The year was 1991. This was way before your 1ups and IGNs of the world. I had little knowledge of the gaming world outside of my own bedroom. I was deep into my 8-bit world and didn’t realize, until one day at a friend’s house where I learned of a whole world of 16-bit video games that lived on the video game system know as the SEGA Genesis.

We played Kid Kameleon and a little game known as Sonic The Hedgehog! My life was changed forever and I became a die hard SEGA fan. This fandom escalated into a full blown addiction which later lead me to Sonic The Hedgehog 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

I eventually strayed from the path when the Sony PlayStation came out but I came back to SEGA again in 1999 and purchased the SEGA Dreamcast. Sonic stole my heart once again when Sonic Adventure came out, but since then Sonic has definitely lost his way.

The most recent offerings from Sonic team have left much to be desired by Sonic fans. With lack luster titles such as Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog for the PS3 & 360 and Sonic Unleashed it’s a wonder Sonic fans like myself have not given up on their pointy blue mascot.

Things are about to change. It seems as though SEGA has heard our pleas and set out to create a continuation to the old school 2-D Sonic games. Today SEGA unveiled plans to release Sonic 4 on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network (PSN).

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will take place after Sonic & Knuckles, but is "a brand-new adventure... what you are looking at is the beginning of a new story arc," says associate brand manager, Ken Balough to GameSpot:

"I think the best way to view it is as a first part in a much larger adventure. When Sega released Sonic 3, ultimately it was the part 1 of a story that saw its conclusion in Sonic & Knuckles.

In that same spirit, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is a bigger story, and this is that first chapter. I think it's also safe to say that by the end of the episode one, fans will be very excited to see what's in store for episode two!"

"We're going to deliver a Genesis-era Sonic game as if it were created today that goes to the core of what classic Sonic fans desire. All the Sonic favorites [are] here for sure!

Spin dash, power sneakers, etc. But you will also see the homing attack added, and in true Sonic fashion, you can compete with your friends for the fastest level times through leaderboards."

Source: http://www.ps3news.com/

Transformers: War For Cybertron Figures (Pics)

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Get an eye full of these awesome figures from the upcoming video game, Transformers: War For Cybertron.  I’m sorry Sarah, I am definately going to have to get at least one of these when the game comes out, to add to my collection.

PS3 Motion Controller Delayed

Sony recently announced the delay of their PS3 Motion Controller.  I for one didn’t really expect a release this Spring considering the fact that they still haven’t announced an official name for the product or any games to accompany it.  This will probably prove to be a good thing for them since they will have more time to formulate a proper amount of games and marketing push.

TOKYO, Jan. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) today announced that it will release its new Motion Controller(1) (tentative name) for the PlayStation®3 (PS3®) computer entertainment system in fall 2010 in Japan, Asian regions and countries, North America and Europe/PAL territories together with an extensive line-up of exciting software titles. The new controller, combined with the PlayStation®Eye camera(2), can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement within the game, delivering a whole new entertainment experience on PS3.

"We have decided to release the Motion Controller in fall 2010 when we will be able to offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users, " said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "We will continue to work to have a comprehensive portfolio of attractive and innovative games for the Motion Controller, not only from SCE Worldwide Studios but also from the third party developers and publishers, whom we have been working closely with. We look forward to soon unveiling the exciting software line-up that further expands and defines the PS3 platform as the ultimate entertainment system for the home."

SCE will vigorously promote the Motion Controller as the de facto controller of the PS3 platform along with the DUALSHOCK® series controller and will deploy various measures to enhance the software title line-up for the Motion Controller, delivering groundbreaking interactive entertainment only possible on the PS3 platform.

(1) Motion Controller is a tentative name.
(2) Users will need to use the PlayStation Eye camera to enjoy the Motion Controller on PS3.

Dragon Age Thoughts

A lot of people have been singing the praises of Dragon Age: Origins for months.  I too was wooed by this title at first, but after an extended period of play time it has lost its luster. 

Dragon Age: Origins or DAO has an impressive depth of story paths, dialogue choices, plot paths, items to collect and enchant, spells to learn, crafts to make and other good stuff.  All of this is a great building block for an amazing RPG.  But towards the end of the game it felt more like a job and less like I was playing a video game for enjoyment. 

The combat has an MMORPG repetitiveness to it.  You have a variety of different spells and actions you can perform to mix up the monotony, but none of them are truly amazing to look at.  I also found spell activation to be cumbersome, this is where it becomes evident that this game was meant to be played on PC with a nice row of keyboard shortcuts.  But no matter how they mix it up I couldn’t stand one more moment of hacking and slashing the same small variety of enemies over and over.

