I got the new 3" Sonic figures from toysrus today! I decided to post a quickie review about them. First some things they all have in common. All 3 figures come with a base which makes it much easier to stand them up for display, although the Silver and Werehog figures stand fine without it. All 3 figures also feature an amazing paint job, even in problem spots like the edge of the eyes that the previous figures in this series had. The feet have even been made to look a little faded and gritty, like shoes that have been walked on a lot. Actually the biggest problem the figures have is the way they're packaged, the pose they're stuck in is unflattering and often the figures joints are bent backwards, but it does no permanent damage to the figure so I'll forgive it.

On to the individual figures. Shadow is just about perfectly sculpted, though his spines make him a little top heavy, and when his feet are flat on the ground his legs lean back at a slight angle, making the figure very hard to stand without the base. Also what's up with the white mouth? Who paints a WHITE line for a mouth?

Silver is probably the best looking figure in the entire set so far. At first glance his head looks a little smaller than average but that's because he doesn't have the middle spines like the other hedgehogs have, closer inspection reveals his face is the same size as Shadow's. I always had a hard time drawing Silver because of the "pot leaf" on his forehead, I look forward to using this figure as a model for drawing.

The werehog is like a miniature version of the 5 inch figure that came out with unleashed, except the legs are proportionally longer and the hips move more naturally (forward and backward as well as out.) This figure has a much larger body than anything else so far and so is a tiny bit taller than the others. All of the werehog fur is nicely textured and he does a much better job of standing than the older werehog did.

Jazwares has done it again, lets hope they keep this contract for a long time! I look forward to Amy, Eggman, Metal Sonic, and...yes, even Big; and I hope they make a freaking Blaze figure soon! The big figure looks to be about the right shape to customize into SATAM style Robotnik...hmmmmmm

Hey, I got some new sculpey clay, and I'm ready to start selling little clay commissions, which can be made as keychains, cell phone charms, bookbag decorations, and even ornaments! You remember what I'm talking about, check out the ones I made before here: [link] They are all made using Sculpey "Bake and bend" clay, which has a rubber like consistency so it will not get scratched, chipped, or shatter when dropped. The figures will be about 1 inch tall and will be made in the style that you saw in the link I provided.

Here's how it'll work, ask me what character you want, send a picture if you want (send me notes, not as replies to this journal) and I'll make a sketch of what the character would look like as a keychain, if you like the design, then I'll make the chain and send it to you (after you pay me of course.) The figures will use the natural colors of the clay as much as possible, so you won't have to worry about paint that could fade, scratch, or wash off.

Okay, that's all the technical stuff, now pricing. Each figure will cost $7.00, with an additional $2.00 for shipping for each order. I will take payments through paypal the link is here [link]

If you have any questions reply to this journal.

Hey, as you've seen from my recent comics, I have purchased, played, and beaten Sonic Unleashed (Wii version.) I know that the first thing everyone obsesses about is the 2 levels that got removed, the lack of Tornado travel, and the marginalized hub world, but I don't think those are very important. I will admit the missing stages are kind of a let down, the pseudo-Africa continent consists of just one boss fight and the temple, but I think it may be advantageous that the hub world and Tornado missions were removed. I heard that the Tornado missions are glorified quick time events, quick time events are LAZY ways to get through cutscenes people! Most of the quick time events in Sonic actually fit in pretty well, after all Sonic games are all about thinking quickly and fast reflexes, and the button prompts stay up for a few seconds, unlike some other games I played where they popped in and out like flash bulbs, and except for a couple boss fights the penalty for messing them up isn't bad.

Anyway, the hub world, unlike Station square from Sonic Adventure and Soleana from Sonic '06 there's no big map to run around, just a picture of the city with some locations to select off a list, and the gaia temple which contains doors to the levels, portals to other continents, and some little rooms that contain secrets that open when you collect enough medals. This isn't all bad, you lose the ability to just faff about in the cities, playing a very sedate version of GTA or something, on a positive note you don't have to take on those bloody tedious NPC missions and side quests, I consider the loss of the full hub world a worthy sacrifice to not deal with those. Also, I noticed the character designs have changed so the humans look more cartoony now, I think that helps the Sonic crew blend in more, but maybe if they had some more animal people NPCs it would help us appreciate the diversity of Sonic's world; you know what I mean, like the Koala and polar bear people from Sonic Rush Adventure, mix a few of those guys in with the humans and we get a feeling that its a world they both share.

