Welcome to the Archive site of The Sonic Stadium (2008-2023)
Please note that this site is no longer being updated or maintained; as a result, there may be design issues, and links to images and other media may be broken. Links to posts may redirect you to the same article on the current Sonic Stadium website.
Sonic Frenzy Adventure is one of those games that started a long long time ago and was never quite finished. Unlike most projects which ended up being canned though, SFA has stuck with it and is here to prove that ambitious fangames can be seen through from beginning to end. The question is though, is it still relevant in today’s fangaming scene, with Sonic Nexus and Retro Sonic ushering us into a new, exciting era of the hobby?
What it does, it does pretty well and in an entertaining fashion. You’re not going to walk away from the latest Frenzy Adventure demo thinking it’s a poor excuse for a fangame. Clearly a lot of detail and attention has gone into this game so far, with a stonking 16 Zones promised plus a Chao raising minigame. The presentation for each Zone is impressive, and BlueFrenzy has thrown some good gimmicks and ideas into each one. Continue reading SAGE 08: Sonic Frenzy Adventure
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Remember Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis? The port of the Mega Drive original for the Game Boy Advance, so shoddy it never got a release in Europe? Well, it looks like jokes of ‘five people making this game in their lunch break’ are no longer appropriate (or funny), because one talented Sonic fan’s decided to make a much better port. That’s right, one person. All one of them.
As part of a ‘Proven Concepts’ entry to Sonic Retro’s hacking contest, Stealth has crafted a port of the first three acts (Green Hill Zone) plus Special Zones to damn near perfection – including tweaks such as a spindash, Knuckles and Tails, and a removal of the speed cap. The entire resolution of the original is maintained on the GBA, and it just proves, in Stealth’s own words, “that a Genesis original can be competently represented on the GBA”.
Download the homemade port at Sonic Retro’s Message Board; if the link’s giving you jip just click on the address bar and hit enter, you should be able to grab it then.
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Right, it seems there’s been some crossed wires along the way as far as the Sonic and the Black Knight competition is concerned, but as per usual Mr. AAUK (or should that be Mr. AAUSA?) has been on to clue us in on some of the more hazey parts of the contest – it appears there is a bit of a delay with this news hitting the SEGA Blognik in his absence, and due to there having to be translations into several European languages.
First off, the competition WILL be open to the Europeans too; the competition rules are virtually identical to the US rules, so you can get cracking on your masterpieces immediately!
Austrailia is classed as part of SOE’s territory, so your Aussies can also feel free to enter.
Finally, the use of fan characters or non-Sonic Universe characters in the art is advised against, purely on the grounds they probably won’t be used.
It also turns out this is something that the Japanese branch of SEGA came up with, not their European counterparts! Maybe Japan have also finally realised getting the fans involved isn’t such a bad thing afterall…isn’t it?
Thanks again to AAUK for clearing this up.
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The newest issue of Sonic the Hedgehog has just hit newstands, and this time, every Sonic fan has a reason to take notice. The back up story is a prologue for the upcoming BioWare RPG, Sonic Chronicles.
Starting with this issue, Sonic Stadium will be regularly featuring news regarding comic book releases in the world of Sonic. This news usually comes complete with a seven page preview of the issue, as well as an (often misleading) synopsis of what lies within. Provided I’ve read the issue, I may also drop some opinion into the mix.
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A relatively new start up SEGA fan site called SEGA Role Playing has recently interviewed SEGA employee Jason Kuo, as part of their tenth anniversary celebration for the legendary SEGA Saturn strategy RPG “Shining Force 3”. In it, Mr. Kuo drops an interesting tidbit regarding Sonic Team’s US arm, when he was talking about the three best projects he’s worked on:
2) Sonic Rivals — This was a great experience, working with Backbone Vancouver, and also working with the Sonicteam located here (they’ve moved back now, however) to create a game closer to the traditional Sonic 2D gameplay fans had been asking for, while introducing something new.
