This week Sega of America had a contest going in order to reveal a list of playable characters in the next Sonic game. Well! After five days of waiting, it has finally been reveavled that SONIC IS THE ONLY PLAYABLE CHARACTER!!!!.

Now. With that said. The list only featured newer characters (with the exception of Amy who herself is old school). That means no Tails or Knuckles were sighted. This might mean they may make an appearence. I for one wont be fussed by this, since they are part of the original 2D character list.

Sega also gave us a piece of concept art to look over, in the form of Crabmeat. Yes. A badnik. You all remeber them don't you? The robotic version of animals that ROBOTNIK used to trap real animals inside of? It looks like Robotnik may be dropping his stupid looking robots his been using for the past 10 years and going back to the retro badnik.

My hype meter for this game is in EXPLOSION mode. There are however, three suggestions I'd like put into the game

1) Emeralds are obtained in special stages, and thus, Super Sonic transformation can be activated during regualr levels

2) Tails and Knuckles be playable, however, have their own varations on Sonic's levels (like in Sonic 3 and Knuckles etc)

3) "Eggman" being refered to again as, ROBOTNIK! (I don't care if that's his Japanese name, I grew up in Western Society where he was always refered to as Robotnik. So there)

What an underwhelming year!

2009 saw the completition of the holy trinity... being... finally owning all three games I had originally bought my 360 for. 1) Sonic 360 (in retrospect I really wish I hadn't) 2) Halo 3 and 3) Resident Evil 5. So! Let's kick off my game's review of the year!!

Things started off good. I went into th new year with Lego Batman and Spiderman: Web of Shadows, following on from December. The first game I bought for 09 was Gears of War 2, which was very good. Banjo Kazooie (which was also released in 08) surprised me with it's off-the-wall gameplay and challenging levels. In Feb I bought Halo Wars which was my first dabble in RTS... which was fun to say the least..but quickly was overshadowed by Resident Evil 5's release.

Let's take a look at RE5 for a moment. I enjoyed this game. A lot. It's not one of my favorites, but, it was the first game, apart from Oblivion, that I've actually attempted to get all achievement points with (and why I won't play this game online ever again.. so my perfect score isn't ruined with the added points from the "add-on"). I got about a month worth of gameplay out of this gem... which is pretty good for a game that ended up only taking me 4 hours to finish. Go speed runs!

So after RE5.. not much really happened. Sure, game's were released.. such as F.E.A.R 2 and DBZ Burst Limit... but they weren't worth the money... so opted to rent them. I also rented the two previous Call of Duty games, which I greatly enjoyed.. and made myself swear I would at some point play Modern Warfare 2.

The middle of the year was quite dire to say the least. I barely played my 360, and i hardly even played games. Sure, game announcements were plentiful in the middle of the year, but it ws mostly for games coming out next year... or at least, speculated release dates (hi Mass Effect 2).

So. With so few new games hitting the stores, I looked back at older, cheaper games to amuse. I bought both Bully and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I hated MUA a lot... so much I literally gave it away. Bully was cool, but felt it's age.. and as I played it more.. my interest started to wade.

Things picked up towards the latter half of the year, where, I got around to getting into new games such as, Transformers 2. Much like the film it's based on, this game was just time filler. But it was fun. And an improvement over the last one. Ptototype was awesome. But felt a lot like Spiderman WOS that I had played eariler in the year.

As the months rolled on, I got more and more excited about the TRUE hit of 2009. Batman Arkham Asylum was quickly becomming a fanstastic game and I couldn't wait to play it. For the entire year I had dodged most of the press coverage on it, not wanting it to be spoiled. But there was one game that I could spend time with before Batman's release.

Tales of Vesperia was an incredible gaming experience. I played the demo after hearing about it online, and was hooked. 100 plus hours later, and I had convinced myself I had played my top game of 09. But wait, Batman came out just around the corner.

To say Batman AA was near perfect would perhaps be foolish.. but.. it kinda is. The gameplay is great, the graphics are awesome, and it's everything a Batman, no, a comic book game should be and is. My time with AA was short.. since it didn't take much to finish it... but that time was spent playing a truly epic game.

