Sonic

Sonic or Sonic may refer to:

Companies

Music

Science and technology

Sonic the Hedgehog (series)

Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Sonikku za Hejjihoggu) is a video game franchise created and owned by Sega. The franchise centers on a series of speed-based platform games, but several are spin-offs in different genres. The protagonist of the series is an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog named Sonic, whose peaceful life is often interrupted by the series's main antagonist, Doctor Eggman. Typically, Sonic—usually along with some of his friends, such as Tails, Amy, and Knuckles—must stop Eggman and foil any plans of world domination. The first game in the series, published in 1991, was conceived by Sega's Sonic Team division after Sega requested a mascot character; the title was a success and spawned sequels, and transformed Sega into a leading video game company during the 16-bit era in the early to mid-1990s.

Sonic Team has since developed many titles in the franchise. Prominent members of its initial staff included Naka, character designer Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. Other developers of Sonic games have included Japanese Dimps, American Sega Technical Institute, Backbone Entertainment, Big Red Button Entertainment, and Sanzaru Games, Canadian BioWare, and British Sumo Digital and Traveller's Tales. While the first games in the series were side-scrolling platform games, the series has expanded into other genres such as action-adventure, fighting, racing, role-playing, and sports. Including packaged game software and downloads, the franchise has sold 335 million units as of April 2015, with the mobile game Sonic Dash being downloaded over 100 million times by June 2015, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)

Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Sonikku za Hejjihoggu) is a 2006 platform video game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game primarily allows the player to use Sonic, Shadow and Silver across several stages. Other secondary characters also become playable across the game. The plot follows Sonic's quest to protect Princess Elise after she is kidnapped by his rival Dr. Eggman and is aided by new and returning allies.

The game shares its name with two earlier Sonic games, a manga, a television series, a comic book series, and their eponymous main character. To disambiguate, the game has been referred to as Sonic '06. It was produced in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The game faced multiple issues during development, which resulted in rushing the product despite existing bugs. Both versions were heavily criticized for long loading times, poor camera system, gameplay glitches, complicated plot and sloppy character control.

Codex (horse)

Codex (February 28, 1977 – August, 20, 1984) was an American thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1980 Preakness Stakes. He was foaled in Florida out of the Minnesota Mac mare, Roundup Rose, sired by the 1969 American Horse of the Year, Arts And Letters.

Triple Crown races

Trained by D. Wayne Lukas, Codex was considered the dominant 3-year-old colt in California after winning the 1980 Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. The horse's owner, John Nerud, believed Triple Crown races could harm a horse and did not allow Lukas to nominate Codex for the 1980 Kentucky Derby.

Lukas initially declined to nominate Codex for the 1980 Preakness Stakes but the horse was entered accidentally by Lukas' 22-year-old son, Jeff, who worked as the assistant trainer. Codex, ridden by Angel Cordero Jr., beat the Kentucky Derby-winning filly, Genuine Risk by 4³⁄₄ lengths in the 1980 Preakness Stakes, becoming Lukas' first Triple Crown-race winner. The victory was challenged by Genuine Risk's owners on grounds of deliberate interference by Cordero. Television replays showed Cordero swing Codex wide and possibly brush against Genuine Risk. One of Codex's lawyers, Arnold M. Weiner, displayed photos showing the horses almost feet apart in contrast to the television footage. After testimony by dozens of witnesses, the Maryland Racing Commission ruled that any contact was incidental and allowed the result to stand. The controversy increased media attention on the upcoming Belmont Stakes as a rivalry between Codex and Genuine Risk.

Codex (TV series)

Codex was a game show that aired on Channel 4 from 12 November 2006 to 15 December 2007 and was hosted by Tony Robinson.

Format

Series 1

In the first series, a single team of five explorers solve a series of games in order to win letters that may help them solve a 'codex', an encoded cryptic clue, at the end of the programme.

Before each round, Tony shows the team one or more historical artefacts and gives some background to the objects. The team is then asked to answer seven questions relating to the artefacts in three minutes. If they succeed then two of the symbols of the codex are replaced with the two letters they represent; this is shown to the viewers but not to the team until later in the programme.

Between each round (except after round two) there is a head-to-head challenge where the team is posed a question with a numerical answer. They are each given a numeric keypad, and the person who is furthest from the correct answer is eliminated.

At the end of the show the four people eliminated in the head-to-heads work together to try and decode the codex using the revealed letters. They have three minutes in which to do this, and when they have finished they should have revealed a cryptic clue.

Codex (novel)

Codex is a thriller novel by Lev Grossman, first published in 2004 by Harcourt Books.

Summary

The novel is about young banker Edward Wozny, who is sent by his firm to organize a mysterious client's library of rare books. He discovers the client may own a unique fourteenth-century codex, long thought to be a hoax by medieval scholars. As he becomes involved in the mystery of the codex, he also becomes addicted to a strange computer game that seems to have parallels to his real life.

Reception

In The New York Times Book Review, critic Polly Shulman wrote, "A little more than halfway through 'Codex,' an investment banker named Edward Wozny comes upon a bookcase full of 'books about books — bibliographies of obscure literary figures, catalogs of long-dispersed scriptoria, histories of printing and publishing and bindings and typefaces.' You could argue that all books belong in that bookcase, since they engage with their literary lineage at least as much as they do with the real world. However, 'Codex' has a better claim than most novels to a spot there — and not just because its title means, as a snooty scholar tells Edward, 'what someone like you would call a book.' 'Codex' takes its place on the shelf of self-referential, bibliophilic page turners like 'The Name of the Rose,' 'Possession' and 'A Case of Curiosities,' and it's as entertaining as any of them."