This confirms a longstanding rumor regarding Sega Studios USA, otherwise known as “Sonic Team” USA regarding their current whereabouts. You can read the rather interesting interview in it’s entirety here.
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Kevin/ArchangelUK of Sonic Wrecks/Sega Europe’s community team has updated the Sonic City Blognik and has cleared up the confusion surrounding the European Sonic Chronicles release date. AAUK confirms that the game will be released 26th September as originally planned. So, I guess we’re going to have to wait, which by looking at how the game is shaping up will definitely be worth it.
AAUK also informs in the new update that he is off on holiday until mid-september “Because I thumping well deserve it!”, which we’ve got to admit he does. From everyone at TSS/SSMB – “Have a great break, enjoy yourself and take care mate!”
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No matter what you may think about Sonic’s upcoming Wii exclusive, you can’t deny that SEGA has just discovered a great way to involve the fan community. Apparently, Black Knight is going to feature some sort of gallery illustrating Sonic’s past, and SEGA wants you, the fans, to draw it. See the quote below for details:
Hey Sonic fans! We are looking for artists to help us tell the story of Sonic in a special animated gallery in the upcoming new title, Sonic and the Black Knight (Wii, spring 2009).
Draw Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Shadow, Blaze and other characters (or any combination of one or more of them together) in your favorite scene from your favorite Sonic game and send it to us before the deadline of September 19th. We’ll choose 20 of the best to feature and each of those winners will also receive a free copy of Sonic and the Black Knight
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Gamespot got to preview Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood in their latest edition of their weekly show ‘On The Spot’. The game looked and sounded pretty good as the Sega rep showed how puzzle solving around Central City was conducted. There was even some new Rouge artwork in there. The biggest shocker of the preview was at the end when the Sega rep make a big announcement and then balls’d it up.
The Sega rep announced that Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood will be available before release at the Nintendo World Store where you will also be able to collect an exclusive Chao unavailable anywhere else. Signed copies will also be available at the event. Now, when will this little event be happening? The Sega rep said August 28th. Now, correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t that yesterday? I guess it was still the 28th(7:45pm) in the U.S. at the time of announcement but it was a bit late at night. So, anyone from the U.S. who picked up the game, please let us know how you feel about it won’t you?
Back to reality, I assume the Sega rep meant September 28th as the U.S. release date is listed on many a retailer and gaming site as September 30th. I’m surprised he and the show presenters didn’t notice the Sega rep’s mistake. Sega, you do make us laugh sometimes.
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So I went into one of my 3 local GAME stores(All 3 in the SAME shopping centre, why?) today and noticed they had display boxes for Sonic Chronicles all over the counter with the full box art and a 5th September release date sticker on the front. I snapped a couple of pics of the front and back covers for you guys to see.
Look’s like Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection has been scrapped as there’s no logo but there is the multi-card wireless 1-2 player connection logo on the back for close-by connecting, so no Chao trading over the interwebz. Another Sonic game rush job? It’s also odd that they put a screenshot of Green Hill on the back with the older more detailed map in the top screen rather than the newer cartoony simpler design.
For those who can’t quite read the text on the back cover it says –
“A brand new journey of battles, exploration and discovery!
Select your team of sonic and his friends to fight new enemies.
Explore new worlds and defeat a mysterious new menace.
Explore over 20 areas with up to eleven new characters.
Defeat enemies with combo power moves.
Collect and trade Chao with friends.”
aisha13 over at the Official Nintendo Magazine forums is also reporting that the latest Argos catalogue has Sonic Chronicles down for this new 5th September release date. Let’s hope this new date is true so we can get our filthy hands on the game next week but lets hope this doesn’t mean the game’s been rushed.
In other news, Bioware have released the 3rd of their video insider episodes, you can check it out here.
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In a recent interview with Gamasutra about Game Design Psychology Hirokazu Yasuhara was asked a few questions regarding the creation of Sonic. Heres a portion of the interview –
Ahh, that’s great. So…this may be a question you answered long ago, but when Sonic was created, Sega, as I understand, wanted a mascot. So how were the three of you chosen, or were you just coming up with this yourselves? Like, Ohshima, Naka and yourself.
