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Sonic Riders: Cheapo Gravity
Amazon's use of the Deal of the Day as a venue for offloading Sega Wii games continues, with the sequel to the Sonic the Hedgehog air-snowboarding game. New copies of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity still retail for $30 and more, so it's a bargain at $17.99. Not as much of a bargain as it was at $10.99, but still pretty good. We get enough Sonic Defense Force comments to know that there is an audience for this game! We admit to a bit of curiosity ourselves. As usual, this deal is for today only, so if you've been waiting to grab a copy of this totally extreme cartoon racing game, slam a Mountain Dew and head over to Amazon!
Steering blobs and dropping dudes with Costco's $10.99 sale
Is Mercury Meltdown Revolution a part of your Wii collection? If not, it absolutely should be, for Ignition's addictive puzzler must be one of the most criminally overlooked gems on the platform. And now Costco has it for $10.99, along with a bunch of other titles that range from pretty damn good to shovelware (oh, hai Pool Party). Angelina Jolie favorite Ghost Squad is also on sale, giving you a chance to knock terrorists from their speeding, swan-shaped jet skis, and save money in the process. If a better offer has come along this century, we've yet to see it.Below are the six titles that most stood out to us (the full list is past the jump); we expect at least two of these to be in your house by June 22nd, when the sale ends: Ghost Squad Sonic and the Secret Rings Sega Bass Fishing Mercury Meltdown: Revolution Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz SSX Blur %Gallery-24906%%Gallery-5667%
Another Week in Europe
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of Wii lovers.UK consumers have looked high. They've looked low. And they've reached their verdict: there isn't a better pair of Wii games than Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and ... Game Party. As a polished, slick, licensed product, we can totally understand (and almost support) Mario & Sonic doing well (it came second to Army of Two), but Game Party? Could this be the same Game Party that averages a whopping 23% on GameRankings, and which achieved a heady top score of 32% from IGN? It is? Way to go, Britain!Beyond the top ten, Carnival: Funfair Games makes it to 16th place (and there's more where that came from), Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity and Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree sit in 31st and 37th spot respectively, and we weep into our keyboards for the future of the country.Meanwhile, consumers in mainland Europe are also all over the plumber and the hedgehog, with the Wii version of Mario & Sonic registering top ten positions in the Netherlands and Spain, and sharing top spot in Ireland with the DS edition. Wii Play even makes an appearance in the Spanish and German charts, as it rolls cheerfully towards world domination.Hit the break for a sprinkling of European charts!
WRUP: Solving the case edition
Much like the comedy in the show, we felt something zany and non sequitur like the video above would fit nicely. And, if you're the one person looking at this week's releases and snatching up some title about air boarding or whatever, this might not be the topic for you. Instead, we want to hear from all of you who decided to take the plunge with Harvey Birdman.How many cases have you been through? How are you finding the game to be so far? Is it fun, are you disappointed in it?%Gallery-7527%
The most important flying snowboard race of your life
The Japanese speech makes it impossible for us to decipher what exactly is going on in this latest video of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. What we would be able to hear is obscured by too-loud music. We know that Sonic and his (sigh) friends have some intense, dramatic conversations about something; we can also see that some ruins and a ring-shaped (naturally) artifact are very important to the world. We're lost on the specifics. But we get the big picture: the world is in grave danger. Evil robots have been activated and sent out on a path of destruction, and the only way for Sonic to end the threat and save the world is to race with his friends on flying snowboards. The game ships today, so you can experience the gripping storyline for yourself!
Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity intro
Oh, Sonic. How we love to hate on you (but we'd love it if you didn't make it so easy). Maybe it's just that we've grown up, or grown away from you ... or maybe it's you, man. Maybe it's you. We'll be diplomatic and call this Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity intro "pleasantly familiar" as opposed to "somewhat derivative," and just hang back and try to enjoy it. It's not every day that we get to see the opening of a game, right? That alone is cause for rejoicing. Of course, whether or not we'll actually be buying this one is a matter of some debate. We will say this, though: all the video looks one hell of a lot better than the screens we've seen.
Zero Gravity controls in Sonic Riders
This latest trailer is similar to the previous trailer, but focuses more on what you're actually going to be able to do in the game and less on trying to establish any kind of story (given that there is enough in this game to even present any semblance of one). Our tone when discussing this game is often on the negative side and, personally, we would love to be wrong regarding all of the things we say about it. We hate having Sonic be demeaned in this way, but thanks to the Virtual Console, we can at least load up his other titles and go back to a time when his appearance on a game's cover didn't mean "steer clear."
Celebrating ridiculous Sega music, and also some Sonic racing game
By far the best thing about Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity is the derisive tone we allow ourselves to take while writing about it the theme song. The latest trailer rocks Steve Conte's "Ride True Gravity" as Sonic and pals ride floaty snowboards through tubes and stuff, and it simultaneously makes the game seem both laughable and awesome. Making ridiculously overblown theme music for games is something that Sega has mastered, and we're relieved to see the tradition carrying on, even in these particularly troubling times. The song already has its own devotees, though that may be an artifact of Sonic fandom as much as general Sega awesomeness. We'd also like to admit that the game looks slightly better in this trailer. We don't think Sonic Riders is a good idea in general, and the game is still PS2 material graphically, but at least it appears to be post-2001 PS2 material now.
TGS07: Sonic Riders and Mibri & Tebri trailers
Lately, the Sega news has been coming in bulk, and today is no exception. Together, these two TGS trailers solve the mystery of why Mibri & Tebri exists: to make Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity look good. We're kidding, this time. We think that, as you all predicted, Sonic Riders looks a lot better in motion than it does in screens. The new "Gravity Control" system, which warps the screen and makes us nauseous (in addition to probably having some kind of gameplay function) is featured heavily in the trailer. We continue to be fascinated by Mibri & Tebri. Making an FMV game in 2007 has to be one of the weirdest decisions we've seen. Maybe the designers were frozen in 1993, and thawed out when someone in the Sega offices unplugged their freezer to plug in another Mushi King machine. Check out the Sonic trailer after the break!
