Oh Archie, sometimes you astound me. Give the man a medal.

If he’s put the mad Dr. Eggman offering tea and something to eat I may have some kind of awesomeness related breakdown.

Trailer number nine if you’re counting, and its for the DS Dream Events!

Click above to view.

Jun Senoue’s official site has revealed the track listing for this upcoming best of. It doesn’t have much in the way of Sonic on it, which I actually find somewhat refreshing in a way.

It does though feature the “JS VS LB” version of Dreams of an Absolution, as well as the highly underrated Westopolis from Shadow The Hedgehog. A rare Sonic Adventure/NiGHTS mix called “After The Adventure” and for added Sonic connection there’s a brand new collaboration with Ted “Race To Win/Lazy Days…” Poley.

Got to say, I’m looking forward to hearing that one…

Full track listings are below.

01. The Star Spangled Banner
(EA Sports NASCAR ARCADE)
02. The American Dream feat. Eric Martin of MR.BIG
(Daytona USA Champion Circuit Edition / New Recording)
03. Sons Of Angels feat. Eric Martin of MR.BIG
(Daytona USA Champion Circuit Edition / New Recording)
04. Lift You Up!
(OutRun 2 SP / Short Edit ver.)
05. Batter Up! Feat. Eric Martin of MR.BIG
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2005)
06. Mr. Baseball feat. Eric Martin of MR.BIG
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2005)
07. Baseball Anthem feat. Terry Ilous or XYZ
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2009)
08. Road To Win feat. Ted Poley of DANGER DANGER
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2009)
09. Moon Shot!
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2009)
10. Afternoon Tea
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2005)
11. Dusk Of The Stadium
(Managing Baseball Team Game, 2005)
12. After The Adventure
(Radio DC, No dialogs)
13. Dreams Of An Absolution (LB vs JS Remix)
(Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Trax – Several Wills)
14. Westopolis
(Shadow The Hedgehog)
15. Cheerleaders A-Go-Go
(Space Channel 5 Part 2 Remix)
16. Where I Want To Be feat. Skye Sweetnam
(New Recording, Original music taken from JxJ EP)
17. Takoyaki Rock feat. Ted Poley of DANGER DANGER
(New Recording)
18. Ignition ‘98 …in the groove
(Sega Rally 2)
19. Soul On Desert
(Sega Rally 2)
20. Sega Rally Championship -J.S.Kickstart Remix ‘99-
(Sega Racing Best)
21. Burnout Running
(Burnout Running)
22. British Rain
(Managing J-League Football Club Game)
23. Chase The Wind
(Managing J-League Football Club Game)
24. My Own Destiny
(Managing J-League Football Club Game)

Catalog Number: WWCE-31211
Release by WAVEMASTER ENTERTAINMENT
Distribute by Avex Marketing
Release date: Oct.21, 2009
Price: 2500 JPY (Tax included)
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B002JR03Y0/

The other week I was actually out the office on one of my all too rare excursions, not to the likes of PAX or the Tokyo Game Show but to Manchester. Admitedly not as glamourous perhaps, but this was no ordinary trip. It was actually a PR trip that I was able to tag along with (which was nice of them!) not only that I got to bring three of my contacts along with me for the ride in Inc Gamers, Play.TM and The Sonic Stadium.

Ben Kilner tries out a different kind of snowboarding.

But why exactly Manchester? Its not exactly a short hop from London after all; well, the truth of the matter is that whilst we were going to show people Mario & Sonic. We were going to actually head out on the slopes.  Now I can guess your thoughts at the moment, “ArchangelUK you sexy shaman of Sonic, don’t be daft it doesn’t snow in Manchester!” Well actually, it does – every night!

Thats because our event was taking place at the Chill Factor-e, which resides next to the Trafford Centre, its the longest real snow indoor slope in the UK and its awesome. The building interior is even done out ski-lodge style! Unfortunately for TSS, poor old Dreadknux was tied up looking at Wiiware games for Spong or someone or the other, so it meant a trip out for another familiar face to report on the day. My old community mate T-Bird.

Of course also in attendance was Mario & Sonic who seemed to be getting into the spirit of things, actively cheering on the press.  In fact I have to report Mario was feeling kind of mischievous and not only was he throwing snowballs at people, but when everyone arrived and were first introduced to the game Mario was actively trying to aid those playing as him. Going so far as to get in peoples way and covering Sonic players eyes.

Top:  Sonic points out Mario just got a gold medal on the start screen. Middle Left: Sonic shows off the best technique for speed skating. Middle Right:  The tutorials are taken in… Bottom: The PR and the Plumb-R, Mario and SEGA PR Stefan McGarry

Perhaps the worst incident came when Mario gatecrashed a photo I was taking for T-Bird of himself and Sonic, the plumber blocking the camera with his bulk – I’d call him a gloryhog, but fear that would insult Sonic. Sonic for his part just laughed off the Italian’s antics and put it down to the extra helping of spaghetti he’d had for breakfast.

Before: Sonic & T-Bird, After: Er, excuse me?!

