The IceCap Zone

The IceCap Zone is a bit of an anomaly on an entire Island that is an anomaly itself--the rest of the Island seems to have a tropical or at least warm climate, what with Angel Island, Mushroom Hills, and Sandopolis being VERY warm, (not counting Lava Reef, underground!) and Marble Gardens being temperate, for example--but the IceCap Zone is, as you might expect, freezing cold! The reason for this is that it is VERY high in the mountains, up where the air starts getting thin and the ground can't absorb heat so well anymore. It also has a huge lake up there, but since it is so cold, the lake is at least partially frozen all year round and has icebergs floating in it.
First seen in Sonic 3 (and revisited in "Sonic Adventure"), the IceCap Zone is one of the most beautiful levels you will EVER see in a video game. Not because of the graphics--heck, it IS only 16-bit, any CD-Rom, for example, can knock the socks off of it--but because of the way it's drawn. It's all delicate ice-crystal, elegant, thin, transparent, sparkling, and ephemeral-looking. It seems to be the kind of place where the "sugar-plum fairies" would hang out. Really really gorgeous.
But even here, the mysteriously disappeared echidna civilisation has left its mark--there are ski-lifts, powerful levers and catapults, deadly crushing ice blocks to keep out intruders, spikes, and even a shed somewhere (I'm assuming) containing snowboards and snowmobiles! (In Sonic 3, the beginning of the level had Sonic snowboarding down a mountain--see below--through the trees as just a flashy bit of animation, to show off their graphic capabilities of the time; in the NEW game, you can CONTROL the snowboarding part!)
I should mention a couple more things here: A: The music on this level totally rocks, and B: the fans of the games consider this to be one of their favourite levels of all time--and what with the beauty, the music, the creativity, and the flashy animation, I can't say I blame them.





Click HERE to return to the Floating Island Tour Route.

Click HERE to return to the Chaotix Clubhouse.

Click HERE to return to Sandopolis.



curious Floating Islanders have skiied down the lovely powdered slopes and snowboarded past the ethereal fairyland beauty of the caverns of the Ice Cap Zone since June 19, 1999. Of course, they all froze to death horribly or were squished by an avalanche, but hey...