Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One (2 November 1936), ITV (22 September 1955) and BBC Two (20 April 1964). S4C and Channel 4 began over 6 months later on the 1 and 2 November 1982 respectively.

In the United Kingdom the channel is available on digital satellite via Sky on channel 106 as well as through digital cable via Virgin Media and as well as through IPTV via Sky Go and TalkTalk TV. In Ireland the channel is available on Sky Ireland on channel 106, UPC Ireland on channel 114 and Magnet Networks.

Sky1 listings include some very popular broadcasts—many imported from North America—including 24, The X-Files, Stargate (SG1, SGA & SGU), Caprica, Battlestar Galactica, Bones, Lost, Fringe, Prison Break, House, The Simpsons, and Lie to Me.

History[link]

Sky1 started on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television Ltd., a consortium set up by Brian Hayes, formerly a sales executive at Thames Television, and it was Europe's first ever cable and satellite channel, originally broadcasting from the Orbital Test Satellite aimed to cable operators all over Europe; Norway and Finland being the first two countries to permit the new service's transmission via cable. (Malta and Switzerland were the next two countries to legalise cable transmission of the service, followed by West Germany). Reception of the OTS satellite in the British Isles required a satellite dish of approximately 10 feet wide, and it was believed that there were fewer than 50 privately-owned installations in the United Kingdom, that would enable direct-to-home reception of the service^{[citation needed]}. Many programmes from the ITV companies' archives appeared on the schedules of the new channel, such as Please, Sir!, Dickens of London, The Rag Trade and Within These Walls, which in time were accompanied by some limited self-made programming, such as the music show Cable Countdown hosted by Mike Read. Initially, the channel's self-made programming and continuity played out from the Molinare Studios at Fouberts Place in Central London.

However, at first the station struggled financially, due to disappointing ratings in the countries in which it was officially available, which in turn lead to insufficient advertising revenue and increasing difficulty of covering the high transmission costs, and by the second half of 1983, the station's ex-ITV management realised that they "could not capture Europe on the budget of Border Television", and put up the majority of the station's shares (approximately 65%, subsequently increased to 82%) for sale. It would be Rupert Murdoch, who described cable and satellite television as being "the most important single advance since Caxton invented the printing press" and saw it as the ideal way into making his definitive breakthrough into the world's television industry, that would buy the shares (through his News International conglomerate) for the symbolic price of £1 plus outstanding debts. Eventually, Murdoch would buy the remaining shares of the company, taking full control.

Murdoch and the new management he put in charge of the channel changed the channel's programming mix greatly, and in January 1984 renamed the channel Sky Channel. The channel among other things incorporated a big amount of American imports to its schedules, and also increased the quantity produced of home grown programmes, including Sky Trax which covered European music, and children's programmes like Fun Factory and The DJ Kat Show, many of which came not only from Sky's own studios in Central London (having already abandoned the Molinare facilities by then), but also included programmes produced in the Netherlands by John de Mol's production company. Also, the new management adopted a more aggressive policy to reach an increasing number of cable households throughout Europe. Shortly after the channel's relaunch, the first cable system in the United Kingdom to incorporate it was Swindon Cable. In Ireland, Sky Channel started to become widely available among cable systems in around 1987.

Murdoch's changes made the channel the most successful of the early cable and satellite stations that launched in Europe in that period, and it gained very good ratings in those countries with a high penetration of cable television, such as the Benelux and Nordic countries. In Britain (where cable television, although already having a notable number of subscribers, had not yet developed as much as in Central and Northern Europe), market research gave it 13% audience share in cable homes, surpassing both BBC2 and Channel 4 in those homes, with its children's programming (the station's then most successful field) increasing to a share of 22.4% (similar to the programmes seen on both Children's BBC and Children's ITV). However Sky 1 Popularity has fallen and the current viewing shares are below 1%. Some of Sky's special programmes, mainly WWF wrestling specials, managed to surpass both BBC1 and ITV among cable audiences. Even still, the channel continued to be a loss-making enterprise, losing £10 million in 1987. In contrast to the station's founders, Murdoch had pockets deep enough to sustain the operation even though it still failed to gain a profit despite its success.

On 8 June 1988, Murdoch announced at a press conference his plans to expand Sky's service to four channels, thus creating the Sky Television network. Sky Channel alongside the other three channels would move to the Astra satellite system (intended to direct-to-home reception), and the new network would centre its operations more specifically to the UK. (Up to then, Sky had from its initial satellite moved to the ECS-F1 (Eutelsat I-F4) satellite aiming at a pan-European audience).

