The Dreamcast has brought a lot of new experiences to the console community, one of those being a stable gaming network. Saturn and even Genesis attempted to link gamers on the internet, but our beloved 128-bit box has been the most successful incarnation yet. Some of the new additions to the on-line family from Sega happens to be the “Sonic World Rankings” contest, the Sonic 2K competition, and special downloadable add-ons for special occasions like the Halloween “Tremble Park” from a few days ago.
Charles Bellfield, director of marketing communications at SOA has this to say about our hedgehogs foray into the Net, “Sega’s plan is to continue to phase in online gameplay elements, giving consumers new experiences never seen before on a console. Sonic Adventure’ is the first of many games that will be given additional `arms and legs’ through the Internet.”
Want to know more about these competitions? The Sonic World Rankings is a forum for gamers to compare their best times and scores for Sonic Adventure against other top speeders from around the world. Each will be broken down by section and particular character with gamers tasked to head out, play, and procure the best possible package of points. All the details can be found at the Sonic homepage, but if you haven’t already gotten on board with the competition, you better hurry considering that it opened last month, October 15th.
The next competition, co-sponsored by AT&T is the Sonic 2K contest. Collaborating with Sega’s official Dreamcast Magazine, gamers will download special levels of the game and compete against others for prizes. Most of these courses are visually revamped levels, usually containing a few more cosmetic upgrades to keep the competitions fresh. Prizes vary, but include a free year of internet access through AT&T WorldNet as well as Dreamcast merchandise including game copies. Like the Sonic World Rankings, the Sonic 2K competition started October 15th, but will only run till January 14, 2000 as a series of three, three week contests.
For now, crank up the on-line options of your Dreamcast and check out all the information regarding these two contests. We’ll let you know of any announcements that pour out of Sega regarding their plans to put our happy hedgehog and beloved box to good use on the World Wide Web…
Source: Sega X