Sonic & Knuckles — sequel/counterpart to Sonic 3 for SEGA Genesis — is due out this September 9th for XBox Live Arcade. The best news? The game will emulate the “lock-on” technology available in the original. This means that it will work with previous XBLA releases of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Sonic 3.
Here’s how it works: If you have any of the previous XBLA Sonic games (1, 2, or 3) , Sonic and Knuckles will detect this and unlock additional options for play. Here’s what you can get:
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Unlocks the game “Blue Sphere”, the bonus/Chaos Emerald level from Sonic the Hedgehog 3
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Lets you play as Knuckles, complete with the ability to get to previously inaccessible areas of the game, and new power-ups added for playingas Knuckles
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Play as Knuckles in Sonic 3, and also changes the flow of the game and connects it directly to Sonic & Knuckles, so that you can play the two seamlessly!
We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that they [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine and half years? It's a learning process. - SCEI president Kaz Hirai
It's a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they're like, "Oh my God that's so cool, I'm gonna go buy it." So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they've showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. - Epic Games president Mike Capps
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