Sega will be milking the announcement of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 for all its worth, doling out additional announcements and countdown clocks to drum up hedgehog hype. Perhaps the most interesting tease is the game's fourth platform.

Sonic 4 (nee "Project Needlemouse") has been officially announced as a PlayStation Network, WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade download, but a handful of observant readers have pointed out that an additional platform appears imminent. A hidden logo, one that appeared in the announcement trailer and now on the official Sonic the Hedgehog 4 web site, makes it mysterious.

Sega's not revealing what that platform is for the time being, leading us to conclude only one thing: Dreamcast 2. Most likely releasing on 10/10/10.

Update: Yes, it appears to be the iPhone. Smart Kotaku commenters have already figured it out. Looks like the Dreamcast 2 launch will have to wait until 11/11/11. :(

Alien chestburster casemod for PS3 phat, as seen on Technabob.

Road Rash fans are likely aware that Electronic Arts has flirted with reviving the violent racer on "next-gen" platforms, a project that has reared its head in video and trademark form. But did you know that EA was also working on an Oliver Twist game?

It got at least as far as the concept art stage, according to old artwork from concept designer Ross Dearsley unearthed by the man who prefers to be called superannuation. Dearsley's concepts cover all manner of Electronic Arts project, from the unreleased Gunhead to something called Hurikan to other unnamed projects.

Let's take a peek at the unannounced, potentially aborted Road Rash.

Dearsley's notes says that he was focusing on "ease of differentiation" in his character concepts for a new Road Rash, with bikers of all shapes, sizes and visual personalities. There's not much here beyond clothing studies and loose sketches of big, bulky and portly characters, but they certainly do nail "ease of differentiation.

And, to add to the list of literary works turned video games, Dearsley's concepts out a game concept based on Oliver Twist.

Looks a bit like a kid's version of Assassin's Creed, but with one potentially interesting concept mentioned in the notes, Oliver's hunger levels affecting his pose and animation and, I assume, his vitality. Dearsley's concepts show off Fagin, multiple versions of Oliver and the Bowstreet Runners.

The artist has concept art from another project, something "Arthurian" from 2007, also for Electronic Arts, on his personal blog. He notes that one of the project's "key visual elements was to be the scale difference between 'normal' people and the gigantic armoured knights."

Seems EA is quite taken with building IP upon already existing work without those costly licensing fees. Shame that some of this stuff never saw the light of day. Another opportunity to work in "Dickensian" into a post lost.

Ross Dearsley [Blogspot via superannuation

Fans not opting to purchase the Limited Edition of BioShock 2 can get their hands on the soundtrack next week, when 2K Games releases two versions of the soundtrack digitally, packed with the greatest hits from the 30's, 40's and 50's.

Between BioShock and Fallout 3, I've grown quite fond of music from the 30's through the 50's lately. These old songs have the sort of sound that you just can't find today, with themes that at times seem completely alien to an American living in the 21st century. As I neglected to purchase the Limited Edition of the game with the soundtrack included, news that the music will be available via my favorite digital music delivery service come Tuesday is quite welcome indeed.

The soundtrack for BioShock 2 comes in two flavors: the standard edition with 12 tracks, and the deluxe edition, with six more tracks from the likes of Fred Astaire and Red McKenzie. I only wish they were selling physical copies of this, as it would make a perfect gift for my stepfather, who tends to enjoy anything older than him.

You can check out the full track listing below, and if you're in the mood for a more immediate BioShock 2 music fix, you can listen to Rapture Radio on your computer right now, via iTunes (pls) or Windows Media Player (asx). Enjoy!

STANDARD EDITION:

The Boogie Man - Todd Rollins & his Orchestra
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? - Patti Page
20th Century Blues - Noel Coward
Nightmare - Artie Shaw & His New Music
Daddy, Won't You Please Come Home? - Annette Hanshaw
Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition - Kay Kyser & His Orchestra
Dawn of a New Day - Horace Heidt & His Music Knights
Night and Day - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
My Heart Belongs To Daddy - Eddie Duchin & His Orchestra
Chasing Shadows - Quintette of the Hot Club of France
Jitterbug Waltz - Fats Waller & His Rhythm
I Cover The Waterfront - Connie Boswell

DELUXE EDITION:

The Boogie Man - Todd Rollins & his Orchestra
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? - Patti Page
20th Century Blues - Noel Coward
Nightmare - Artie Shaw & His New Music
Daddy, Won't You Please Come Home? - Annette Hanshaw
Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition - Kay Kyser & His Orchestra
Dawn of a New Day - Horace Heidt & His Music Knights
Night and Day - Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
My Heart Belongs To Daddy - Eddie Duchin & His Orchestra
Chasing Shadows - Quintette of the Hot Club of France
Jitterbug Waltz - Fats Waller & His Rhythm
I Cover The Waterfront - Connie Boswell
Mental Strain At Dawn - Jack Purvis, trumpet solo, with rhythm accompaniment
Bei Mir Bist Du Schon - Benny Goodman & His Orchestra, with vocal by
Martha Tilton
The Trouble With Me is You - Red McKenzie
The Skeleton In The Closet - Putney Dandridge
We Saw The Sea - Fred Astaire
La Mer - Django Reinhardt

Ladies and gentlemen of Kotaku, children of all ages. I will now attempt to explain to you the battle system in Sega and Tri-Ace's upcoming role-playing game Resonance of Fate. Drumroll please. (And let me know if I lose you.)