We weren’t alone at the event, becuase one of Britain’s Olympic hopefuls for the halfpipe, Ben Kilner (http://www.benkilner.com/) was at the event as well to show off some tricks. I had a bit of a sitdown chat with Ben, who was impressed by the game and told me about his current training schedule. An air bag was set up for the guys to do tricks off a ramp on to, I asked Ben if he used anything in his training for helping to nail the trickier moves. Ben revealed to me taht he didn’t at present, but apparently Team GB have been invited to join the Swiss team to share facilities. Which is really nice of them – good for you Team Suisse!

Ben showed off his tricks and we were kitted out in red and blue SEGA branded hoodies and wooly hats, it was -2 degrees outside on the slope which is rather bracing as myself and T-Bird found as we stood out there in t-shirts and jeans whilst people looked at us like we were insane.

Properly suited and booted, it soon came our chance to get on the slopes, the majority of people had taken the opportunity to have a Snowboarding lesson, which I was later told by one of the PR team (who had even brought her own snowboard with her) that was pretty advanced for absolute beginners.   Anyway with one foot locked in our bindings we were soon gingerly gliding along, bizarrely I didn’t fall over and make myself look stupid. In fact I was shakey, but moderately competant when I finally stopped owing to the snow boot on my right food was apparently intent on eating my foot or at least causing enough pain for me to think it was.

Top: ArchangelUK..to the X-TREME! (I should point out I’ve had a haircut since this….)
Left: Zoo Magazine goes for a tumble Right: Play.TM’s Luke Gutteridge, er, screams like a girl?

After hanging up the snowboards it was time to hit the luge and the “tube” – one involved sliding down a frozen water slide on a foam “sledge and the other involved being hurled spinning down a steep slope at rather large speeds with nothing to protect you but a rubber ring.

Actually both were a lot of fun, I seemed to be able to generate quite a lot of speed and revolutions on the tube, so much so nearly went over the top of the embankment at the end. Impressively this was captured on film – I’m actually on the way back down here (at speed), but the look on my face rather says a lot.

“Oh… dear”

All in all it was a great day – those that stayed in Manchester got to stay the night in a rather plush hotel and we even were offered tea and something to eat (s-s-something to eat) as we all went out for a very tasty Mexican meal. My fajitas were excelent incidentally, even if they were in a pan so hot the board they were on was actually on fire.

Awesome fun. I think we need to go on more of these PR team trips, they seem to have an awful lot of fun with their journos!!

[Insert End Of Act theme here....]

I know Japan are technically “in the future” but this is ridiculous, we’re still in September and the Sonic Channel blog is showing Sonic in full Hallowe’en regalia.

[Insert your own Pumpkin Hill gag here...]

In actuality this is part of the October Stamp Rally at SEGA Joypolis; I can’t claim to know exactly what a stamp rally is, but my guess is if you’re from Finland you’d probably do pretty well. Also have you noticed how very different Sonic looks in Japan to America to Europe? Must be a trick of the light…

It’s either a small child in costume or a rather freaky looking soft toy… you decide.

Next trailer up for Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games!

Edit: The code has now been acquired… congratulations to the winner.

Our chums at SOA, when not going off to cool places like PAX and TGS do in fact give away a lot of redeemable codes – we clearly don’t get as many, but since they are of a mindset to be giving away S&K today we thought it might be nice to support that a little with the opportunity to win Sonic 3 on XBox Live.

YOUR TASK:  Replace the * in the code with a 0-9 or a-z and redeem the game before anyone else does!!

QRBFT-6F877-DGMDK-C*8GY-VDCYT

Good Luck!

At the weekend I was busy with a hammer and some big nails, this was because I was putting up a rather large canvas print.  If you were at Summer of Sonic 2009 you’d've seen it, but SEGA Europe’s giant Sonic Unelashed canvas needed a new home after the event otherwise it was destined for the scrapheap apparently.  As a result its now very nicely perched on my living room wall.

You remember the other week we had the two Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games Snow Sports trailers? A bit of a mouthful I know, but that was their official names – which in reality were trailers 4 and 5, or gameplay trailers 1 and 2 depending upon your viewpoint. Well you’ll be pleased to know that there are two new trailers today specifically for the ice based games.

Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games Wii Ice Sports Trailer (Trailer 7)

Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games DS Ice Sports Trailer (Trailer 6)

Hi guys, I’m so busy now adays its often difficult to update the blog as quickly as I’d like – sad panda.  However I’m busy in a good way and I’m able to feed back more directly and effectively what you guys have been saying. It is paying dividends… slowly but surely right?

Anyway enough of that its time for part one of the music cavalcade from Summer of Sonic 2009! These are courtesy of Mr. Bentley Jones himself and are in nice HD.

FINAL NIGHT (Acapella Intro)

Into The Night

Tsuyoku Hakanai Mono-tachi

Seven Rings In Hand (Fairytales In Trance)

Kibun Joujou

They Call Me Sonic (Furry Tails Enhanced Parody Mix)

Dreams Of An Absolution / Wrecks Factor Singalong Challenge

Swing Baby!

Part 2 Coming Soon