Sonic and Knuckles & Sonic 3

Robotnik never gives up. In Sonic 2 you thought you destroyed the Doctor’s evil Death Egg Machine. You were wrong! In this 16-meg, two-player game, the sinister Doctor’s latest scrambled plan is to rebuild the Death Egg Machine and crack up Sonic once and for all.

Sonic’s teamed up once again with his trusty sidekick, Tails. They’re fighting the Doctor’s latest collection of mechanical menaces on an island paradise gone Robotnik. There are six all-new Zones on the island: Angel Island, Hydro City, Marble Garden, Carnival Night, the Ice Cap Zone, and the Launch Base.

Each has two huge Acts, with the multiple pathways and the secret areas you’ve come to expect in a Sonic game. There’s also a brand new incarnation of Robotnik to battle at the end -of each Act. The all-new graphics are the icing on the cake. They give Sonic a much more three-dimensional look and include many animations for each character.

Sonic and Knuckles & Sonic 3 is a well-rounded game

The game play in this game is true-blue Sonic. He runs, jumps, ricochets off enemies, and activates his mighty Spin Dash to leap tail ledges and cliffs in a single bound. When you play alone, you can even use Controller Two to get some help from Tails, who can fly above Sonic and lift him up to hard-to-reach areas.

In addition to the standard power-up Monitors, there are three new power-ups. The original Shield is gone, but now Sonic can grab either a Water Shield, an Electric Shield, or a Fire Shield. Each Shield empowers Sonic with a new special move and protects him against that type of elemental danger. For example, with the Water Shield, Sonic doesn’t need to remain underwater.

As usual, there’s an awesome new Special Stage, but there’s also a cool new Bonus Round. During the Special Stage, you race across the surface of a huge globe, trying to grab blue orbs and dodge red ones. If you grab all the blues, you’ve got a shot at the Chaos Emerald (and, yes, of course you have to grab all the Chaos Emeralds to see the real ending).

You enter the Bonus Rounds by finding secret rooms with giant Rings in them. Here Sonic ricochets off a huge gumball machine and grabs all kinds of power-ups.

Other new surprises include a new character named Knuckles, an Echidna (look it up, Jack), who’s a real practical joker. There are also some fun variations in two-player mode, including larger split-screen graphics. In two-player contests you can race as Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles, and you can compete in Grand Prix, Match Race, or Time Attack.

In Grand Prix, you race through five Zones (Azure Lake, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget, Desert Palace, and Endless Mine). In Match play, you go head-to- head against a bud in the Zone of your choice. Time Attack pits you against the CPU.
The Word

When it comes to Sonic, Sega always delivers something new and different. ‘Nuff said! Enjoy the pix and welcome to the next level — Sonic-style.