On 5 February 1989, the Sky Television Network (Sky Channel, Sky News, Sky Movies and Eurosport) was launched, hence the move to the Astra 1A satellite was made effective. At the same time, prime-time broadcasts to European cable operators ended, being replaced by Eurosport, a joint venture between Sky and the European Broadcasting Union, and aimed at a pan-European audience (like Sky Channel had up to then).

Initially, Sky Channel's programming remained much the same (children's programmes, soaps, and US action series), except for a number of new game shows and a few international travel documentaries. Another notable programme that also came with the relaunch was Sky By Day, Sky TV's variation on ITV's more popular This Morning, hosted by ex-Radio One DJ Tony Blackburn (who had moved to commercial radio by then) and ex-Magpie presenter Jenny Hanley. The show had a mix of entertainment, gossip, fashion, etc. Yet it was noticeably low budget and had a small fan base.

On 30 July 1989 the channel was renamed Sky One and confirmed its broadcasting to Britain and Ireland only. But it was not until 1990–91 that it begin to acquire more recent programming, an early success being Moonlighting, which the BBC had previously screened but not repeated. Sky One also picked up some programming (and more importantly, advertisers) from its merger with BSB's Galaxy.

After many years in the clear, on 1 September 1993 Sky One was encrypted as part of the Sky Multichannels subscription package, and could no longer be viewed outside England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland without exporting a box, or receiving it over cable (although it had already been encrypted for a while since its original launch and first went in the clear in around 1987). It continued to be the most-watched satellite channel in Britain and Ireland, a position it held for most of the 1990s, with many first-run US imports such as The Simpsons (which traditionally has been the channel's main selling-point, remaining a satellite exclusive until it finally made its terrestrial television appearance on BBC2 in 1996), Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld, ER and The X-Files, as well as some older programmes such as the various Star Trek series, Hill Street Blues, M*A*S*H*, and Lucille Ball's various comedy series.

The success of the channel lead to the launch on 1 September 1996 of a companion channel, Sky 2, but it was not a success and closed after just a day behind one year, on 31 August 1997. In contrast to the Sky2 that was later relaunched, this channel featured even more first-run programmes, and it broadcast only at night, from 19.00 (7.00 pm) to 06.00 (6.00 am).

In 2000, a dedicated feed of Sky One for Ireland was launched. For most of this Irish feed's existence, the only difference between it and the United Kingdom feed has been differing commercials and programme promotions.

On 9 December 2002, Sky One launched their new logo along with new idents. Sky One again gained a sister channel, Sky One Mix, which was intended as a "catch-up" channel, screening repeats of key Sky One programmes later in the same week.

In June 2003, the channel started broadcasting in 16:9 widescreen.^[1] However all TV commercials were broadcast in 4:3 until November 2005,^{[citation needed]} because they were played off the same servers for all Sky channels, many of which were not broadcast in widescreen.

On 21 September 2004, Sky One Mix was subsequently renamed as Sky Mix.

On 31 October 2005, Sky Mix was renamed as Sky Two with the launch of a second sister channel Sky Three.

'Sky One' was rebranded as 'Sky1' on 31 August 2008 at 18:00,^[2] with presentational elements featuring blue gem shards as 'solids' to fit the element theme also used by Sky2 and Sky3 (which use 'liquids' and 'gases' respectively in their presentational elements). At launch there were four idents: "Bones", "Whack", "Twister" and "Boxes".

On 1 February 2011, Sky unveiled new presentation for many of its channels – Sky1 being no exception. The idea behind the idents is reflecting everyday life, the sequences are filmed in typical meeting places with people coming together having fun, whilst making up part of the scene is giant mirror-finished '1' icon. Gradually in 2012, the mirror-finished '1' idents were withdrawn replaced by simple program specific idents for Got to Dance, Mad Dogs, Stella, Ashley Banjo's Secrete street crew, The Cafe, Modern Family, Spy, Starlings, Glee, Spartacus Blood and Sand, A League of their own and Trollied. ^[3]

Sky1 HD[link]

To coincide with launch of Sky HD, Sky1 HD began broadcasting on 22 May 2006. The channel is a simulcast of Sky1 and screens high-definition versions of some of the channel's programming, which include Lost, Bones, 24, Fringe, Prison Break, House, and most recently new episodes of The Simpsons. Programmes that are not available in HD are upscaled (although Sky1 does show the original widescreen film from Malcolm in the Middle, unlike most U.S. broadcasts, since the series was originally filmed on Panavision widesceen film but cropped to full-screen by most broadcasters. This airing of the original film preserves the shows appearance without stretching or upscaling, although some scenes were compromised for widescreen and had to be upscaled).