HY: Like, how we wound up choosing between an armadillo and a hedgehog?
Did they tell you three to do it, or did they say “OK, everybody at Sega, come up with an idea”?
HY: No, it was just us three, and the mission statement was just “You guys have to make a mascot for Sega.”
How many design iterations and ideas did you go through before you came up with this?
HY: Well, in the very beginning, the project staff consisted entirely of Naka and Ohshima, back before I joined them. The main thing Naka had thought up at that time was a game engine that scrolled really, really fast — the problem after that was to figure out what kind of game we could make with that.
We didn’t have any game at that time, so we had to think about that first. I thought it’d be enough to have a game where you ran really fast, but we couldn’t get anything to work. Naka was really adamant about the idea that the game should be playable with one button, since Mario needed two — jump, and run or attack. Continue reading Hirokazu Yasuhara talks about inventing Sonic
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Time Twisted and I have a history together. The game debuted during the same SAGE as my project and we have made an appearance at the show for three years running now. It is always a good sight to see that a project is still alive. Secondly, we both chose the path of emulating Sonic CD, which is a plus, in my book. It remains a highlight of the show for anybody looking for a demo with more content than most (three zones here, broskis). Nonetheless, personally, I am gradually more and more disappointed with each subsequent release.
When it came down to gameplay, the physics are similar to Sonic Panic, in that they are manageable and are not intrusive to the action. A much needed improvement that I noticed this year was the beefed-up spin-dash. It only takes one touch of the space bar to power up Sonic to full speed and that is a godsend, in my opinion. The core gameplay experience does not twist the fun, but there are a few questionable gameplay choices that will. For example, ring loss is, apparently, absent. Sure, it happens, but I cannot collect any rings. None.
Time Twisted, as stated earlier, takes after Sonic CD and its time travel element. In previous years, I did not think there was a reason for the time travel, as Overbound, the creator, might not have thought of a purpose for it at the time. That said, now that development is three years in, there should be a reason why I should even bother going back to the past. I had to destroy something in the past levels of Sonic CD, so there was a reward for keeping my speed up in the present. Here, I am simply unmotivated to brave the journey through time. Time Twisted treats this feature like a novelty and it feels phoned in for the sake of having time travel while other fangames do not. Continue reading SAGE ’08: Sonic – Time Twisted
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Upon hearing the news, Sonic promptly dashed off to his local Woolworths to lay down his pre-order. His store is in Louth, it appears.
Want Sonic Unleashed when released in November? Of course you do! What if you’re running a little low on pennies though?
Well not to fear because UK retailer ‘Woolworths’ has an offer you just can’t possibly refuse! The online website for the company currently has Sonic Unleashed on PS2 up for pre-order at the most convenient of prices, £17.99. The PS2 version of the game may not posses graphical awe like on next generation consoles, although Dimps has issued a helping hand with development and the concept remains the same.
If that isn’t the bargain of all bargains we don’t know what is.
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Chris@ONM, one of Official Nintendo Magazine’s writers has announced in an ONM forum discussion that he will be going hands-on with the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed in 1 to 2 weeks time.
Aye, naturally the controls will be slightly different. What I mean is that the basic game and levels will be the same on each version.
I don’t know what the Wii controls are as yet because I didn’t go hands on with it. I believe it’s movement with the analogue stick though. I’ll be getting to play it in a week or two so I’ll let you know.
Incidentally, a couple of people have mentioned to me that other sites have complained about the 360 version’s framerate. This game is still in early stages of development: please don’t think for a second that the finished game will have the noticeable framerate problems the demo I played did.
Chris had recently been to GDC Leipzig to try out the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed but unfortunately when he got there he was told by a Sega rep that the Wii demo isn’t working and got directed to the Xbox 360 demo instead. Continue reading Chris@ONM to go hands-on with Wii Unleashed in 1-2 weeks
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Sonic the Hedgehog now has his very own official Facebook page run by Sonic himself… ok just ArchangelUK and the guys at Sega pretending to be him. The site will feature updates on Sonic’s upcoming games and bring you exclusive competitions.
