[Thorn]

This post totally isn't for the sole purpose of keeping the front page active.

First of all, June 23rd was Sonic's 20th anniversary, as I'm sure most of you know. The biggest thing to come of this was the demo for the console versions of Sonic Generations, and I leave a reminder here to make sure you download it ASAP if you haven't already, since the download will be removed from Xbox Live and Playstation Network on July 12th. The demo is set to stop working after that date as well, but it's been found that this can be circumvented with a bit of trickery.

Secondly, today (July 5th) is the 15th anniversary of another Sonic Team franchise, NiGHTS. OCRemix and the NiGHTS into Dreams fan site are celebrating with the release of the free fan album NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming. If you've gotten an OCRemix album before, you'll know that the albums tend to be comprised of some really over-the-top remixes, some mixes with vocals added, and some very laid back instrumental pieces, so there's something for everybody, especially those familiar with the source material. Three related points...

• At this year's Summer of Sonic, DiGi and TRiPPY, who run aforementioned fan site, got to have an interview with Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka. DiGi and TRiPPY gave Naka and Iizuka copies of the album, and Iizuka asked for more copies to give to others, including NiGHTS into Dreams' lead composer Tomoko Sasaki. SEGA's more senior members still hold NiGHTS in high regard.
• If you aren't familiar with the real-life concept of lucid dreaming, you should really hit up some sites related to it such as Dream Views and LD4All. It's life-changing stuff and is some of the most fun I've had ever. You may have to look past some of the people spouting pseudoscience if you start researching it heavily (in particular, the movie Inception is pretty far off, and many people claim that lucid dreams provide access to other planes of existence), but even from a scientific standpoint, limitless possibilities within your own head is both possible and amazing if you're dedicated enough or born lucky enough to master it.
• What better day than today to support a port of the original NiGHTS game to modern consoles? Hit up NiD15 to show support. A Playstation 2 remake of the original game and half of the Christmas bonus game was released in Japan a few years back, and it could easily be ported to a more powerful console. SEGA may be listening, so it's worth your time.

Finally, this year marks the 20th anniversary of Puyo Puyo, yet another Sonic Team franchise. Most Sonic fans have played Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, a localization of the original Puyo Puyo, and a few more may have played the SNES localization, Kirby's Avalanche. The Genesis / Mega Drive version of Puyo Puyo 2 is available on the Wii's Virtual Console, and Japan will be getting a 20th Anniversary game on July 14th (as with the 15th Anniversary game and Puyo Puyo 7, this will likely see a fan translation that can be played in DS emulators). The English fan community Puyo Nexus has been using the Puyo Puyo VS fan game for live competition under Puyo Puyo 2 rules (read: pretty close to the rules from the first game and localizations, except you can now defend, you can flip pieces even if there's no room to rotate, and you get bonus offense on your next attack if you clear your play area entirely). It's very customizable, and I've been toying with taking avatars or representations of TSC members for use as play area backgrounds: it's satisfying imagining I'm beating our site champion instead of anonymous. I've been trying to convince people on IRC to get some live matches going and you all should totally participate.~

[Aitamen]

Holy shit, a news article made of news!

Will be snagging the demo since it's coming down, because it may well be a beta-version-broken-thing for use in competition later.  Still can't play it because 360 controllers are made of fucking eggshells for all intents and purposes.

I love the LD album thus far, totally worth the time to DL for... well anyone...  it's hit and miss for me, but I'm sure it would be for anyone (people will like what I hate etc.), but I double what thorn said in that there's something for everyone.

And I suck at Puyo Puyo, though I did beat MBM, it took forever.

[Parax]

For the record, if you want to play the demo after July 12, then (this is for 360 users) you'll need to copy the demo before starting it up to a different storage device. If you've already started the game at least once, then you'll have to delete it, clear your system cache, and redownload it. After you've copied it all you need to do is clear your system cache and disconnect from XBL, then copy the demo over and change the system date to somewhere between June 23 and July 12. Should work perfect.

[SirJaden]

You actually got me interested in this "Lucid Dreaming" Very interesting, though I can't say I haven't experienced these before but those methods discussed on the site were actually helpful, especially cutting your sleep to start again with a different stage (I studied about the sleep stages before so it was easier to understand)