Sky have stated that they intend to increase the amount of HD content they show, and hoped that by the end of 2008, two thirds of all prime time shows, and 90% of their own original commissions, would be in HD.^[4] There was also a new Sky1 HD logo which was introduced along with the rebrand on 31 August 2008.

On 1 October 2010, Sky1 HD launched on Virgin Media channel 122, with Sky2 moving to channel 123 and Sky3 (now Pick TV) moving to channel 180 on 22 September 2010, to make way for the new channel.^[5]

Virgin Media dispute[link]

On 1 March 2007, at 00:00 GMT, Sky's basic channels, which included Sky1, Sky2, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Travel and Sky Travel Extra were removed from the Virgin Media cable television services after a dispute between Virgin Media and BSkyB. This was due to the expiry of their previous carriage agreement and the companies' inability to reach a new deal.^[6][7] Virgin issued legal proceedings against Sky over the dispute in April 2007.

The Virgin Media predecessor Telewest was involved in a similar situation in late 2004 when negotiations for renewed carriage of the Nickelodeon channels broke down. Telewest was unwilling to pay extra to keep the channels and preferred to simply drop them. Other Viacom owned channels remained such as MTV and Paramount Comedy 1. The reaction to this by customers was fairly large and many left the provider to rival Sky, others were retained as Telewest offered them a free upgrade to the Disney Channel for periods of between one and three months, others were reportedly offered upgrades to Sky Movies packages in a desperate attempt to keep them from leaving. The Nickelodeon channels returned to the Telewest platform on 12 February 2005 following successful renegotiations in Nickelodeon's favour.

At the beginning of March 2008 the two companies were reported to have resumed discussions over the dispute. Virgin chief executive Neil Berkett was reported as saying they had "continued interest in securing Sky basics back on our platform". The resumed talks had followed shortly after both Virgin and BSkyB had launched appeals against a recent Competition Appeal Tribunal ruling on BSkyB's 17.9% stake in ITV plc.^[8][9]

On 4 November 2008, a carriage deal between BSkyB and Virgin Media channels was reached and BSkyB's channels were available on Virgin's cable service from 13 November 2008.^[10][11] The Sky basic channels were spread across each tier of Virgin's cable TV service: Sky3 and Sky News were made available in the lowest M tier; Sky Sports News joined the M+ tier; Sky1 and Sky2 were made available in the L tier; and Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 joined the XL tier.^[11]

Programming[link]

US programmes[link]

Wikinews has related news: The Simpsons episode to premiere on Sky1

The channel relies heavily on screenings of American television programmes, with many coming from Murdoch's Fox Network. The Simpsons has been airing on Sky1 since both of its early years, making the series not only the longest running program on Sky1 but also the longest running prime time animated series to date. As many as five episodes of The Simpsons are broadcast each evening, with any new episodes generally being shown on Thursday. Sky1 has exclusive rights in the United Kingdom to show the most recent series of The Simpsons. Another early and long running fixture was Married... with Children, which ran all through the 1990s, but in the early 2000s the show suddenly disappeared from its regular schedule and has not been screened on any Sky channel since.

Sky1 was also the original home to the United Kingdom's first run showings of episodes of ER and Friends, for seasons 4–6 of both shows (Channel 4 had shown Seasons 1–3 first), giving Sky1 some of the highest ratings for any satellite channel. In 2000, 2.8 million viewers watched an episode of Friends, the highest rated show on any satellite channel. However when Channel 4 launched their own digital sister channel E4 they outbid Sky1 for exclusive first run rights to both shows. However, Sky1 still held the repeat rights for the early seasons of both shows for several years.

Sky1 previously broadcast WWE (formally World Wrestling Federation (WWF)) programming, before moving it all to Sky Sports 3. Sky1 currently broadcasts The WWE Experience and WWE Superstars.

