I stayed up for the long awaited reveal of Sega's "Project Needlemouse" which turns out to be Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 for the downloadable services (XBLA, PSN, & WiiWare). Of course, the loyal Sonic fans were freaking out as the announcement went up on GameSpot as if this will be finally break the long curse the hedgehog has dealt with with crappy game after another. For once, Sega and Sonic Team are probably doing something right finally going back to Sonic's 2D roots (the only time Sonic has been good) taking advantage of the 2D HD retro revival on consoles (Mega Man still being 8-bit as an example) and took them long enough to realize how retro is still cool. Maybe Sega also finally realized the potential of downloadable game services and they could do so much more than just re-release the classics by actually making arcade-like HD experiences on consoles such as this, Outrun Online Arcade (still mad that it never came out on the US Playstation Store) and After Burner Climax (also finally coming to XBLA and PSN). Anyway, Sonic going back to 2D is the best thing for him and hopefully there is no more of unnecessary crap like his useless friends taking over, Werehogs, and so on. Then again, I'm still skeptical Sega and Sonic Team will mess this up knowing their recent track record with Sonic, but its a step in the right direction with Sonic 4 being episodic and downloadable. I'm also predicting once all the episodes are downloadable, Sega will bundle them in a disc for those that prefer their releases on a physical form than digitally soon. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is expected to come out later this year and I would buy it in a heartbeat to still support the notion that old-school is still cool in the new decade.
Next up is obviously some Street Fighter IV stuff as Sonic Hurricane released another amazing combo video featuring Abel. Take note of his "infinite" at the end of the video, which is just crazy stuff. Totally not realistic in a tournament situation, but his "infinite" seems useful if the execution is on point.
We now move on to the dancing portion of this post as ABDC season 5 is off and running (another one tonight and I'm not doing recaps) as I will showcase past crews still doing amazing things for the world to see. Above is the latest episode of So Real Cru TV as the ladies do their thing and below is one of the sickest dance routines I have seen in a while with ANBU Black Ops (Kaba Modern's Mike Song is behind this as well as some members from Kaba and Quest Crew) totally killed this themed piece from beginning to end. The song selection is awesome (Shots, Mortal Kombat Theme, and the Naruto Theme = what?) and various dance sequences from the popping, tutting, and breaking are just insane. Every time I watch this video, I am at a loss of words at times of all the awesomeness.
That's it for now... more later.
