Game of the Week
Back once again with the quill behaviour.
What a strange week: nothing was quite as it seemed. EA finally got its Medal of Honor reboot on the ground and nobody seemed to know quite what to think. Review scores wobbled, controversy gusted and died away, and the game contradicts itself: at once sentimental and clinical, self-important and empty. Beneath all the bluster though, it's just a decent shooter: Tom found himself impressed, but detached.
Elsewhere, spare a thought for Konami's Wii underdog A Shadow's Tale, a game which seemed to have "critical darling" written into its design document but ended up dividing opinion. Dan was left cold but regular contributors and friends of Eurogamer Kristan and Keza have heaped praise on it elsewhere. You might have to make your own minds up about this one.
Spare another thought for Euro RPG opus Arcania: Gothic 4, which turned up on Steam but not, as expected, in shops. Our review copy was delayed too, so look out for our verdict next week.
Amid all this confusion, it should be no surprise that Game of the Week goes to an old, faithful friend. Except he's never been that faithful, so it was quite a big surprise, actually.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I
Ellie liking two games in a row! Neither of them being Just Dance 2! A brilliant Sonic the Hedgehog game coming out! Mass hysteria! Dogs and cats living together!
After succumbing to Enslaved's charms last week, Ellie's head was left spinning by the blue hedgehog's return to classical 2D in download form for PS3, 360, Wii and iPhone. In other circumstances, this might just have been a pleasant retro indulgence. But given Sonic's troubled history, this pure shot of platforming glee was more like a second coming.
"Sonic 4 isn't just a return to form; it's an apology for having been away so long," she wrote before dishing out a rare Gibson 9. "There are no 3D environments, no isometric viewpoints, no sidekicks or hoverboards or knights of the round table. Just a blue hedgehog, a fat man in a space helicopter, a good selection of well-designed 2D environments and some of the greatest gameplay mechanics in history.
"In short, this is the game SEGA should have made 15 years ago. It's just a shame that to be this good took ages."
It is a shame, but then again, if it hadn't been so long, it wouldn't taste so sweet. Download it right now, and remember why anyone ever loved SEGA in the first place. And we all did, right?