Sky1 occasionally screens older 20th Century Fox films such as Die Hard as part of its evening schedule, although they are shown with ad breaks, unlike films on premium film channels.

Programmes that have received their United Kingdom premiere screenings on Sky1 include:

Sky One share of viewing 1992–2008. Peak was 9.5%, July 1993, current 0.9%

Current

• A Town Called Eureka
• Battlestar Galactica
• Caprica
• Fringe
• Futurama
• Glee (series 3-)
• Glenn Martin, DDS
• House (series 5 onwards)
• Lie To Me
• Lost (series 3–6)
• Modern Family
• NCIS: Los Angeles
• Nip/Tuck (series 1–3)
• Prison Break (series 3 & 4)
• Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
• Stargate Atlantis
• Stargate SG-1
• Stargate Universe
• The Glee Project
• The Simpsons
• Touch
• WWE Experience
• WWE Superstars

Former

• 24 (series 3 - 8 + Redemption)
• Bones
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Cold Case
• Dilbert
• Family Guy
• Father of the Pride
• Hex
• Las Vegas
• Malcolm in the Middle
• Rescue Me
• Terra Nova
• The X-Files
• WWE Smackdown
• South Park
• King of the Hill

Programmes commissioned by Sky1[link]

Sky has commissioned a number of United Kingdom-made programmes such as Dream Team, a drama series based on a fictional football team; The Strangerers (a science fiction sitcom that was dropped after one series and never repeated); Al Murray's sitcom Time Gentlemen Please; and Baddiel's Syndrome. Hex, another sci-fi show, had proved popular but was cancelled in April 2006 and Mile High also proved quite popular but it only lasted from 2003–2005. Sky One commissioned Terry Pratchett's Hogfather for Christmas 2006 proving to be their most successful programme ever. Following the success of The Hogfather Sky brought out in 2008 an adaptation of The Colour of Magic and its second half The Light Fantastic, and in 2010 Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, the 33rd book in The Discworld series. Sky also co-produces The 4400 and co-financed the first season of Battlestar Galactica.

It also screens many "reality" shows such as Cruise with Stelios, Road Wars, Shock Treatment, World's Deadliest Gangs, Pineapple Dance Studios, World of Pain, Road Raja, Ibiza Uncovered, Cirque de Celebrité and the most recent series Hairspray: The School Musical. It also recently has received success with entertainment science shows Brainiac: Science Abuse and spin-offs, Brainiac: History Abuse and Brainiac's Test Tube Baby and also Mission Implausible. Less successful shows include Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show.

Sky1 have also commissioned a number of game shows including Blockbusters. The most recent game show is from Mark Burnett, Are You Smarter Than a 10-Year Old, based on a United States format. On 30 January 2008, Sky One announced plans to bring back the UK 1990s game show Gladiators which was subsequently cancelled in 2009.^[12]

In 2010, Sky1 also commissioned several new comedies including A League of Their Own, An Idiot Abroad, Little Crackers, Wall of Fame, Trollied, Mount Pleasant, Spy, The Cafe, Stella and Moone Boy.

Continuity announcers[link]

Current NME Radio DJ Claire Sturgess has been a "voice" of Sky1 since 1998, and was the sole announcer from 2001 until 2005. As one of Sky1's four announcers, her voice-overs are pre-recorded once a week and played out by an automated system.

Live continuity announcements air each evening, in 2009 they were voiced by announcers Dave Kelly, Faye Bamford and Philippa Collins. In 2010 three new continuity announcers were hired, Katie Morton, Katie Hudson and Paul Daniels, replacing all the previous announcers. In 2011, two new part time announcers were hired.^[13] During the day pre-recorded announcements air, promoting shows from all the different Sky channels.^[14]

Former logos[link]

• Sky1 logo.svg

  Sky1 logo (2008–2011)

• Sky1 HD logo.png

  Sky1 HD logo (2008–2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

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Sonic Adventure (ソニックアドベンチャー^?) is a 1998 platform video game developed by Sonic Team and released on December 23, 1998, in Japan by Sega for the Dreamcast. The final updated edition, known as Sonic Adventure International, was released as a launch title on September 9, 1999, in North America and on October 14, 1999, in Europe. It has sold over 2.5 million copies, making it the best-selling Dreamcast game.

An enhanced port was released in 2003 as Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut for the Nintendo GameCube and in 2004 for Microsoft Windows. The game was ported to Xbox Live Arcade on September 15, 2010 and PlayStation Network on September 20, 2010. The game was featured on Dreamcast Collection, a four-game bundle released in 2011.

