Sonic Origins has been released into the wild just in time for Sonic the Hedgehog’s 31st birthday and Yuji Naka just confirmed the greatest urban legend in Sonic the Hedgehog history: Michael Jackson wrote the music for Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
The legendary game maker took to Twitter on Thursday morning (Thursday night Japan Standard Time) and asked if the music for Sonic 3 & Knuckles changed in Sonic Origins at all since he produced the original game in 1993-94. Not 10 minutes later, he followed up with, “Oh my god, the music for Sonic 3 has changed, even though SEGA Official uses Michael Jackson’s music.”
Oh my god, the music for Sonic 3 has changed, even though SEGA Official uses Michael Jackson's music.
— Yuji Naka / 中 裕司 (@nakayuji) June 23, 2022
Naka tweeting about Michael Jackson’s involvement with Sonic 3 & Knuckles came way out of left field, but it validates all the fan theories and research that cropped up on internet forums about the matter in the last 28 years since the release of the original game — especially when it came to the melodic similarities between the game’s ending theme and Jackson’s song Stranger in Moscow. It also validated a statement composer Brad Buxer gave The Huffington Post in 2016, when Buxer claimed Michael Jackson worked with him and other songwriters on the soundtrack for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and the music ended up in the final product.
We already knew that Sonic Origins wouldn’t be using the original soundtrack for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but fans were unsure if Jackson’s rumored portion of the soundtrack remained intact in some way despite not being credited for his contribution. The game’s score has been reproduced by Crush 40 guitarist and veteran Sonic music composer Jun Senoue, using the same sound chip from the Sega Genesis as well as his own digital audio tape collection.
To paraphrase Elton John, Naka turned a legend into fact today.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.