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I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable Sonic the Hedgehog fan (at least of everything before the horrible 2006 game), but I have to shamefully admit to not knowing a single one of the interesting facts in Did You Know Gaming's newest video.

For instance, apparently Sega originally designed Dr. Robotnik (I refuse to call him Dr. Eggman) as a hero for another game. Also, Sonic originally had a human love interest called Madonna. That idea was thankfully scrapped by Sega of America for being too "Japanese."

You can learn more bizarre Sonic trivia by watching the video after the break.

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The Community Spotlight features some of the best unedited articles that didn't quite make the front page. This week, we examine how PlayStation All-Stars tries to shed the "Smash Bros. clone" tag, discuss David Jaffe's thoughts on video-game storytelling, and wonder why we still get so many sequels. Join us!

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is trying to separate itself
By Ethan Clevenger

"If you were hoping to play Smash Bros. with PlayStation characters," Ethan writes, "you'll be sorely disappointed. While the general concept is there, the game as a whole is far from a carbon copy, which may be a good or bad thing." I do love some Smash, but I'm looking forward to trying a different style of fight.

Jaffe, you so crazy (or not): Storytelling in video games
By Javy Gwaltney

Javy breaks down Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe's comments on how storytelling "stunts the growth of video games." Javy writes: "What Jaffe is missing out on is the fact that games aren’t trying to be movies but are instead trying to achieve a happy medium that offers interactivity and a cinematic experience." What do you think?

The never-ending year of sequels
By Thomas Bobyn

If it seems like every year could be called the "year of sequels," well, Thomas says you're probably right. He says that sequels are safe bets for publishers trying to turn a profit. But that doesn't mean we have to complain, Thomas argues: "Rather than fighting the barrage of sequels that comes at us 12 months a year, we as a gaming community should learn to minimize the pre-determined bias we have about sequels."

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We're about to enter the crazy period of time in our industry known as the holidays, but check out these reviews for some classic titles and recent releases that you might have missed before all of those triple-A experiences swamp your gaming collection.

Gravity Rush: More, please
By Billy Guinigundo

Gravity Rush is my game of the year so far. I don't think Billy is quite as enthusiastic as I am, but he still has a lot of nice things to say about this PlayStation Vita exclusive. "The gravity-shifting mechanic created a vertical dimensionality to the play space that was parts disorienting, creative, and, ultimately, exhilirating."

The best of gaming horror: Evil comes to Raccoon City
By Stan Rezaee

Stan looks back at Resident Evil 2, one of the most popular survival-horror games for the original PlayStation. "Despite its now obvious plot holes and anomalies, Resident Evil 2 still remains a classic example of a good horror game and a sequel that successfully improved over its predecessor."

Holding up in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
By Javy Gwaltney

Let's keep the classic vibe going with Javy's review of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. How does it hold up? Pretty well, according to Javy. "The graphics haven’t aged well, sure, but everything else is just as superb as it was a decade ago."

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Gaming is huge for Apple. It represents a large chunk of its revenue from the App Store and a significant driver of sales for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch product lines. So it should be no surprise that Apple built the iPad mini for gaming. The mini fills an important niche between the pseudo-desktop, full-tablet iPad experience and the portable, but often-congested iPhone environment.

When it comes to gaming, the iPad is great because it offers a full-screen domain that rivals browser-based titles. Releases like Need for Speed Shift and Final Fantasy III can be displayed in beautiful high definition with plenty of real estate for interface elements or large battlefields. The problem, however, is that the iPad is too big for truly portable gaming. Its 9.7-inch screen is impossible to fully use with one hand and difficult to hold comfortably while standing on the subway. This led to the iPad being the device of choice for full-featured mobile games that are most commonly played at home in long sessions.

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Homebrew programmer Dennis Debro wanted to make a version of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 that was more faithful to the arcade original, and that's exactly what he did with Pac-Man 4K.

Using the same memory constraints as the underwhelming 2600 port, Debro managed to not only make a much more arcade-true maze layout and color scheme, but also drastically improve how the ghost AI works. He even added in extra fruit!

I wonder what it would have taken for programmers in 1982 to make a game anywhere near this accurate, or if this is a product of better tools. Either way, Pac-Man 4K looks pretty great and is available on Atari Age for $25. If you pick a copy, you also get a free magnet.

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I cleared a huge hurdle. I managed to produce a second episode of my video-game-culture webshow, One Million Hit Points. Actually, this is the premiere since the last one (with the senior citizens playing Wii Sports bowling) was technically the pilot. I’m confident that episode one is at least seven times better than episode zero. Wait….

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Pokemon means a lot of things to different people. For those of us who broke into the RPG genre playing Pokemon, we're always looking for more. Perhaps it's time for a change.

