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It's been a year to remember for fans of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic Mania blew the doors off, becoming one of the finest platform games ever made, while yesterday saw the conclusion of a fantastic online event - the Sonic Amateur Games Expo 2017. SAGE brings together creators and Sonic fans the world over to deliver brand new experiences based on Sega's blue hedgehog. It's this event that sparked the creation of Retro Sonic by Christian Whitehead which, after a long and winding path, ultimately led to the creation of Sonic Mania. SAGE is also the catalyst which resulted in excellent titles like Freedom Planet and Spark: The Electric Jester - two great action games well worth checking out.Clearly, SAGE is an important birthing ground for new Sonic concepts and two fascinating demos were released this year: modernised remakes of the very best and the absolute worst titles in the Sonic canon. Sonic 2 is a game ripe for remastering for current hardware and with the Sonic 2 HD demo, we're getting a highly promising remake that looks beautiful in the high definition age without sacrificing the playability of the original. And then there's Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 PC - a brave attempt to rehabilitate the darkest chapter in Sonic history. The great thing is that both are available for anyone to download and play now on PC - the links are at the end of the article.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a fascinating title - and our favourite of the series. This second installment featured refined level design, incredible visuals and a great soundtrack. It's also the sequel that almost didn't happen - after the first game, series creator Yuji Naka famously walked out on Sega of Japan before a certain Mark Cerny managed to persuade Naka to instead join his San Francisco-based Sega Technical Institute, which lead to the creation of Sonic 2.
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