It seems like Sonic has finally decided to go solo once again as Sega announced that the speedy hedgehog will be starring in his own next-gen title, Sonic Unleashed. The new title will make use of its own powerful "Hedgehog Engine", which will give the game a fresh next-gen look while keeping into the feel of the previous Sonic titles. For more details, check out our full article after the jump.

Why was Sonic such a big hit back in the early 90's? Well, he was cool, and he was blue, and the early 90's after all was the era of Grunge, being blue back then was sort of hip. Tragically hip. Oh never-mind. Ignore that corny wordplay.

Sonic was a big hit because the Hedgehog's games featured jaw dropping loops, psychedelic bonus rounds, and impressive boss-battles against insane mechanical creations. The game was hot, action-packed, and was definitely exciting (some are daring enough to say that they felt that it was more exciting than all those Mario Clones)

So how did Sega manage to degrade a great blue hyper-speed franchise? Some of us here at QJ believe that it was when somebody decided to make Sonic open his mouth. Allow us to make this comparison. Play the two YouTube vids below. (Not at the same time of course.)

The one on the left is how Sonic sounds in most English voice-overs. The one on the right is how Sonic sounds in Japanese. See the difference? Despite the sheer insanity of HELLOOOOOO EBURIBODAAAYYYY, Sonic sounds less annoying. Some might think that the slightly deeper voice even makes him sound cool and slightly kooky.

Of course, there are other more legitimate reasons for the Sonic's decline in quality over the years. For example, racketboy of Retro Gaming has a long and detailed article up regarding the why and how of the degradation. We'll give you a quick enumeration of his points after the jump!

The full article awaits after the jump!