It seems like Sonic has finally decided to go solo once again as Sega announced that the speedy hedgehog will be starring in his own next-gen title, Sonic Unleashed. The new title will make use of its own powerful "Hedgehog Engine", which will give the game a fresh next-gen look while keeping into the feel of the previous Sonic titles. For more details, check out our full article after the jump.

With Sega is set to release its own iconic mascot battle fighting it out on the tennis court with Sega Superstars Tennis this March, some notable differences across the different platforms (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS) have been cited in the recent preview article of the game from IGN. The biggest one, though, would have to be the Wii version's lack of online multiplayer support. More details about this in the full article.

Bring back the glory days of the Sega MegaDrive as the former console-making company announces Australian releases in the Virtual Console. The games? Sonic Spinball, Vectorman and The Story of Thor.

   

April 6th marks the date when the three classics drop to Nintendo's online service. Wii owners will be thrilled to know that even if Nintendo is mum on the subject, Sega has confirmed all of these developments from its people in Europe.

Of the three, Vectorman could be the biggest crowd-pleaser. You command a green robot in his war against WarHead, a mechanized warlord who has claimed command of Earth after humans left for a new home. Morphing into tanks, trains and drills just to name a few, you'll find yourself engrossed in hours of intense action blasting away at fellow robots.

The Story of Thor takes you on an epic journey to find four elemental spirits that will aid you in your quest to save your besieged kingdom. Sonic Spinball, on the other hand, is a pinball spin-off of the classic, high-octane platformer. Dr. Eggman is living his robot fetishes again, and for some reason he wants to turn furry animals to metallic critters. It's up to Sonic to break down Robotnik's pinball defense system and blow the top off his base.

We're eagerly awaiting the return of these blasts from the past.

Why was Sonic such a big hit back in the early 90's? Well, he was cool, and he was blue, and the early 90's after all was the era of Grunge, being blue back then was sort of hip. Tragically hip. Oh never-mind. Ignore that corny wordplay.

Sonic was a big hit because the Hedgehog's games featured jaw dropping loops, psychedelic bonus rounds, and impressive boss-battles against insane mechanical creations. The game was hot, action-packed, and was definitely exciting (some are daring enough to say that they felt that it was more exciting than all those Mario Clones)

So how did Sega manage to degrade a great blue hyper-speed franchise? Some of us here at QJ believe that it was when somebody decided to make Sonic open his mouth. Allow us to make this comparison. Play the two YouTube vids below. (Not at the same time of course.)

The one on the left is how Sonic sounds in most English voice-overs. The one on the right is how Sonic sounds in Japanese. See the difference? Despite the sheer insanity of HELLOOOOOO EBURIBODAAAYYYY, Sonic sounds less annoying. Some might think that the slightly deeper voice even makes him sound cool and slightly kooky.

Of course, there are other more legitimate reasons for the Sonic's decline in quality over the years. For example, racketboy of Retro Gaming has a long and detailed article up regarding the why and how of the degradation. We'll give you a quick enumeration of his points after the jump!

The full article awaits after the jump!

You might be wondering what's happening now to Sega's game Sonic Wild Fire after the very interesting demo at E3. Well, rest assured the game's development is going well.

According to the director of Sonic Wild Fire, Ogawa Yojiro, this game was based on Arabian Nights (shown during E3) and will be following Sonic's adventures through a book. But what's really interesting about the game are the new gameplay elements that developers say have not yet been seen in any Sonic game before. Dr. Eggman will also be in Sonic Wild Fire.

Because the game will be for Nintendo's Wii, developers have also made sure that this game will take full advantage of the Wiimote's features.

Here now are scans of Sega's Sonic Wild Fire from issue #6 of the Official Nintendo Magazine. Thanks, Jak, for the heads up!