The Pokemon franchise has been going strong for close to 15 years, and in that time, has never dipped in popularity -- despite the fact that the intellectual property was marked as nothing more than a shiny marketing ploy. From the fires of the first Pokemon titles, consumers have seen card games, television shows, toys of various sizes, and even pocket-monster-shaped food.

I wholeheartedly believe that the franchise is due for some changes in order to stay fresh and survive.

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Warning: The following contains major and minor spoilers for Resident Evil: Damnation.

Resident Evil: Damnation is extremely faithful to the famed survival-horror franchise. And that’s the problem: It’s too similar. And the reflection in the mirror isn’t very flattering.  

The movie’s slavish devotion to the games manifests itself in cringe-worthy dialogue, contrived situations, and characters that behave like teenagers in a slasher flick. This is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Resident Evil.

Ever since #4, Resident Evil has slowly morphed from a campy throwback to classic horror films into a formulaic third-person shooter, more akin to Gears of War than Alone in the Dark.

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Before you roll your eyes at me, thinking that I’m going to bash Nintendo’s acclaimed franchise, I want to make it clear; I’ve been a fan of The Legend of Zelda since the original Nintendo Entertainment System release. I had the gold cartridge, the instruction booklet with the flip-out-map poster. you name it.

But here I am today, more than 20 years later, about to challenge the almighty Nintendo -- and its most loyal Zelda fans.

I can’t help but feel that Zelda needs to move on. Like Bitmob staffer Jasmine Rea stated in her recent Resident Evil article, I think it’s time for a reboot. 

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The Community Spotlight features some of the best unedited articles that didn't quite make the front page. This week, we express frustration at Syndicate, wage war on the ending of 999, tell a silent story in Kairo, and explain why multiplayer doesn't always work. Read on!

My biggest gaming disappointment of 2012, or: How Starbreeze Studios broke my little black heart
By Javy Gwaltney

Based on his time with developer Starbreeze's prior projects The Darkness and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Javy expected to adore Syndicate. That...didn't happen. Javy explains why, and why he feels his complaints went unheard.

My war against the ending of 999
By Nathaniel Ray

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a Japanese adventure game with a really long title. Apparently, it also has a hell of a twist ending, one that Nathaniel feels didn't fit the rest of the game. "I'm no professional game writer, of course," he writes, "but I do take issue when a writer creates a plot point that isn't supported with his previous writing."

Telling a story with no words: An interview with Richard Perrin, creator of Kairo
By Rory McCarty

Haven't heard of Kairo? Neither had I. But after reading Rory's interview with the man behind the game, I'm pretty curious. If you're into the indie adventure-puzzle genre, you'll want to read up on the designer's interesting philosophy.

Multiplayer doesn't work in every game genre
By Alexander Kraus

Seems like single-player-only titles are getting rarer and rarer, as publishers try to shoehorn in unnecessary multiplayer modes. Alexander's had enough of that. He writes: "Stapling some network code to games that were primarily single-player tend to harm both campaigns instead of enhance both experiences."

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I've been thinking a lot about the sexism and bigotry in video games that has been popping up in the news, lately.

You can't swing a dead cat nowadays without hitting some kind of cookie-cutter war-based first-person shooter. Whether they're space marines, colonial marines or United States Marines, the armed forces are very popular in video games today, and it doesn't take rocket science to explain why: They bring in tons of money. If they didn't, we wouldn't be inundated with a new Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Halo or Battlefield nearly every single year.

But, if my word isn’t enough to convince you, the ESA recently released their 2012 report of the video game industry, and of the 20 most popular console games of 2011, four of them (that's 20 percent) were war-based shooters -- all of which were in the top 10 for the year. With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sitting pretty in first, Battlefield 3 in fifth, Black Ops in sixth and Gears of War 3 in eighth, that genre commands the top of the list with sports, dance, and adventure games sprinkled in between.

Now, numbers are never set in stone, and even developers realize that sales can change in an instant. But, when you consider the demographics of gaming, there's a comfort zone for the makers of these games. The ESA report says that 53 percent of gamers out there last year were male, whereas 47 percent were female. I worry that the developers out there rely too much on that (barely) larger majority for easy mass appeal.

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It’s every fighting-game player’s worst nightmare. Online hecklers trash those who suffer it. People don’t enter tournaments for fear of it: getting mauled in a tournament stream with thousands of your peers watching you online. It’s the virtual version of being tarred and feathered. And I felt the pain firsthand.

In 2011, I stood outside of a crowd of people in a now-defunct arcade in Orlando, Florida, waiting to hear who my first opponent would be in the Super Street Fighter IV: Suffix-Less Edition competition.

Matches would be streamed live on a raised platform with the event’s largest TV. One guy wearing a replica of demon karate man Akuma’s beaded necklace told me how exciting it would be to play on that platform. I told him that that environment creates more pressure.

The organizer announced matchup after matchup until he called my name ... and that my match would be on the stream.

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