Here’s ArchangelUK’s Blognik update –
Hi guys, letting you know that Sonic now has his very own official Facebook page – http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Sonic/23050342417
Join and we’ll keep you up to date with things, also we’ll be running Facebook specific competititions so worth you joining eh?
If you were already a member of the unofficial Sonic page or any specific Sonic page baring the Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Chronicles ones you should get transfered over in the next couple of days or so by Facebook so don’t worry.
Good ‘ol AAUK, isn’t he just grand to the community.
At the time of writing Sonic’s Facebook page already has 2,945 ‘Fans’ as members who join the page are known as. That’s alot of members in just the one day it’s been open. If your a Sonic fan and a closet Facebooker go check out the page and register yourself a fan now.
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On the heels of GameVideo’s off screen video, Gamekyo has come up with their own video. While the quality isn’t quite as good, what with all the people walking between the camera and the screen, this video does help add some persepective to just how many different paths there are in Unleash’s first level. At the very least, it looks like this game will have some nice replay value.
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Sonic’s big RPG debut is only a month away, and BioWare’s getting us Sonic fans ready for it via a series of YouTube videos on their own Youtube channel. It’s good to have a video to explain just how this game works. For those younger Sonic fans, unitiated in the ways of the RPG genre, this video should give them a clue of what their in for.
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Sega have released yet another new trailer for upcoming Nintendo DS RPG title Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. This latest trailer showcases a few POW moves and how their pulled off. The trailer continues the dramatic music heard in previous trailers and ends with a battle against the Zoah displaying a team POW move using Amy’s hammer swinging abilities which look’s quite cool. The trailer is an American one and finally gives you guys a release month of September but no actual date yet though unfortunately.
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Game Videos have posted a cool off-screen video of Sonic Unleashed in action at Leipzig’s Game Convention. The most notable about this video – despite the fact that you can see for yourself how awesome it’s looking with it’s alternate paths – is the rather random first appearance of a new character called Chip. Now, remember when we broke news that Sonic Unleashed would add a new character to the series? Looks like we totally called it, but we never thought Sega would reveal his/it existence so unceremoniously. Seriously, we’d have thought there’d be some sort of super-announcement for it or something.
Chip, from what we’ve seen and heard, appears to be some sort of tutorial pal and may well be integral to the story. Long as he doesn’t say a damn word during levels (so far so good) and stays on a totally platonic relationship with Sonic, I think we’ll be OK. Seems kinda cute actually. I hope Sega are as careful with Chip in consideration for future games as they have been with Blaze and Marine and not, for example, Shadow, however. I wouldn’t want to see this purple thing in every Sonic game since.
Check out Sonic’s assessment of his ranking at the end of the level with Chip, and the proceeding breakdance once he’s discovered he got an ‘S’ ranking. Pure Sonic gold, that is.
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In an interview with the latest issue of GamesMaster the director of Sonic Unleashed, Yoshihisa Hashimoto, proved to the world that he has a bit of a clue. A glowing preview of the upcoming Jekyll-and-Hyde game from the magazine includes such questions to the Sonic Team lead as ‘is Sonic Unleashed going to continue the trend (of making Sonic’s world more ‘realistic’)?’
Hashimoto’s response was the news we had all been waiting for:
No, I don’t think Sonic should be something that’s merely realistic… That wouldn’t be Sonic. Our goal is to make it like Disney World. Disney World is ‘real’, but it’s a colourful toon-ish world. Just strolling around it makes you excited. I want to make Sonic’s world like this… with the textures as realistic as possible yet (in) forms that are deformed.