Gameplay[link]

This game is the first in Sonic series to feature free-roaming 3D gameplay. The game is divided into three types of stages: Action Stages, Adventure Fields and Subgames. The division of Action Stages and Adventure Fields was a serious departure from previous Sonic games. In addition, unlike the previous game in the series, Sonic Adventure has six different characters to choose from: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big and E-102 Gamma; each with their own style of gameplay. Only Sonic is playable at first, but other characters are made available after encountering them in his story. When all stories have been completed, a final story is unlocked.

Sonic's stages involve high speed gameplay, whilst Tails' stages require him to reach the end of the level before Sonic (and in one case, Robotnik) does and Knuckles' stages see him searching the area for shards of the Master Emerald. All three of these returning characters retain a lot of their trademark moves from previous Sonic games. Amy's stages require her to escape from the E-100 Zero robot chasing after her, Gamma's stages involve shooting through levels to reach a target and Big's stages involve fishing for his friend, Froggy.

Action Stages are the main playable levels for each character, where the player must face various enemies in order to complete their respective goals. Adventure Fields split up the action, where players can explore the surroundings to advance the plot, discover new levels or search for items which enhance a character's ability (for example, the Light Speed Shoes allow Sonic to run across a path of rings). Subgames deviate from the main gameplay of the character, which include minigames such as kart racing and snowboarding. Players may also find hidden Chao Gardens, which allow them to raise Chao, a sort of virtual pet. Chao can be taken with the player by downloading the minigame Chao Adventure to their VMU, or in the GameCube version, a Game Boy Advance with Sonic Advance or various other Game Boy Advance Sonic games. The player can also raise their stats by giving them small animals that they found by defeating the robots, which improves their performance in Chao Races. There are also eggs hidden throughout the Adventure Fields which can produce special types of Chao.

By playing through Action Stages and Subgames, searching through the Adventure Fields or winning Chao Races, players can earn Emblems. In the case of Action Stages, each one has three Emblems, which can be earned by replaying the stages and fulfilling certain objectives, such as beating the level within a time limit. In Sonic Adventure DX, these can unlock hidden extras such as Game Gear games.

Synopsis[link]

Characters[link]

Much of Sonic Adventure centers on Sonic, a hedgehog who has the ability to run at supersonic speeds, and Miles "Tails" Prower, a two-tailed fox who often accompanies Sonic on his adventures; they are the main characters of the game who are in pursuit of Eggman. Supporting characters include Knuckles, an echidna who guards the Master Emerald on Angel Island, Amy Rose, a pink hedgehog who has a crush on Sonic, and newcomers Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma. Big is a purple, noticeably overweight cat who must rescue his best friend Froggy who became possessed by Chaos' tail, and swallows Big's "lucky charm", a Chaos Emerald, which causes him to mutate. Gamma is one among a series of robots designed by Eggman to take orders without question. After an encounter with Amy, he suffers a malfunction and gains a "conscience". He then turns his aim to destroying his robotic brothers and freeing the animals trapped inside them.

The main antagonist of the game is Eggman, who has formulated a new plan to conquer the planet, this time not relying on his robots alone, but employing a strange liquid creature known only as Chaos. Chaos also serves an antagonistic role in the game, and is the guardian of the Chao. He is apparently water or a plasma-like material and changes form after consuming a Chaos Emerald. After consuming all seven Chaos Emeralds, he turns into Perfect Chaos, which Eggman aims to use in order to conquer the planet. The main antagonist of Amy's story is E-100 Alpha (better known as Zero), the first E-100 series robot who is a large green robot and is considered the prototype.^[5] Zero is one of Dr. Eggman's Robots sent to find Amy's friend Birdie. He follows Amy wherever she goes hoping to capture her and the bird. At one point he succeeds but Amy is rescued by E-102 Gamma. Eventually Zero is defeated by Amy on the Egg Carrier.