Then. Nothing. Games dried up. Sure, Halo ODST. Brutal Legend. Forza 3. and others all came out. But, my lack of funds, depsite working all the time, and the end of my Uni degree all prevented my from wasting my cash and playing constantly. So.. from September to November, I really didn't play until I got Dragon Age: Origins. This game is EPIC. 2 months I have been playing this Bioware game, and I'm ALMOST done. Sure I've finished the game several times, but I nearly have all points for it!

In terms of releases, 2009 was pretty boring. The later part of the year had some epic releases, but sadly I've been unable to play most of them. 2010, as everyone knows, is shaping up to be one hell of a year, so see everyone next year!

Now. For my pitch for game of the year. In my opinion, Batman Arkham Asylum is the clear winner. Doing something with a comic

Teaser trailer. New website. New Batman: Arkham Asyulm game.

F***ING SWEET

As is it is, I have 4 user agreements with my last review. Shameless self abosrbed plug!

Anyway, the point of this post is, the fine art of reviews. I mean c'mon people! Writing a paragraph about how you loved the game, and its so amazing and fun, but complaining about certain gameplay mechinics and shouting out 'it should be fixed!' doesn't really acount for a review?

By no means are my reviews any good, but, the point of a review is to take a look at the aspects of the game, and explain how you thought they performed, and yes, bring your own opinions.... but you have to make it INFORMATIVE! Why didn't you like the gameplay? Why was the graphics poor? Why are you a loser with no hope for intimate contact with another human being?

It makes me sad when I see people posting pointless dribble and give it a score and call it a "player review". We're by no means professional crictics, but at least have some fun and try to give a decent opinion on the game and not just suck its b**** or spit on it and call it Hitler

No, not the phone company

I'm talking about 3 out of 3 users recommonding my review for Dragon Age: Origins. It's like, the highest possible approval I've ever had haha

This past week I've been playing Dragon Age:Origins on 360. And well, since I'm not even through one playthrough yet, and will be starting another one as soon as I finish said playthrough, it'll be awhile before I put up a review of the game. So, I thought I'd put down my intial thoughts on the game.

Firstly, an issue. This game highly resembles KOTOR, which isn't a bad thing, we must remember than most of bioware's titles are similar, BUT, after having the privelage of seeing charactization on the behalf of Sheperad from Mass Effect, a silent, emotionless player character doesn't cut it with me. In this respect, I feel Bioware took a step back rather than continuing down the path they established with Mass Effect.

Now for the praise. At this point of time all I can say is how lengthy each story mission is. They just spand out, but not in a boring way. Each one thus far, would take an hour or two to complete... not withstanding the side quests you pick up during the course, which can greatly expand the time. I'm yet to see how excatly my choices resonate within the game world, and as yet haven't seen the great lengths of how my party memebers respond to my actions. Yes, I have made Aliastar hate me, as well as have the other elf character (his name escapes me) wrapped around my little finger (and yes, I'm playing as male and managed to score with another male, go homosexuality!), and so what if I can kiss Morrigan anytime I want. I guess maybe at this stage of my playing I don't much care for the party memebers as there is just too much else to focus on, the missions, the side quests, the different factions offering me jobs, it all is a little overwhelming. But thats good! Because you want to feel like you have sooooo much to do, and not enough time to do so in.

Which brings me to my next point of praise. The fact the game can open with six different openings is pretty awesome. This way, the first hour+ wont be the same every time. It also allows different gameplay perspectives. Unlike other RPG's, where I tend to cast myself in the role of mighty warrior... I feel like it's a little too limited... and thus, can't wait to play as a mage, or even a rouge. The mage character for me, seems like an olde school version of a Jedi without the lightsaber. I guess because Bioware just make magic/force characters look so damn awesome.

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts in regard to Dragon Age. I'll keep playing through it until I feel I've explored enough of the game... and probably will take a break from it next week to buy/play Modern Warfare 2

Firstly, my reaction to the sudden announcement of a brand new 2D Sonic game.

ABOUT TIME!

Though such a thing was obvious, considering the success the daytime levels of Sonic Unleashed had with most fans and critics. But it is an exciting premise though, a 'return to the roots' game.

The teaser trailer is awesome, but, I would have liked to see some footage. I suppose we'll have to wait until Tokyo Game Show for that I suspect... since I think thats just around the corner. The image of the old-school logo that was branded onto Sonic's 1,2 and 3 at the end of the trailer was enough to put me into giggles. If this is a true return to roots, then hopefuly we'll see nothing but Sonic vs. Robotnik..... with maybe some input from Tails and Knuckles...coz their just as important in this franchise now as Sonic is.