So, like a twisted form of realistic locations inspired by the world around us? Sounds like Sonic 1 to Adventure to me. It’s about time they realised all this nonsensical parp about Maria/Gerald Robotnik/Shadow’s morality was a pointless affair. Sonic fans, here’s a guy in Sonic Team who finally knows what he’s talking about. In a land without Naka, Yasuhara and Oshima, such people have been rare to come by in the last ten years. Yoshihisa Hashimoto is our new pin-up of the month.
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Apparently Brazil are STILL crazy for old tech. Sega’s distributor and licensee for games in the South America region, Tectoy, are back with a vengeance and have announced a brand new Master System model. Imaginitively titled the ‘Master System 3’, the console will resemble something of a cross between a Mega Drive and a 3DO, with two six-button pads, 131 built-in MS games and a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog painted on the top.
There’s no cartridge slot for inserting old games, so you’ll have to make do with the ones already pre-loaded – all said to be G-rated games. Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Drift 2 (a Game Gear-only release outside of Brazil – Tectoy were famous for porting GG games over to the Master System) are among the Sonic games you can access on the console, with other titles including the Alex Kidd series, Enduro Racer, New Zealand Story and Cyber Shinobi. Cyber Shinobi!!!
It actually looks quite funky. Collector’s item for the Sonic fan? You (or T-Bird) decide. Probably not worth it’s asking price though – equivalent of £72.
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SAGE director, Shadix, and I got to interview Richard Jacques during SAGE and we had an extensive discussion on his favorites, creative process, and various other thoughts. The interview takes about a minute to get into it, as there’s a strange hiss for a bit, but yes, there is an interview after that noise. Also, whenever a caller-hangs up, there’s a bit of dead air. Technical difficulties, ya know.
Also, reminder! At 9 PM EST on Thursday, August 20th (which would be today), Mike Pollock, the voice of Dr. Eggman, will be in the chat channel to field questions and on the air to host a gameshow! It’s a can’t miss event!
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There are always short demos on the show floor, so I’m combining them into one post here. Today, I’ll be reviewing a few of the lesser known titles at the show, in order to give them some exposure. The bigger games you already know about and will be getting larger reviews, like Fated Hour, later this year. I’m holding those off, as they always update with bug fixes and stuff throughout the expo.
The following, arbitrary scoring system will be used for these review round-ups:
Sucks: Avoid at all costs
Kinda Sucks: You might like it, but probably not
Meh: Doesn’t suck, but isn’t cool either
Interesting: Worth your time
Way Past Cool: Must see!
SONIC PANIC – Meh
Spike has had this game running for nearly 3 years now and this year, we get new content and a brand new name. Formerly named, “Sonic the Hedgehog 4,” Sonic Panic follows Sonic as he chases Robotnik across various galaxies and planets. The demo features the Planet Mech level of Rail Road, which is a Genesis revamp of Sunset Park from Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble on the Game Gear. I am a complete sucker for Game Gear levels, so I went into the demo with modest expectations.
First off, you will notice that the music is awful. The instrumentation is simply horrific and you will be cursing FL Studio for having such poor guitar samples. Once you get past that, your attention will be directed towards the “close, but not quite” physics of the game, which are decent enough. Jumping could use some improving and the spindash is extremely weak, but otherwise, the whole gameplay experience is serviceable and is hardly game-breaking in the slightest.
As a Genesis-styled game, the level design features branching paths and “awesome secret walkthough wall shit.” While it is nice to have many places to go, there is simply not much to do. The whole level is devoid of any activity, mostly due to the lack of badniks, as I only encountered a couple. There are a few industrial-themed gimmicks in there to tide you over in spots, however.
Augmenting the demo’s emptiness has to be the graphics. Essentially everything is black and any variety the foreground tries to offer is thrown out the window. There is the occasional yellow, construction stripe, but that is about it. The background is nice, with the sunset and all, but the black silhouettes of the towers in the background have no contrast to the foreground, thus adding to the black attack. Continue reading [SAGE ’08 Review] Review Round-Up #1
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After much hype and hearsay about the return of what some deem to be a cult character from the Sonic Universe, it looks like the Hatted Weasel/Wolf character, Fang the Sniper, WILL NOT be appearing in the up-and-coming multi-platform game Sonic Unleashed.
