And The Rest: Friday News Roundup

Sega is planning to release Sonic Mega Collection Plus on Xbox in addition to the previously announced PS2 version. The original Sonic Mega Collection is already out on the GameCube, but it doesn't feature as many games as the 'Plus' edition. Xbox seems to have the same line-up as the PS2 SKU, but just to recap, players can expect to find the following titles on the disc: Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Spinball, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, three Sonic lock-on games, The Ooze, Comix Zone, Flicky, Ristar, and six hidden Game Gear games, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, Sonic Labyrinth, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and Sonic Blast. SMC Plus should ship in the US on November 2nd.

Diablo-ish slasher Sacred is set to receive a free expansion pack thanks to the efforts of developer Ascaron. Dubbed Sacred Plus, the expansion will be made available as a free download this October, and will add 15 new weapons, two quest blocks, five enemies and two new regions to the game. Ascaron also implied that there may be more to come in the free expansion department, and said that Sacred would be repackaged and re-released with the new content included at some stage.

If you've been reading this roundup for a while, you may recall that just prior to E3 this year Atari announced - in deliberately vague terms - an agreement with a chap called Marc Ecko to develop "Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure", a game involving graffiting things in development at The Collective. Well, now we know slightly more about it. Apparently it's due out in summer 2005 (last time we heard "June 2005"), and sees a lead character called Trane evolving from a lone artist to the unwitting leader of a revolutionary movement in the city of New Radius. Atari defines the game's mechanics in three stages. "Get In" involves sneaking and fighting to reach restricted areas of the city, "Get Up" involves finding a way to reach the section you want to tag, and "Get Out" involves stealth and also speed to escape the scene of the art. Who knows, eh? Could be interesting. We'll wait and see.