It’s quite the Thursday! Two teasers were released today including the return of Fallout and the return of 2-D Sonic.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Teaser

Coming Summer 2010 for Xbox Live! Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare
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If Sega was in the business of selling hope to gamers, this month would have been quite the profitable one.

Following the promise of a new 2-D Sonic game and the glimmer of hope for a localized version of Yakuza 3 comes a plethora of possibilities. These supposedly “leaked” minutes from a meeting between Sega and SCEA reveal everything from the possibility of Sony re-releasing PS2 titles on the PlayStation Network to Sega evaluating the idea of re-releasing Sega DreamCast titles on said network. I recommend you all to read that document.

A lot of these items are possible and would make a lot of sense. Digital distribution allows for this kind of catering. Your average gamer who waltzes into BestBuy to pick up his copy of Modern Warfare 2 on launch day may not care, but there’s a significant audience out there like myself who would love to play ChuChu Rocket again. So I’m hoping at least half of the ideas documented in these minutes turn out to be true.

Announcements

• Punisher: No Mercy Hitting PSN July 2, 2009 (via PlayStation.Blog)
  • First person shooter
  • online arena-style multiplayer w/ solo and team-based missions for up to eight players
  • Single player mode as well
  • Powered by Unreal Engine 3.0
  • Price: $9.99
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Coming to PSP (via CVG)
  • Via Retail UMD and PSN download
  • Will have additional content and cater to the PSP hardware

Miscellaneous

• Sonic the Hedgehog Turns 18 Today (via NeoGAF)
• PSN Release of Final Fantasy VII Passes 100, 000 Downloads (via Kotaku)
• Max Payne 3 Screenshots (via Official Website)

Technology

• Intel To Power Some Nokia Phones (via TechReport)

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Remember that Sonic HD tech demo from last month? Well, the folks behind the project have released a second tech demo featuring a new area to run around in and Knuckles.

Progress is being made! Below you’ll find two screengrabs which they’ve included and the required files to test this high definition Sonic for yourselves.

  Sonic 2 HD Tech Demo 2 (16.9 MiB, 109 hits)

A bunch of hardcore and talented Sonic fans have created this:

It’s Sonic The Hedgehog 2, but in HD. It’s supposed to be as accurate as possible, but in higher resolution. I like how they left the low resolution floating platform for comparison’s sake. You can try the tech demo yourselves from their site or here:

  Sonic 2 HD Tech Demo (8.2 MiB, 107 hits)

I suggest trying the 4X version of the executable first.

Another Sonic game will be gracing (or mocking) us soon. Sonic fans desperately want their blue hedgehog to succeed and Sonic Unleashed looks like it it could pull it off. Maybe? We have screenshots courteousy of Gamersyde and even a leaked Youtube gameplay video complete with shoddy quality.

It looks very promising, but I will reserve any judgement until I get to try it for myself. At least we haven’t seen any of Sonic’s extraneous friends yet.

Update: GameTrailers has a slightly better version of the “trailer“. Video still stutters, though.

Something about putting the fastest thing alive in one of the slowest genres around, RPGs, doesn’t jive well. Or does it? At this point in Sonic’s career, it may actually be in his best interest to slow down and just appear in a good game.

BioWare and Sega finally released screenshots of their collaborative RPG, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

So far it looks uninteresting, but at least they’ve nailed down the vibrant colors.