That would be me then. Sonic versus Mario? The blue hedgehog would shred the fat plumber any day. At least that’s the answer you’d get from me back during the 16-bit wars. I now realise that Mario, under the wise guidance of Shigeru Miyamoto, made the transition to 3D successfully while Sonic Team faffed with the isometric tosh that was Sonic 3D. Miyamoto created a new genre in the process, one which Sonic Team could only roughly shoehorn Sonic into on the Dreamcast once they saw the light.

It feels like the Sega we knew died with the Dreamcast. That console saw Virtua Tennis, Sonic Adventure 2 (admitedly the closest they ever got to recapturing the thrill of the originals), the wonderous Shenmue series, Jet Set radio and of course Rez. Now? Only Virtua Fighter 4 and Super Monkey Ball spring to mind as recent truly great games from Sega dev teams. Was the Sega-made hardware really such an inspiration to their internal developers? Or has the Sammy buyout just screwed things over as much as we featured?

Anyhow, the point of this jaded ramble? It would seem the ever-readable Tycho agrees with me. Which is nice.