Ok, enough semantics, lets talk about the game play itself, I didn't use the Wii remote because I didn't want to worry about replacing batteries and after Sonic and the Secret Rings I haven't felt very confident in motion activated homing attacks, but the gamecube controller is solid and the game uses it well. The high speed Daytime Stages are Solid and awesome, I think they combine the free running and exploration sensation of the Sonic Adventure games with the high speed and lack of camera issues of Sonic and the Secret rings. That combined with new moves like the quick step, sonic drift, and boost mode (reminding me of Sonic Rush) in addition to switching to a side scrolling perspective for much of the platforming, makes the gameplay fast paced, immersive, and most importantly, FUN.

Of course, in the Wii version more than half the game is spent playing the night missions, A lot of people complain about that but you know what? Stop whining because these stages are great too! There are two minor flaws that I noticed, the fixed camera sometimes makes it a little hard to see where you're going, since you can't control it with the c-stick like in previous titles, and since the werehog's "dash" move is triggered by tilting the control stick in the same direction twice you may find yourself accidentally dashing when you're trying to make precise movements on small platforms. Those were the only 2 little problems I had and they never got bad enough for me to be frustrated. Okay now that I got that out of the way, yes, the night stages are a lot slower, but still more fast paced than most other platforming beat 'em ups like God of War, Devil May Cry, and Prince of Persia. The L and R buttons become Sonic's fists, freeing the ABXY buttons for jumping, blocking, unleashing, and grabbing. Combos are easy to string together and they look pretty good too, especially when you grab a stunned enemy and slam him back and forth on his friends (BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!) If I were to compare this to something from earlier in the series, I guess they'd be like the Knuckles stages from Sonic Adventure, but with several improvements. The levels have a clear beginning and end so you don't end up running in circles looking for things, instead of a beeping indicator telling you "hot" or "cold" you have a nice little radar map that shows you where the enemies, platforms, objects of interest, and even the goal are relative to you so you don't get lost (That radar can also help with the previously mentioned fixed camera, if you can't see a platform or enemy just line it up on the radar and you'll be able to get to it.) This little map is a simple addition, but it was DESPERATELY needed back in the day, especially for the fetch quest missions in the Chaotix levels of Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. So yeah, the Werehog levels are great too, don't be afraid of change.

The final boss fight is pretty cool too, it starts out as a rousing game of rock-em-sock-em robots, then high speed Sonic stages with a whoop-de-do brief quicktime event, then a Supersonic fight that kinda plays like the final battle against Erazor Jinn except without having to worry about tilting the controller right, combined with the the finalhazard from Sonic Adventure 2.

Ok, that's just about everything I have to say about Sonic Unleashed, I heartily recommend it to all Sonic fans and even new people (the tutorial levels at the beginning allow even new players to get the hang of the game before any lives are put at stake.)

Ok, Sonic '06 was in the title too, I don't have my own 360 so I only got to play at my uncle's house for an hour or so, but I played through maybe 20% of Sonic's story and the first 2 levels of Silver's. I'm not going to go into detail since the game has been out for years, but yes, all the stories of glitches, broken controls, bad camera, too many loading screens that last too damn long, and poor level design are true. -_- But it does have some good points, besides the fact that it has really nice graphics and the story is good (That Story is mostly the reason why I'm playing that game in the first place) I found that I was actually having...fun. I noticed during Silver's level that I was genuinely enjoying picking up cars and boxes and rocks and flinging them at enemies, or catching missiles and throwing them back at the guy who fired them (the fools forgot to give him the ability to simply jump on enemies like Sonic can though, making fighting without crap to throw rather tedious.) So...yeah, the game has so many glitches and design flaws they leak out of its pores, but if you dig through all the crap you might just have a little fun playing it, though I can't help but feel it would have been better if they just made it a CGI movie, the story and graphics are nice enough.

I got Sonic Chronicles, the Dark Brotherhood today. What can I say about it...well I started playing around 5:30 or 6:00 and stopped...5 minutes ago when my arm went completely numb. I have not played an RPG since pokemon crystal, and I'm not exactly used to the grind of mini-quests. The combat system is pretty sweet though, its turn based, but the way to need to use the stylus to get out combos and successfully execute attacks keeps you on your toes, so its not as boring as select attack, wait for beeping noise, repeat until someone dies. Overall, good first impression.

I also FINALLY got Sonic the Hedgehog '06 for the XBOX 360, of course I don't have an XBOX 360 so I'll need to wait at least until this weekend so I can play it on a relative's system.

Hey, I think you've all seen my little keychains here [link] I was thinking of making a bunch of them, including some of my own characters like Tiny Ninja, but it occurs to me that I might be violating copyright law. I got burned on my yugioh fan cards by deviantart's copyright policies, so I want to know if anyone had experience in selling fanart, especially little figures like my keychains here, before I spend any money on clay. FYI any and all figures I make are hand crafted and not based on any existing product made so far by Sega or Nintendo.