Resonance of Fate, fine people, is a role-playing game set in a fantasy future. Imagine a mile-high beanstalk of a tower, with leaves of terrain sprouting from the stalk. This terrain represents the neighborhoods of this world, The Machine. Each leaf is a neighborhood of heaxgons full of towns and battle zones. These are the places where you may have an adventure. The higher you go, the richer the society you will find. Observe the day and night cycle. Observe the realistic outfits. No cloaks here. Just jeans. Leather coats. The Sega man says, there are no spoiled-teenager stories being told. This is political intrigue and the adventure of some people who find that they cannot die.

Across this terrain you will fight, and you will fight only with gun. Your party of three has no swords, no magic and no beasts to summon. It has pistols, machine guns and grenades.

Your fights will be random battles. They will occur in confined battle instances, three of your party against some enemies.

You will take turns in combat, as you do any classic Japanese RPG. You will use guns that you've modified, having bolted on larger clips and special scopes.

Your combat turns will be on a timer, kind of like, the Sega man says, Valkyria Chronicles. The further you walk toward the enemy, the more your move meter will be drained. Once you stop moving and begin the attack, the rest of the meter will drain. As it drains, your targeting reticule over the enemy will sort of spin. With each rotation it will gain more potential power. As you press a button, you will unleash your gunshots. During this time the enemy may be shooting back.

But, wait! You will be able to do special Resonance Attacks. These will involve aiming a beaded line across the floor toward the enemy and then starting the assault. Your character will run along that line and you will be able to press a button to make him shoot as he runs. Each Resonance Attack will cost a jewel from the meter at the bottom of your screen.

You will want to intersect the path of the other members of your party. This will earn you Resonance Points.

Strategy twist: With enough Resonance Points, you will be able to do special Resonance Attacks called Tri Attacks. These will allow you to aim one character at the enemy and have all three of your characters commence the attack. Pressing the action button will fire shots during the attack rush.

Pay attention, because you can do and take two kinds of damage: Scratch Damage. Direct Damage. Machine guns do Scratch Damage. It knocks an enemy health bar down a lot but leaves behind blue on that bar. This damage is temporary and will be healed over time during the battle. Only pistols do Direct Damage, which knocks the blue away and hurts the enemy.

Early in the battle, the damage you take will all be Scratch Damage. When you lose a full health bar of it, you lose a jewel from your jewel meter. Your health bar will be full again. When you are down to your final jewel, your character will die. Except! You will only die in the context of battle. The battle will re-start. In the context of the story, your character cannot die.

This is how a JRPG does turn based battles with guns. It is, fine Kotaku readers, hard to explain. You would even miss some of it were you to see it with the naked idea, as I was worried I did when I watched a Sega rep play the game in New York City early this week. But it does seem daring, complex and the Sega man was having fun.

For my next trick, I will stick my head in the mouth of a lion.

Look for Resonance of Fate on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in late March. It's out already in Japan. Maybe someone there can explain the parts of the battle system that you didn't understand here.

I thought Apple's new iPad was a completely ridiculous waste of money, until I saw pictures of the iPad version of Panelfly's comic book reader. Now it's just slightly ridiculous.

There was absolutely no way I was shelling out $500 plus for an iPad in March. There was no application Apple could show me, nor game you could have me play that would sway my resolve. Now I'm not so sure. Panelfly's comic reader/digital comic book distribution service has been going strong on the iPhone for quite some time, but I've not paid it much attention. While I appreciate the effort, I'm just not fond of reading comic books on a tiny screen. Hell, I'm not fond of reading them on a PC screen for that matter. Something about the portrait orientation bothers the hell out of me.

Now the iPad version of Panelfly's app, available with the release of the new device, does away with the issues of size and orientation, and damn if it doesn't have me wondering how I could scrape up $500 in a month for an eReader extreme. Anyone want to buy several cats?

Panelfly iPad [Official Website]

I thought Apple's new iPad was a completely ridiculous waste of money, until I saw pictures of the iPad version of Panelfly's comic book reader. Now it's just slightly ridiculous.

There was absolutely no way I was shelling out $500 plus for an iPad in March. There was no application Apple could show me, nor game you could have me play that would sway my resolve. Now I'm not so sure. Panelfly's comic reader/digital comic book distribution service has been going strong on the iPhone for quite some time, but I've not paid it much attention. While I appreciate the effort, I'm just not fond of reading comic books on a tiny screen. Hell, I'm not fond of reading them on a PC screen for that matter. Something about the portrait orientation bothers the hell out of me.