The SEGA Blognik, run and maintained by the ever present ArchAngelUK, made a post earlier afer enquiries had been made with SEGA’s brand manager in regards to the rumours about the return of Fang the Sniper: ” I asked the brand manager directly. The answer was “who’s he?” “.
So unfortunately kids, it looks like we aren’t going to see the return of Fang. Disappointed? Perhaps, perhaps not. On the positive side, the images released from Leipzig looks promising, so hopefully the lack of cork guns won’t ruin what looks to be a promising game.
I seem to have misplaced my DS…if anyone sees it, let me know.
Props to Mr. AAUK for the info!
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Really really nice, as it happens! There were fears that the lack of horsepower on the waggle-console would lead to a decidedly crappier looking game, but Dimps appear to be doing a fantastic job of maintaining the style of the next-gen experience and pumping their own Wii-specific controls into it. Naturally there’s a graphical deficiency that you notice if you compare Wii to 360 graphics, and Nintendo’s console is having a bit of a palette downgrade going on (looking a bit more brown I’d say) but you gotta admit it’s pretty tasty all the same. Looks like Sega really do like to push the graphical power of the Wii as much as they can.
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New stage screens have appeared for Sonic Chronicles at Leipzig – this will most likely be playable at the press event itself at Sega’s booths. We get to see a lot more of Knuckles here, including some of his POW moves, and we come face to face with a slimy thing that appears to invite Sonic into his parlour. Ooh er missus. Those who played the Nintendo DS RPG at the Summer of Sonic convention can agree that this is shaping up to be a rather awesome little title for the hedgehog, and I’m particularly liking the ‘action’ artwork that appears in the top screen when a character performs a POW move. It doesn’t look like Uekawa’s work, but it sure makes me wish they’d do away with all the CG artwork these days and pump out some drawn stuff now and then.
I had an interview with Miles Holmes, the Lead Designer at BioWare for Sonic Chronicles a while ago, which should be published on a website I’ve been writing for very soon. His favourite game is Sonic Heroes, as a random tidbit of information there. Interesting, no?
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Sure, we mock it but Sonic Unleashed is really turning out quite nice. We’re just not sure about the Werehog bit – he’s either fighting some alien creatures that, despite looking rather cute, seem like Sonic’s fighting Iblis Mk2 again (not very ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ at all), or he’s doing careful platform traversing that just makes you wonder “That could have been normal Sonic doing that in his stages”.
If Werehog’s doing all the skilful platforming, does that mean the awesome ‘speed’ stages that Sonic’s involved in has no substance other than just running full tilt and pressing the odd button every now and then? We hope not – only time can tell.
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The Leipzig Games Convention takes place tomorrow, and we can expect plenty of fresh information on Sonic Unleashed. According to the TalkPlayStation Blog however, one reader (called ‘Dan’) couldn’t contain his secrets any longer and apparently spilled some massive story-based beans. Among the unsupported claims is talk of Sonic and the Werehog having separate ‘Super’ forms, Tails appearing with the Tornado and something about a Chaos Golem. Here’s TalkPlayStation with some more tidbits:
The returning character is called Fang the Sniper. He’ll be reinvented like the Chaotix were when they were reintroduced in Sonic Heroes. Fang the Sniper is hired to destroy the Werehog with the promise that he can get the Emerals from his dead body. He becomes an occasional rival in three or four boss battles. In their final battle, he reaches the last Emerald before Sonic and has an adverse effect.
Again, there are no official sources confirming this, so don’t go over the top with this newfound information, kids. There’s a chance that reader ‘Dan’ may just be, you know, making it up. But GC’s only tomorrow, so we’ll know soon enough.