Eggman's E-Series of robots play a large role in Gamma's story, as he is one of them, and is out to destroy or "save" the others. All of them have letters of the Greek alphabet as part of their name. E-101 Beta is a black robot with two gun arms. He is the first boss in E-102 Gamma's side of the story, and is later upgraded into E-101 Beta Mk II, who is Gamma's fifth and final boss. E-103 Delta is a blue robot who is Gamma's second boss, waiting at the end of Windy Valley. E-104 Epsilon is an orange robot who is the third boss of Gamma's side of the story and is fought at the end of Red Mountain. E-105 Zeta is a purple robot who is Gamma's fourth boss and is located at the end of Hot Shelter. While at first humanoid, Zeta is altered into a cylinder-like form with several turrets made up of a few Dreamcast machines.

Friendly characters who are non-playable include Tikal, a mysterious female echidna who appears whenever Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E-102 Gamma and Big are sent back in time. She is trying to stop her father, Pachacamac, from stealing the Chaos Emeralds from the Master Emerald shrine. She appears mostly in the form of a pink ball of light called a Hint Orb. A major feature of the game are Chao, small creatures who can be raised in the Chao Gardens and play a supporting role in the story.

Plot[link]

3000 years in the past, the echidna empire, ruled by Pachacamac, desires the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald - mysterious emeralds with unlimited power. Pachacamac's daughter Tikal befriends the Chao in the emeralds' shrine and their guardian Chaos, a water-based creature. Tikal tries to explain to her father that attacking the shrine and killing the Chao to gain possession of the emeralds is not the way to peace, but Pachamac and his men do so anyway. He and his men, however, did not know about Chaos, the guardian of the shrine, and the enraged Chaos uses the power of the emeralds to transform into Perfect Chaos and destroy the echidna empire. Tikal survives and seals the angered Chaos and herself inside the Master Emerald for eternity.

In the present day, Knuckles the Echidna is guarding the Master Emerald on the floating Angel Island when Chaos is released from the emerald by Dr. Robotnik. The Master Emerald, now shattered, can no longer keep Angel Island afloat, and Angel Island plunges into the sea, scattering the shards of the Master Emerald and all the Chaos Emeralds. The Chaos monster later appears in Station Square, and is confronted by Sonic the Hedgehog, who defeats him in a fight. Knuckles sets off searching for the shards of the Master Emerald. The next day, Sonic rescues Miles "Tails" Prower after Tails crash-lands in the city while testing his Chaos Emerald-powered plane. They go to Tails's workshop in the Mystic Ruins, where Dr. Robotnik appears with Chaos. Dr. Eggman feeds Tails' emerald to Chaos, transforming Chaos into a stronger form; Dr. Robotnik explains that Chaos will grow stronger with each emerald he eats and will eventually become invincible and destroy Station Square for him. Upon the ruins of Station Square, Robotnik intends to build Robotnikland, where he will rule it all. Sonic and Tails set off searching for emeralds to prevent Robotnik from getting them first, but eventually lose the ones they find to Dr. Robotnik and Chaos. Dr. Robotnik escapes in his flying fortress, the Egg Carrier, which shoots down Sonic and Tails's pursuing plane.

Dr. Robotnik orders his E-Series robots, including E-102 Gamma, to search for Froggy, a frog who has eaten Chaos's tail as well as a Chaos Emerald. Gamma finds Froggy but is chased by Froggy's owner Big the Cat back to the Egg Carrier. Meanwhile, Tails finds another emerald and uses it to prepare the Tornado II plane to find Sonic. Sonic lands in Station Square, where he runs into Amy Rose, who insists on protecting a Flicky bird she found, named Birdy. One of Robotnik's robots, Zero, intends to get the bird back from Amy and continually chases her. Zero finally captures Amy and Birdy, and escapes to the Egg Carrier. Sonic and Tails board the Tornado II and manage to board the Egg Carrier. Knuckles also boards the aircraft after collecting pieces of the Master Emerald and seeing an image of the Egg Carrier in the emerald.

Onboard the Egg Carrier, Dr. Robotnik commands Gamma to go tend to Amy. Gamma wanders into the wrong room and witnesses his brother E-101 Beta being rebuilt, and leaves to go to the other room. Here, Amy convinces Gamma that Robotnik is a bad man and that Gamma shouldn't work for him. In a confusion of newly discovered emotions, Gamma allows Amy and Birdy to leave their prison; Amy goes on deck.

Here, she runs into Sonic and Tails, who confront Dr. Robotnik. Robotnik flees down the ship, Sonic and Tails fighting Gamma but sparing him at Amy's request. At this time, Gamma fully understands that Robotnik is a bad person and that he should follow the others instead. Tails, Amy, and Gamma evacuate the ship, and Sonic and Knuckles go chase Robotnik down. Here, they fight Chaos, who now has all but one of the seven Chaos Emeralds. The Egg Carrier begins to malfunction and lose altitude, and Sonic, Knuckles, Big, and Robotnik evacuate the ship as well.

