The suspense builds for Sonic in "Panic in the Sky" Part Two: Sonic and the Freedom Fighters have faced a crushing defeat at the hands of Dr. Eggman and his entire evil Eggman Empire! Now it becomes a race against time to get back in the fight and save the day! But when Dr. Eggman uses Chip and the power of the Chaos Emeralds, are our heroes already too late? Featuring the second of four connecting covers by comics pro Dan Schoening plus a “Gaia Colossus” variant by the excellent Evan Stanley!
SONIC is SPEEDING down the Dragon Road in “Wings of Fire” Part One: Sonic and the Freedom Fighters travel to city-state of Chun-nan in search of more Gaia Keys! Dulcy the dragon is bringing all her might to help, but is her fledging team ready for end-of-the-world stakes? Could anyone really be? Then in “Homesick,” Bunnie and Tails come to the aid of a Key Guardian in a time of crisis!
Sonic's Freedom Fighters are finally ready to restore the planet! Unless, of course, someone does even more damage! Cue: the evil Dr. Eggman (of course)! He has a plan of his own and strikes first! The mad doctor launches a multi-pronged assault that will leave you speechless-everything has been building up to this moment! The final chapter to the Shattered World Saga begins here!
"Panic in the Sky" Part Three: The finale to the “Shattered World Saga” is reaching a fevered pitch! Sonic battles Dr. Eggman in a desperate bid to rescue Chip! The Freedom Fighters invade Eggman's refinery against impossible odds! Rotor flies the Sky Patrol into a no-win battle with the Death Egg! And it only gets more nuts from there!
SONIC's planet-wide chase CONTINUES!"Face of the Enemy" Part One: Sonic, Antoine and Big head to Shamar to rescue another Gaia Key Guardian! They're calling in the reinforcements and getting some help from the local Freedom Fighters-but will that really be enough to get past the fearsome Egg Army? Then, in "Hidden Costs" Part Two: Get ringside seats to Bunnie vs. Cassia. It's the can't-miss Cyborg fight of the century! Featuring cover art by jamming Jamal Peppers and a "Maniacal" variant By CG artist Rafa Knight!
Get a crash course in all things Sonic the Hedgehog in this introductory handbook, featuring a sheet of stickers from the world of Sonic! Everyone knows that Sonic the Hedgehog is the fastest hero in the world! He has thwarted Dr. Eggman's evil schemes time and time again with his supersonic speed and cool blue spikes. But what else should you know about the world of Sonic? Learn all about Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and the rest of Sonic's gang, and get to know the stories behind some of Sonic's greatest victories. This handbook is the perfect introduction to one of the most beloved video game characters of all time!
SONIC BATTLES at the CENTER of the PLANET in "Panic in the Sky" Part Four: This is it—the cataclysmic clash and ferocious finale to the Shattered World Saga! Super Sonic leads Chip into battle against the dreaded Dark Gaia with the Freedom Fighters at ground zero! With the fate of the world at stake, who will actually be able to make it home? Featuring the fourth of four EPIC connecting covers by mega-talent Dan Schoening and a “Super” variant by full-time editor, first-time cover artist Vincent Lovallo!
The Digital Hand, Volume 2, is a historical survey of how computers and telecommunications have been deployed in over a dozen industries in the financial, telecommunications, media and entertainment sectors over the past half century. It is past of a sweeping three-volume description of how management in some forty industries embraced the computer and changed the American economy. Computers have fundamentally changed the nature of work in America. However it is difficult to grasp the full extent of these changes and their implications for the future of business. To begin the long process of understanding the effects of computing in American business, we need to know the history of how computers were first used, by whom and why. In this, the second volume of The Digital Hand, James W. Cortada combines detailed analysis with narrative history to provide a broad overview of computing's and telecomunications' role in over a dozen industries, ranging from Old Economy sectors like finance and publishing to New Economy sectors like digital photography and video games. He also devotes considerable attention to the rapidly changing media and entertainment industries which are now some of the most technologically advanced in the American economy. Beginning in 1950, when commercial applications of digital technology began to appear, Cortada examines the ways different industries adopted new technologies, as well as the ways their innovative applications influenced other industries and the US economy as a whole. He builds on the surveys presented in the first volume of the series, which examined sixteen manufacturing, process, transportation, wholesale and retail industries. In addition to this account, of computers' impact on industries, Cortada also demonstrates how industries themselves influenced the nature of digital technology. Managers, historians and others interested in the history of modern business will appreciate this historical analysis of digital technology's many roles and future possibilities in an wide array of industries. The Digital Hand provides a detailed picture of what the infrastructure of the Information Age really looks like and how we got there.
An exploration of the way videogames mount arguments and make expressive statements about the world that analyzes their unique persuasive power in terms of their computational properties. Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; they represent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interact with those systems and form judgments about them. In this innovative analysis, Ian Bogost examines the way videogames mount arguments and influence players. Drawing on the 2,500-year history of rhetoric, the study of persuasive expression, Bogost analyzes rhetoric's unique function in software in general and videogames in particular. The field of media studies already analyzes visual rhetoric, the art of using imagery and visual representation persuasively. Bogost argues that videogames, thanks to their basic representational mode of procedurality (rule-based representations and interactions), open a new domain for persuasion; they realize a new form of rhetoric. Bogost calls this new form "procedural rhetoric," a type of rhetoric tied to the core affordances of computers: running processes and executing rule-based symbolic manipulation. He argues further that videogames have a unique persuasive power that goes beyond other forms of computational persuasion. Not only can videogames support existing social and cultural positions, but they can also disrupt and change these positions themselves, leading to potentially significant long-term social change. Bogost looks at three areas in which videogame persuasion has already taken form and shows considerable potential: politics, advertising, and learning.