So..yeah

Wow. I went to see Sam Raimi's latest film, 'Drag me To Hell' last night. and. Wow. I was simply blown away.

Well... not blown away. This isn't'The Dark Knight' here. But instead, what I did see was a well made, well written, well acted and therefore, well directed horror film. After watching the Spider-man films... I felt that Raimi was out of steam, that he was unable to craft something, anything, original anymore. But wait! He did. 'Drag Me To Hell' is the best horror film I hacve seen in years, yes years.

As a grown man, I feel proud to say I'm too desensornized to jump at horror flicks anymore, but I can admit that, in the film, there were more than a few 'wet your self' moments. I can't say enough for this film, the pace is well set, the characters are interesting, and you actually care whether or not the main character gets dragged to hell.It just deserves so much praise! I'm really glad I didn't take my girlfriend to see it.

Another thing. DLC for Forced Unleashed. This game is almost a year old, and Lucasarts are looking for ways to exploit it. That's being harsh. The idea of new missions, as well as a 'what if' concept for the original saga, a look at what would had happened if Starkiller had 'killed' Darth Vadar, took his place, and hunted the rest of the Jedi scum to their final defeat. The one question coming out from the announcement at comic-con is, 'What if the Dark Side won?'. A question I'm going to smack down hard earned money to answer.

The above title is what one could say about Michael Bay's latest film, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. In his attempts to aplease the fans, by adding in more robots, more screen time for the robots, and unforntualty, more explosions, Bay has made a mess of a film. I know the film has been out for a while, but damn it, I have something to say.

I watched the first film prior to seeing the second at Imax opening day, and comparing the two, the 1st has a clear message, it knows what it wants to say. Viewing the 2nd film a few times now, I can't get my head around the plot, and how, well, dumb it all is. Now, it makes sense, and from a writing perspective, there are elements in which the story is driven forward through certain scenes. But there is just too much useless crap! And well, and here where the fanboy in me comes out, why the hell remove Optimus from a good 3/4 of the movie Bay?! I mean what the hell? Did you WANT to make little kids cry all over again? Like they did in the 80's/90's????

Okay, I can deal with killing Optimus. I can't see why it was nesscary to the plot, but whatever. But the one thing we, as fans, asked for, was Soundwave. Why did he only receive like, barely 5 minutes of screen time? Huh? It's like, the only thing we wanted most! Instead, we get the two autobot twins and a cranky old Jetfire wannabe hogging the screen for most the movie. And Devestator, there isn't enough sighing and shaking of the heads to do justice to what Bay did to him.

I know al my rantings are dumb, and is pretty much rooted in fanboyism. But who cares. I'm a part of the fan base, and if they weren't no fanbase, there wouldn't be a movie, and Bay wouldn't get a pay check. He's not a bad guy, I'd beat. He makes lousy films, but really he's given us some damn fine Transformers action on screen, so he'll do. He just has to scale back. Things don't need to be given some grand plot about The Fallen. Who he is? Some loser from the Transformers lore. If you want to envoke pure epic-ness, bring on Unicron. Nothing says epic like something that get EAT an entire planet.

I went around to my friends place friday night. Upon arrival, he showed me something the two of us have been waiting for ever since Nintendo remade pokemon red and blue (or rather the original green anyway)

It's offical damn it, Pokemon Gold and Silver are being remade for the DS. Some say it's due to the 10th anniversiy of the games being released, some say it's a way to make more money inbetween generations, and some say it's a way for DSi users to have access to Johot/Kanto Pokemon with the absent gba slot.

The last point may actually be the reason. Ever since the removal of the gba slot from the new DS model, I've been pondering how new players who buy a DSi with diamond and or pearl will actually manage to get all 493 Pokemon without being able to access the Kanto/Johto/Hoen pokemon featured in the old gba games. I think it's a fantastic idea, mainly because gold and silver were hands down the best pokemon games period. Though as a puriest, I'd much rather the game be excatly the same as it was 10 years ago, but I don't think thats going to be in the cards.

Annyway, I just wanted to express my fanboyism for this announcement. Oh, and the screen shots up on serebii.net look bloody sweet