Help! I need some... rings?

There are two big video game stories today; The Beatles Rock Band and the ten year anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast, but since I'm in the UK, and the Dreamcast wasn't released until the 14th of October over here, that really only leaves me with one option.

Project Needlemouse.



You can scream at me until you're blue in the face about the significance of the Beatles back catalogue being released for the first time digitally in an interactive format, and whilst I may agree that, yes, that is a significant step forward in the fight for credibility for the medium we all love, anything else pales in comparison to the announcement of a new two dimensional Sonic game. In all of my 26 and a bit years on this earth I have not once wanted to be a member of the Beatles, in fact, in my humble opinion, they're an overrated pop group at best, but my younger days were dominated by a spiky blue hedgehog in red sneakers, and his increasingly bizarre cast of friends and hangers-on.

Today is a day for cultural icons, on one side, a band that shaped the progress of music and celebrity, and on the other, a video game character who was one of the first to bring mainstream cool to a hobby that was thought by many the preserve of spotty, knitted jumper wearing losers. Sonic defined the 16bit era, in much the same way as The Beatles music defined a specific time in popular culture, and despite his rotten run of form of late, a return to the halcyon days of the Mega Drive is every bit as important to videogames as The Beatles: Rock Band.

Maybe in ten years time, this day will be remembered as the day videogames finally got the credit they deserve, but I doubt it. The Beatles: Rock Band is a niche game, one that costs almost as much as a console if you want to experience it properly, the latest in a long line of -Band or -Hero games that all play identically. It doesn't represent the best, or the most distinct, that our little corner of the entertainment world has to offer. If, as an industry, video games want credibility, they need to build their own heroes, not recycle those from other, more well established forms of entertainment. That's why it's Needlemouse all the way for me today.