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The man on the left is Kuzko. He found his groove in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. In this forgettable animated movie, starring David Spade and John Goodman, Kuzko (Spade) is turned into a llama by some crazy, usurper bitch and Pacha (Goodman) has to save him. They run around and do a whole bunch of wacky shit, avoiding the crazy, usurper bitch as much as possible. They get to Kuzko’s palace to reverse the process, an epic battle ensues, and Kuzko returns to being emperor and the big, stupid, comic relief character teaches some kids how to talk to woodland creatures. What does Kuzko learn? While a llama, he changes his arrogant, selfish ways and embraces the world and the people that inhabit it. His 180-degree turn is truly heartwarming, albeit formulaic and uninteresting.
What does Kuzko have to do with a Sonic fangame? Well, BlazeHedgehog’s Sonic: The Fated Hour has been in development for ten years. Ten. Read up on it, because I’m not lying here. Finally, after years of gameplay changes and data wipes, Fated Hour has finally found its “groove” in the alpha version of Sonic Worlds. Kuzko’s change of heart happens after he is transformed back into a human and Fated Hour is at this point still in the “llama” stage. The project has made a huge change for the better, hopefully leading to greater things, but there is still a long way to go to fully develop its character, like Kuzko.
Fated Hour offers up your standard fare of Genesis-styled gameplay, while expanding upon it to keep it more unique amongst the sea of booths at SAGE this year. These new inclusions are first made apparent by Amy Rose, who offers to explain the controls to the game. Rather than only have the jump button, there are four in use during the game. However, only two are in use during this showcase: jump and jump cancel. Jump cancel will break the ball Sonic normally goes into during a jump and allows him to grind a rail or wall-kick. The multiple button setup sounds good on paper, but trying to wall-jump between two walls with two buttons is cumbersome and mapping Sonic’s wall-stick to the jump button or making it automatic would work better. When the game offers high scores for best times, the time-attackist might have difficulty trying to blow by a section of wall jumping. This button tandem is like an old man, because it threw off my groove. Continue reading SAGE ’08: Sonic – The Fated Hour
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The good old days of 1992. Sonic was everywhere, your video game systems, your local book stores, American meatball cans, you name it, SEGA had an advertisement campaign involving it.
Member Godofwarordle (what?) at Game Trailers has recently dug up an old gem of a commercial involving Sonic and some inferior company mascot we forget the name of, advertising a box of Honey Nut Cheerio cereal. It looks like the advertisement ran around the time Sonic 2 was released on the Mega Drive… 1992. You received some nifty ‘gaming tips’ for Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine and ToeJam and Earl 2 on every box, plus the chance to win a SEGA Genesis console itself! Chances of winning were 1 in 10,000. Extremely generous of them, that.
You don’t see Mario having a corny Honey Nut Cheerio theme song now, do you?
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UK video game retailer GAME are listing some new Sonic merchandise items made by the same company behind the recent plushies, Cool Stuff (we still want our Eggman plushie damn it!).
It sounds like they are all part of a Sonic Scalextric kind of thing but why release all 3 items seperately? Your guess is as good as mine. No images are available right now, but they are listed to be released Saturday 20th September 2008 so expect images and info to be released soon.
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IT’S FINALLY HERE! THE 2008 SONIC AMATEUR GAMES EXPO IS HERE!
We invite any and all Sonic fans to come to the 13th iteration of this long-standing, Sonic community tradition, hosted by one of the community’s original sites, Sonic Fan Games HQ. Play the latest and greatest fan projects all in one place for one glorious week of celebrating not only Sonic the Hedgehog, but our community as well.
Please, hop right into the chat room, look at the schedule, and just read everything there is to read about the show! It’s going to be great!
A word of warning about certain booths: Sunday is usually the slowest day for the booths section, as dead links will be weeded out and some people will be putting up their demos throughout the day, due to time zone differences. Bear with that fact, because it happens every year. Come Monday, everybody should be ready to roll.
Be sure to check here for TSS Staff’s input on all the fangaming action!
