isn't there Sonic 3D Blast or-- stretching it a bit-- Sonic CD to play? Still, if you must have four Sonic classics to play with you in the palm of your hand, you can't do much better than Sonic Classics Collection.

Ultimately, with all of the collections and games featuring the Sonic Genesis/Mega Drive games on it, did we really need another so soon? Sure, this is the first time you can play a non-buggy (for the most part) Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Sonic & Knuckles on-the-go in portable form. If the thought of playing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the toilet or in the car on a long vacation ride to Branson has you salivating, then definitely pick up this collection. For everyone else, there's too little additional content to justify the thirty dollar price tag-- especially when you can get Sonic 1-4 plus other games for the same price on the PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, and Wii Virtual Console.
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[B][SuperPhillip Says: 5.5/10][/B][/SIZE]

I had another blog planned for today, but I got home late tonight and realized that I hadn't yet posted it. So, since it got to be a little later than expected, I decided to post something else. I realized that I forgot to right the second entry into my new blog series I started at the beginning of the year. So, this is a little late, but at least I made it before April

Okay, as many of you may know already, I've decided to stop buying so many games this year. After joining CAG last year I was buying up to 10 games a week (I think there may have been a few weeks that were more than that) as a result my backlog became very large. Since I'm really slow at getting games complete, I decided I need to cut back on buying all the games I see on sale. I've done pretty well with this and only managed to buy a few games due to a lack of good sales. However, this also means my pickups are really lacking and therefore my selection for my favorite pickup of the month is very limited....

help me bored out of my effing mind. only consolation is Blackhawks game comes on in hour

Hello friends.

I have been really busy so I forgot to post last week.

I am down to 224 pounds now! Started at 259.75!

Still going still in first place. Soon I will be at my target weight so I gotta slow down.

Anyways this is just a quick update, because i am still busy. Been thinking about everyone here though and thanks for the support.

Have a good week my friends i will be back next week.

So when you get an invite that states you should arrive at 6 to such a special event, you think, 'Hey, let's leave to get there a little earlier just to make sure everything goes smoothly.' Apparently, with this launch party, it was completely useless to do so.

Right after getting to the place, we get to stand in line for 20 minutes. Then they call out for media, and apologise for the delay. It started drizzling, so they let us go inside. Main problem was, they just had us wait in the stairway. For about 40 minutes, we all get to admire the paint job they've done with the place, see how they're stocking the bar with ice, cherries, limes and the like, and hear the chef in the next room talk about how lovely he and the vip guests are. They let us pass through into the hall, as long as we stand in line and wait our turn. The ladies comment on how lovely we are, and we're finally let in. As we wandered the inside, we get to admire the Xbox 360 faceplate (As the only thing in...

I recently was fortunate enough to win one of two 500 dollar gift cards by participating in the 7th Annual Cheapy Awards. As soon as I have the funds available and I decide on what Im getting, I will be posting the spoils complete with pics in my first full featured blog post.

Heres to the future!

Enjoy!!! Im not home today so sadly no names.


Parade the booty!!!!

and 1

Well its official, Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) will produce the new superman film, plus speaks about Batman 3 being the finale film.
Without trying to take credit please head over to this website for the awsome story!
http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=27258

If given the choice i will always pull through. If parking is slanted i just pull in. If it's vertical parking I will back in if nobody is behind me because i find it much easier to get out. So how bout you guys how do you park?

A lot for you probably haven't heard if this device before but i garuntee there will be many of you that will interested in it after you have read this.

I should probably start by explaining what it actually does, the Dingoo is a device that emulates the following:

NES
SNES
GB
GBC
GBA
Megadrive (Genesis depending on where you're from)
CPS1 & CPS2 arcade system boards

And with a bit of tinkering you can do Sega Master System also.


Now you are probably thinking "Meh i can do that and more from my PC", which is totally true, the amazing thing about the Dingoo is its size and portability. As you can see below compared to a DSlite.




As for the emulation itself, its a bit iffy at points. I would rate the quality of emulation as follows:

NES - 99.9% - Almost flawless, 1...

This is a my disgruntled consumer rant on a bad shopping experience with the online store, ToysRUs.com...

Now I, like everyone else, have had bad shopping experiences. However I like to think that have fairly thick skin and usually keep these unpleasant shopping experiences to myself. It takes a lot for a company to frustrate me to the point where I have to write about it, but ToysRUs has managed to do just that.

On February 9th, Bioshock 2 was released in North America. As a huge fan of the original, I decided that I wanted to pick up the very expensive Special Edition for my Xbox 360. I had a $60 ToysRUs Gift Card that would help eat up a significant portion of the cost, so I decided to purchase the game at my local brick and mortar store . Upon my arrival, I found out that the store did not carry the Special Edition, but their online store did (and that I would also be able to use my Gift Card online). Needless to say I went home and made the purchase online....