Gamma decides tracks down his brother robots and destroy them to free the animals inside, and eventually confronts his elder brother E-101 Beta, in his rebuilt form, on the Egg Carrier. Gamma defeats Beta but is wounded in the process, both robots exploding, and each releasing a Flicky bird. Birdy reunites with its friends when Amy visits the ship. Sonic and Tails, meanwhile, defeat Robotnik in the Egg Viper and Egg Walker, respectively.

A day later, Knuckles restores all the shards of the Master Emerald, but Angel Island collapses into the sea again when Chaos attacks him and Dr. Robotnik. Chaos absorbs the 6 Chaos Emeralds and locates the seventh aboard the Tornado II, which crashed after Big used it to escape the Egg Carrier. With all the Chaos Emeralds, Chaos transforms into Perfect Chaos, depleting the Chaos Emeralds of their negative energy, and flooding and destroying Station Square. Tikal appears, having taken each main character into the past numerous times beforehand, demanding that Chaos must be sealed back in the Master Emerald. Sonic objects, saying that Chaos's heart would still be filled with anger and sadness if he were to be sealed inside the Master Emerald. Sonic's friends cheer him on, and Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds' still-present positive energy to become Super Sonic. Sonic defeats Perfect Chaos, and Chaos survives in his basic form. He discovers that the Chao he once was guardian of now live in Station Square, so he leaves them on Earth to live there, while Chaos himself peacefully departs to the past with Tikal. Dr. Robotnik flees the scene, with Sonic is last seen pursuing him.

Development[link]

Development of Sonic Adventure began around April 1997 with a development team of 30 members. After several titles for the Mega Drive, Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka worked mainly on the game Nights into Dreams.... However, learning of the Dreamcast brought him a renewed interest in creating Sonic games. The development team focused on graphics and high resolution for this game, with Naka reflecting that "[w]e have pushed the Dreamcast as far as we can at present".^[6]

Naka aimed to create levels that would take the player at least five minutes to complete, yet retain similar gameplay to the Mega Drive titles. Following the creation of the basic level maps, Naka wondered "why don't we use this map for other characters?" This led to the introduction of Big and E-102. The development team conducted surveys of fans to ensure that the final product—especially the characters—would please them.^[6] Sega made it a top priority to keep the game hidden until shortly before its release. Despite these efforts, screenshots were leaked onto the Internet in mid-1998. Naka presented the game to Edge in mid-August, and official announcement fell on August 22 in Japan.^[6]

Sonic Adventure also introduced a drastic shift in the overall art style of the games that continued to be used over the next few years. The more detailed, modernized redesigns of Amy Rose and Dr. Eggman probably best reflect this. The characters resemble graffiti art in their official artwork, striking more dynamic and extreme poses. In the game, there were some unused items, such as the unused boss, Sky Dragon from the level Sky Chase.

Music[link]

Head composer Jun Senoue brought a new sound to the Sonic the Hedgehog series with this game, and as such it features many different styles of music such as jazz, rock, techno, pop and country. Each heroic player character (aside from Gamma) also has an instrumental motif that later translates into a vocal theme song that plays during the end credits of their story. The game contains vocal performances from Tony Harnell, Karen Brake, Marlon Saunders, Dread Fox, Ted Poley, Nikki Gregoroff and Johnny Gioeli, the latter of whom would later join Senoue to form the band Crush 40. The development team preferred the use of "hot, funky, and rock 'n' roll" music over the traditional techno-based music present in earlier Sonic games.^[6]

Alternate versions and releases[link]

Gamecube[link]

In 2003 an enhanced port was released for the GameCube and Windows titled Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut (ソニックアドベンチャー デラシクス, Sonikku Adobenchā Derakkusu^?). Sonic Adventure DX includes a Mission Mode, which included 60 missions to complete throughout the Adventure Fields and Action Stages. It also contains an unlockable compilation, which comprises twelve Game Gear games featuring Sonic and friends: Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit), Sonic Drift, Sonic Chaos, Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit), Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Drift 2, Tails' Skypatrol, Sonic Blast, and Tails Adventure.