Now the iPad version of Panelfly's app, available with the release of the new device, does away with the issues of size and orientation, and damn if it doesn't have me wondering how I could scrape up $500 in a month for an eReader extreme. Anyone want to buy several cats?

Panelfly iPad [Official Website]

Where is art found in video games? Ian Bogost and a panel of experts tackled this question and more yesterday at The Art History of Games symposium in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Art History of Games isn't simply another venue to show off particularly lovely screenshots or paintings inspired by gaming. The event seeks to answer deeper questions about the nature of art and games, exploring the convergences of the two and how both have coevolved in response to one another.

During the opening panel, game culture expert Ian Bogost was joined by digital media scholar Michael Nitsche and art historian and game designer John Sharp to discuss where we should look to find the art in games.

Is the art of games found in visual arts?

This is where the industry often points when asked for examples of video games as art. It's probably the easiest way for the layman to equate the two. When the average person thinks of art, they think of images.

"In some of the shows that have existed they've just shown printouts of screens," Sharp says, as a slide is projected on the screen, giving examples of visually compelling titles. That Game Company's Flower is there, along with Tale of Tales' The Path, BioShock, and Colecovision Boxing. The latter seems an odd duck, a blocky mass of pixels amidst gorgeous polygon-built art, but the more I look at it the more I appreciate its simplicity.

And while BioShock strikes me as one of the more artistic games of the lot, Bogost explains that the game is borrowing trends and traditions from art deco, translating them into game imagery. Is that art, or homage?

Or perhaps the art is in the game world?

This thought raises interesting questions, particularly from Michael Nitsche, who ponders where the game world ends. "Is this the rendered polygon masses, or the play spaces we are talking about? Is it the social space created by thousands of players playing together, or is it the living room where we're playing the Wii?"

Taking another angle, Sharpe compares creating game worlds to sculpting. "Part of what game design is about is sculpting a space for the player to go through."

Is there art in the creative use of technology?

Another slide flashes on the screen, featuring id's Doom, a lifestyle shot of Project Natal, David Crane's Atari 2600 classic Grand Prix, and Julian Oliver's ioq3apaint.

"We can appreciate all games from a technical standpoint. Appreciating them for the systems," Sharpe continues, pointing to Grand Prix as a prime example. "Getting the cars to come off the screen instead of wrapping around like the Atari 2600 wanted them to took a lot."

Is there art in technique? In implementation? Sharpe talks about his times in grad school studying the Northern Renaissance, when students would take chips of paint and analyze them, photographing them and x-raying them to help understand the techniques that went into the creation of art. To them, how the painting was created is just as important a factor as the painting itself.

"We could argue that technical virtuosity is the primary way game designers talk about games as art," Sharpe concludes, and the slide changes once more.

Is there art in game design?

This is where traditional ideas break down. When considering the design of the game as art, it isn't as much about the design of the game as it is the player's response to that design. It's what the player gets out of playing.

The slide shows Wii Sports Tennis, Jason Rohrer's Gravitation, Rod Humble's The Marriage, and NCAA basketball court specifications. What do court specifications have to do with it?

"You can't simply point to the court and say that is basketball, Bogost explains. "You can't put that in a frame or on the wall. It resists the traditional methods of preserving art."

In the same way, you couldn't show a video of Wii Sports Tennis in action and fully communicate what is going on. You'd have to see the people playing the game as well.

As Nitsche points out, game design can be lo-fi in sensory elements as well. "It doesn't have to be about recreating the visual world in the game." Take Rod Humble's The Marriage. It's an allegorical game about marriage that strips everything else away. It mounts the image itself, and the player's experience fills in the rest. The art lies in the player's perception of the game.

Is there art in player activity?

Finally we look at the art found in the players actually playing the games. "This is a sticking point," says Sharpe, "It suggests co-authorship...the power lies in the player and not the designer."

A broken Pac-Man screen, Ubisoft's Far Cry 2, and a couple of shots from Robbie Cooper's "Gamer Faces" come up on the screen. Sharpe continues.

"If we think that the art is in our interaction with the artifact, then we obviously have to look at the artist in front of the screen. "

Again, sport is turned to as an example. There is great beauty found in the players playing sports. Robbie Cooper explores this from a gaming standpoint in his "Gamer Faces" series. Games were projected onto a clear plane of glass, with a camera behind it, taking pictures of the gamers as they played.

Then there's player mastery. Bogost uses Pac-Man as an example, showing the broken screen that comes after a player completes the 256 level of the game. "The performance required to get to this end result is somewhat remarkable."

Searching for answers

Summing up the talk, Bogost explains the reasons behind The Art History of Games symposium.

"Maybe this is just bollocks and we should move along, but If we don't explore the questions more seriously than "are games art, yes or no?," we don't necessarily make any progress.