Back in my childhood I remember watching many, many cartoons. Some of them were very dear to my heart, some weren’t. One of the special ones was Astroboy. Now, Astroboy has a lot of history, but the colorized shows of the 80’s were some of the best. Now, Sega and their Sonic Team are looking to bring the Astroboy fans what they want on the PS2.

Trying to follow on the success of the SNES and GBA versions released in the past, the game is upping the ante with full 3d graphics, and a real world physics running on the Havoc physics engine. The game is layout out action/adventure style with levels and bosses throughout, centralized around a hub, in which you practice your flying, play with boxes, see what Professor Ochanomizu is up to, or just hanging out around your house, talking to your sister.

The fighting and flight aspect of the game looks very polished. The world around the hub gives you many opportunities to hone your skills for the battles in front of you. Control scheme is handled by a split scheme based on whether you’re in the air, or on the ground. Atom is able to choose his fighting style based on each. With the ability to use Atom’s other abilities throughout the game such as super hearing and his finger beam, you should have a multitude of attacks in your arsenal.

The game was released in Japan during March with mixed reviews. It’ll most likely be on showcase at E3 where we’ll give it the once over. You can expect this game to be available Mid-June here in Canada. Hopefully any concerns that were voiced when it was released in Japan will be addressed before a North American release. If not, well there’s always the outstanding GBA version.