Thanks for the inspiration, dv8mad!

Click for more HaHa









How to Make a Peanut Butter Sandwich, by the Losties
Jack
1. Gather ingredients
2. Point gun at ...

I saw the Metal Gear Solid Collection for 19.99 recently and decided to pick it for if nothing else the original Metal Gear Solid.

I beat both 1 and 2 back when they were released but never finished 3. I have 4 but have never had time to finish it.

Anyway the other day after after beating Army of Two I figured to throw in the original and start playing. I have gotten as far as the DARPA Chief and story still pulls you in as well as I remember.

The iconic first area and elevator ride was fun and pretty nostalgic. I am doing a lot better at sneaking than in my younger days when I just wanted to shoot everything.

Though i don't remember the part after the DARPA chief where the game gives you a bunch of ammo and has you shoot about three waves of guys.

Anyway its been pretty fun so far and hopefully that will continue through the whole series.

Ahoy!

Just wanted to give a note that this "blog" will be a platform for my thoughts on the gaming world- console, PC, and otherwise...with a bit of personal news and anecdotes thrown in.

About me? Why sure!

I live on LI but am looking to move into the city or Hoboken in the near future. I work in advertising (digital media buying/planning, to be exact) and love it. and i've been a gamer since I can remember.

I was a Nintendo devotee until i got a Wii, exlcusively owning on Big N platforms (home console, not handheld) until then. When i got it, I realized that the platform didnt satisfy me at all. I jumped ship in 2008 to Sony, mainly due to the back catalog, history, IP's (plus, Blu-Ray didnt hurt). I play games for the fun of it, for the art of it, and for the tales they tell.

My goal is to be able to bring an artisitic perspective to game reviews, and not concentrate soley on length, mechanics, and pure...

Orianthi....
I would normally never listen to her.... and I can't stand her song According to You, but my students were playing it in my computer lab and they said I needed to hear her play guitar.

Here is the link to the annoying video for According to You (you have been warned, but she can actually play guitar)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu1aQvm5MrU&feature=fvw

Here is a link to her just playing guitar at a blues/rock festival (much more enjoyable)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5O1-GHMzFc

also if you like Steve Vai's style of guitar here is one of her playing with him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7b-_...eature=channel

Thoughts or comments?

Eighties teen idol Corey Haim died Wednesday morning of an apparent drug overdose, according to Los Angeles police.

The Canadian-born actor, who starred in "The Lost Boys" but was probably best known for his roles with fellow actor Corey Feldman, was 38.

He was found unresponsive at his Oakwood apartment around 3:30 a.m.,according to KTLA-TV. His mother was at the apartment at the time of his death.

The actor, who has struggled with drug addiction, was pronounced dead at Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank.

Police were called to the hospital just before 4 a.m. to investigate his death.

Police sources told CBS Haim's death appeared accidental. Haim has been in and out of rehab and starred in a reality show with Feldman in 2007 called "The Two Coreys."

He talked about his struggle with...

Well it has finally happened, after FFX-2 and FFXII, some of the worst RPGs I've ever played, Squeenix has released FFXIII, what I see as the final nail in the FF coffin. It saddens me that a series that has brought me so much joy since FFI has died.

今晩はみんなさん
This past weekend I managed to go to a mall with some classmates. The AEON/Jusco mall is a new mall that supposedly brings in a lot of people to Okazaki. One thing for sure, on this rainy Sunday, it was incredibly busy. Thing to note, women here in Japan have no problem dressing stylishly and umm 'sexy'. Even in the cold outside weather, some girls inside were wearing short skirts and what not...anyways I had some sort of rice bowl type thing at the food court. There was a bunch of topping like cheese, meat, etc. that cost extra.
Jusco Food Court
After that two of my classmates wanted ice cream(アイス) so we went to the cold stone creamery which was very much like the English counter part though like most things, everything here is smaller so you get less for the same amount of money. Though on the upside, because there's no tipping...

1. Rock Band 3
2. Hakan of SSFIV revealed!

Rock Band 3 was just announced for this holiday season. Surprises me there isn't a single screenshot out yet!? They announced it on facebook of all places, kind of weird, but I could see how it was for the fans.

Quote: Harmonix is developing Rock Band 3 for worldwide release this holiday season! The game, which will be published by MTV Games and distributed by Electronic Arts, will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band. Stay tuned for more details!

And here's the first trailer of Hakan, being all oily. I enjoyed it. I don't know about to post videos. So... here's the link: http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/3...ler_30810.html

I love his theme song!