Also, if all Emblems are collected, then the player can play as Metal Sonic. Reviews were generally less positive than those of its Dreamcast predecessor.^[7]

Xbox Live and Playstation Network[link]

On June 10, 2010, Sega officially announced Sonic Adventure would be released on both the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in Fall 2010. Sonic Adventure DX was released on Steam, as the first in a series of Dreamcast titles to be released as digital downloads. Additional features include enhanced graphics, surround sound, online leaderboards, achievement/trophy support and unlockable Avatar Awards, consisting of a Sonic Adventure T-Shirt and Sonic's "Speed Shoes".^[8]

Sonic Adventure was released on Xbox Live Arcade on September 15, 2010, while the PlayStation Network version was released on September 20, 2010.^[9] The initial release is based on the PC version of Sonic Adventure DX despite the game simply being called "Sonic Adventure".^[10] The DLC package, simply titled "Sonic Adventure DX Upgrade", has launched alongside the game on XBLA, and PSN, which upgrades the game to include all of the features from the GameCube and PC versions with the exception of the Game Gear games and Dreamcast DLC. This version also includes Metal Sonic as an unlockable character.

Reception and legacy[link]

The reception at the time of original Dreamcast version was very positive, with reviews from GameSpot and GameSpy being above 90%. The current GameRankings average ranking is 88%.^[11] It became one of the few Sega All Stars games. In Japan, it received an excellent 38 out of 40 from Famitsu.^[12] Although criticized for its camera system, framerate issues, and fishing stages with Big, the game was still highly praised for retaining the fast and enjoyable gameplay that Sonic was known for in 2D as well as the game's graphics, multiple character storylines, and soundtrack. Brandon Justice of IGN rated the game an 8.6/10, criticizing various glitches and voice acting while praising the game's visuals and gameplay.^[13] On the other hand, GamePro gave it a 5/5 saying, "Sonic is fun, fast, and a great reason to purchase a Dreamcast". The game has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling Dreamcast game.^[14] This includes one million sold in the United States.^[15]

The GameCube version received less positive reviews. IGN gave the DX version a 5/10 criticizing the game's glitches, poor framerate, and clunky camera making it less fun to play in contrast to its original Dreamcast version but praised the overall presentation of the game.

The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ports were panned by game reviewers. While some critics viewed it as a good piece of nostalgia, many others criticized the lack of improvements and the game's more noticeable age, with IGN giving it a score of 3.5 out of 10, calling it "so fundamentally flawed that it borders on unplayable", making it the lowest scored Sonic game on the site since Sonic and the Black Knight.^[16] 1UP.com gave it a D rank, criticizing its lack of improvements and touchy controls.^[10] Retro Gamer gave the Xbox 360 port 63%.

In 2009, GamePro listed the game as the seventh best platformer of all time, asserting that while it had not aged well in certain respects, its core gameplay "is still some of the best" in the entire series, and its visuals and scope were "hip and cutting-edge" for the time.^[17]

For Sonic's 20th Anniversary, Sega released Sonic Generations, a game that remade aspects of various past games from the franchise. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version contained a remade "Speed Highway" level, and a remade battle with Perfect Chaos. The Nintendo 3DS version contained a remade version of the "Emerald Coast" level.

Promotion and tie-ins[link]

Sonic Adventure received a comic book adaptation courtesy of Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog on-going series. The story arc took place in issues #79-84 and Sonic Super Special #13, originally published from November 1999 to May 2000. This adaptation is notable for its permanent integration of characters and story-lines from the video game into the pre-existing continuity of the comic series, providing explanations for the altered character design for Amy Rose and the history of Station Square hidden beneath Sonic's planet, Mobius. Selected portions of these issues (with the exception of issue #79) were reprinted in Archie's Sonic Super Special Magazine #2 (February 2012).

Franco-American's Sonic the Hedgehog pasta featured Sonic Adventure inspired labeling for a limited time and offered consumers a chance to obtain a free Archie Sonic comic book.

In 2000, Toy Island produced multiple lines of Sonic Adventure toys, featuring 5" action figures, 10" talking figures, and 3" bendy figures. Many of these figures were later reissued as part of their Sonic X lines in 2004.

The game loosely follows the storyline of Sonic X episodes 27-32.

References[link]

External links[link]

	Sega portal
	Video games portal
	Japan portal
	1990s portal

• Sonic Retro page on this game