You've probably noticed that here at Everybody Plays, we love a good Collector's Edition, and if you haven't, I'll tell you now - we love a good Collector's Edition. Also relatively high up on our Love List is Sega's main man (well, Hedgehog), Sonic. So you can imagine the high-fives we shared when Sega announced that Sonic Generations, the blue Hedgehog's latest era-swapping adventure, was getting it's very own Collectors Edition. And what a Collector's Edition it is:
The only thing it's missing is a steelbook...
Included in the rather fancy box you'll find a collectable figurine, featuring old-school chubby Sonic, and new-school lanky Sonic, an exclusive, numbered Gold Ring, the "20 Years of Sonic" art book, full of never-before-seen sketches and other artwork from the past 20 years of games, and two bonus discs - The "20th Anniversary Sonic Soundtrack" CD, containing a selection of tracks especially chosen by Sonic Team, and the "History of Sonic: Birth of an Icon" documentary, which will hopefully be a rather interesting watch, showing "Sonic's life from inception through to becoming one of the most iconic characters in video game history.". Also included in the Collector's Edition is an exclusive DLC pack, including a theme, a Super Sonic costume for your avatar, and a Sonic Generations version of the Casino Night Pinball Stage from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
In case you haven't heard much about Sonic: Generations, you might be a bit confused by the number of Sonic's on the packaging, and indeed the number of Sonic's featured in the collectable statue. Luckily, there's a relatively simple explanation:
Sonic's world has been hit by some unknown power which has created these wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey things called Time Holes, transporting Sonic and his friends back in time. Whilst in the past, Sonic manages to bumps into… himself. Now, usually, that would create some kind of paradoxical situation that would cause the universe as we know it to end, but luckily Sonic suffers no such ill effects and joins forces with his younger self to try and figure out what's going on. Because old Sonic comes from a time when games were only played out in two dimensions, Sonic Generations has two rather different styles of gameplay. Old Sonic tackles his levels in a 2D style, like the classic Sonic games and the GBA titles, while Modern Sonic handles his levels in a 3D Sonic Colours style.
Here's chubby Sonic doing one of his 2D sections. If you're getting a tingling sensation of déjà vu, that's because it's the first level of the original Sonic.
Sonic Colours ended up being the best 3D Sonic game since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, so with any luck Sonic Generations can keep the franchise going in the right direction, and we haven't seen anything so far to suggest otherwise. We'll be getting that Collectors Edition, and more Sonic Generations info as soon as we can.
Sonic Generations is out on the 4th of November on PS3, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo 3DS.