My version of choice was the PS3 version and I was very put off by the visuals.  The textures seemed either washed out or very low resolution at times.  The character models seemed oddly proportioned and facial animations were very outdated looking.  Every character in the game seemed to have the same rigid skeleton with no hope for any kind of differentiation between any of the character poses and mannerisms. 

The cut scenes also fell way too short of my expectations.  I found all of the conversations to be very dull and unexciting.  Usually I’m the kind to sit back and enjoy a good Metal Gear Solid style hour and a half cut scene, but I found myself dying for them to be over.  The stories seem to throw a lot of stuff at you where you have no idea what they are talking about and don’t really care in the long run.  I did however like the massive amount of dialogue choices they give for your character, but it would have been nice to see them vocalize your character’s dialogue like the rest of the characters in the game.

Sorry for the hate, but for my score of Dragon Age: Origins I give it a much overhyped 6 out of 10

Analog Drift Episode #12 – 12/24/09

Just previewing a few games coming out in 2010: Transformers War For Cybertron, Spec Ops: The Line and Red Dead Redemption. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Analog Drift Episode #11 (Part 2 of 2) December 11, 2010

Analog Drift Episode #11 (Part 1 of 2) – December 11, 2010

Wii for $150 at Walmart! (December 5th–12th)

As reported by Joystiq.com:

Sad that you missed all the Black Friday sales? Walmart wants to take advantage of that feeling of being left out, with a series of December sales and price drops. The most exciting offer: for one week (from December 5 -12), every Wii will come with a $50 gift card, effectively dropping the price to a ridiculous $150.

Red Dead Redemption, Much Improved Graphics

Still working on my full video blog.  The wife has me working on decorating the house for Christmas.  So hopefully I can get something done with it soon.

But in the mean time, I just saw that Rockstar Released a new trailer for Red Dead Redemption and I had to share it.  The game looks like it’s coming along very nicely and the textures are looking a lot more detailed that the trailer they showed previously.  This is definitely one of the best looking games I’ve seen in a while. 

The environments are beautiful, they show majestic looking snowy mountains and lush pine trees.  Not just barren deserts and open plains.  The voice acting and expressions are great.  They also showed you using a variety of weapons like Gatling Guns, cannons and explosives with the old Wile E. Coyote detonators.  I can’t wait to pick this game up in April 2010.

Just the Drift

Not a full blown video blog.  Just one of my short checking in posts.  I will be calling these posts “Just the Drift” for now.  I need a better title though.  In the future these may be my off-topic posts or whatever comes to mind.  Also, I posted this with my cell phone to try out the video camera on it.

Platinum Dragon is Coming Back!

Working on a new video blog.  Should be ready sometime after Thanksgiving weekend.

Analog Drift Episode #10 - October 3, 2009

It's October now, I thought I would give you my top 5 Horror Games of all time. Enjoy.

Analog Drift Episode #9 - September 26, 2009

Just a brief note about Tokyo Game Show, PlayStation, Dead Rising 2 and Lost Planet 2.

Crappy Day/Week

Been a crappy day at work, so podcast is delayed.  Maybe Friday or Saturday.

Analog Drift Episode #8 - September 17, 2009

This week I talk about Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 Roster and more. PS3 Releases, PC Deals, Much More.

Analog Drift Episode #7 – September 10, 2009

This week I discuss new releases on PSN and this week's sale on Direct2Drive. You can find that sale at http://www.direct2drive.com/d2dturns5

Analog Drift Episode #6 - September 3, 2009

My thoughts and impressions on PS3 Firmware version 3.0 and Assassin's Creed 2. Kind of a short video this week. Hopefully something more interesting next week

Analog Drift Episode #5 - August 27th, 2009

This week is a slow news week with Gamescon being over and everyone at home playing Batman: Arkum Asylum, so I decided to talk about my top 10 most anticipated games of 2010.

Video Blog August 20th, 2009

Just thought I would get back into my blog with my new computer.  Sharing my thoughts this week on WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010, OSMOS, PS3 Home and PS3 in general.

The shocker!

I was tempted to pick up inFamous, but not tempted enough to pay the $59.99 for it.  Luckily I stopped at a store in Mansfield, OH called Buybacks and some PS3 traitor was trading in all his PlayStation games for an Xbox 360.  I scooped this one up right away for $40.00.  I’m glad I found this great deal too, because game kicks ass.

The controls and animation are very slick.  You feel very empowered while playing this game.  So far I have only tried the good side, but I hear the bad side is way more intense.  The missions do repeat but I find them way less repetitive than most open world games.  Most of the missions are enjoyable except for some of the time trail ones are a little too linear. 

The story is one of the only parts that this game fails on, but the experience is too fun to discount it very much.

Rating – 8.5 out of 10