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> Sonic the Hedgehog Advance
PREVIEW -
One morning I sat down at the computer and immediately went to IGN.com. Nothing new here. I saw some cool things as I sweeped through the page,
but nothing that really caught my eye, until... Was that Sonic? Half-asleep, I zoomed up to the picture and obviously clicked on it. Immediately
surprised at the idea of Sonic on GBA, I completely woke up and indulged the information and screens. Nintendo had finally done it,
those bastards, they got Sega to do their dirty work.
 
I'm still having trouble believing the Sega is actually working for multiple platforms now. It's great, though. Sonic on Gamecube and GBA? Awesome.
But I'm not here to talk about Gamecube, and you're probably sick of hearing me rave on and on by now, so I guess I'll start the preview. The game
is tentatively titled Sonic The Hedgehog Advance, but that will most likely be changed soon. The graphics are pretty much like the Genesis graphics,
but much glossier and more smooth. Also, because the Game Boy Advance can have super fast scaling, everything in the game will give you a much more
sonic, turbo feeling to them, which is great. If this game is made anything like the Genesis versions were, the controls will be simple enough,
a certain button makes Sonic charge, another button makes him jump. Another button, if held, will make Sonic power up, and then when released, he zooms
off extremely fast. An additional thing in this game, which was shown in the running demo of the game at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), is the
fact that Sonic can now "grind". This is much like the grinding the blue hog was able to pull off in Sonic Adventures 2 for the Dreamcast. Shown in
the demo, Sonic can uses ridges, rails and other things of the sort to grind across. Not only may this help you to reach new spots in the game, it
also looks incredibly cool, and most likely has a balance control system like that of Tony Hawk. Sweet!
 
Now, this is definately not the first time that this hedgehog has seen a handheld system. Back in the Sega Game Gear days, he was in lots of handheld
games, like Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Drift and Sonic Blast. Although most people may think those are the only pocket games with the lovable Sonic,
he was seen again later on. With the debut of the great Neo Geo Pocket Colour, there was a great game called Sonic Pocket Adventure. The graphics were
fairly good, and the game was challenging enough, and had an extremely good multiplayer. How good does Sonic Advance look next to Sonic Pocket Adventure?
Below is a small comparison to try and help show that.
In some screenshots, and parts of the E3 demo of Sonic Advance, there have been sights of the player controlling characters other than Sonic. So far,
only Tails, Amy and Knuckles have been spotted, but who knows what the game has in store? Seeing how many different character were seen in Sonic Adventures
and Sonic Adventures 2 for Dreamcast, it's easy to tell that Sega likes putting many different characters in their Sonic games. Hopefully it's the same thing
with Sonic Advance, because we all like lots of different characters to control, there's nothing cooler than different people with different moves and attacks.
 
With all that said above, Sonic the Hedgehog Advance (as I said, it may recieve a name change) could possibly end up being Sonic's best 2-D platformer EVER. Of course that is a lot to say, especially because of Sonic's many a-classic on the Sega Genesis. Then again, Game Boy Advance is much better than any 16-bit system, and
it hasn't disappointed us yet.
By: Garett Barr
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