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Oh, how long have you yearned for that fix of live broadcasting that only the SEGASonic Radio elite can provide, eh? HOW LONG. Well, a month and a bit actually, since the ‘Zone Radio Network went belly-up on us and never quite made it back. Poor little budgie. But fear not, because through the power of B’man we have taken ‘de law’ into our own hands and taken SSR back. So SSR is on local servers, or something. It’s also in OGG format. Ooh, Open Source tastes fruity doesn’t it?
SSR LiVECASTS will resume soon, as all it required on the part of our DJs is a little tweaking of certain settings on their broadcast software. I’m currently making a new SEGASonic Radio website for DJs to let everyone know when their show’s going to be delayed for the seventh week running too, but that’s not ready yet. For now, enjoy a decent (for once) quality stream using the following link! You may need a program that can run OGG, like VLC or Winamp.
The Sonic Hour will have it’s final show of the series this Sunday at 6pm GMT. It was going to be a month and a bit ago, but… well, look what happened. Be sure to hit the IRC Chat room (also linked in the top of any TSS page) and join us for our final hurrah of the year!
P.S. Yes, we didn’t have the Sonic Site Awards this year. Did you notice? Serious question.
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While I’ve been busy making an archive out of the current Summer of Sonic website – be sure to keep sending in your photos and videos – those cool dudes at Sega Nerds have been one of the many sites who have stepped up and made a report on the International Sonic Convention. Many photos and videos were taken, including a few pieces that cover the event really nicely. I’m quite happy they managed to get a photo of Sonic Retro’s ‘invasion’ of the convention (above), as I wanted some photo evidence of that. Sonic Retro joined the many other big-name fansites that were chronicled on the Community Wall. Hopefully someone has a photo of that, now.
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It must be that time of the year, being that the few days before SAGE are always filled with last minute hype videos for just about every project. I am well prepared to wait and let ’em all pile up, rather than flooding this here front page, devoting a single news post to a game’s preview video.
With one entire day before the show (which starts at 12 AM EST, by the way), SFGHQ members Aylingling, Nitemare, and Shadow5561 have released preview videos of their SAGE demos of Sonic Zenith, Super Mario Kingdoms, and Sonic Unleashed Advance, respectively. You can check them all out in the links below:
In other news, SFGHQ member, Streak Thunderstorm, has jumped the gun and has released the SAGE demo of Mecha Madness early. You can access his SAGE booth, which has the download to the demo, at the following link:
One last thing to be on the look out for is the ever-updating schedule, because we have added two new guests to SAGE: Lee Brotherton and Eric Iwasaki, a developer from Naughty Dog studios (Crash Bandicoot series). Times have yet to be set in stone, but they are confirmed to be guests in the SAGE chat room. Special thanks goes out to SSMB member EXshad for annoying the living shit out of us until we got him into the chat room schedule.
When the show begins, we will have the entire front page staff reviewing all the games with playable builds. You read correctly, I will not be the only one doing SAGE reporting. Please check back throughout the week for more SAGE 2008 coverage (100% free of pretentiousness and the word “first”).
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Sega have today announced their games line-up for the Leipzig Games Convention which includes many familiar titles but Sega have announced a new title is planned for its world premiere at the event. Jinkeys! Sonic titles to appear at the Games Convention are Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and Sonic Unleashed.
Titles set to appear are – Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Sonic Unleashed, Space Siege, Empire: Total War, Alpha Protocol, Madworld, Bayonetta, Golden Axe, Valkyria Chronicles, Stormrise, Samba De Amigo and several other titles.
We’ll keep you up to date on all info released from the event next week!
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I remember back to October 2006, chilling out at Lee Rosey’s Tea Room in Nottingham after watching Richard Jacques and TJ Davis perform for the first time. I was conversing with my two new friends Kevin and Svend about the event; “We could do something like this” I remember one of them saying.The thought didn’t cross my mind that two years later I’d be setting up a mixer desk and sound system at 8:30am for the Summer of Sonic 2008 event in London, while having a quick chat with Richard Jacques about life in general, as he sifted through the selection of CDs I’d brought along to play.
To say the event was a success would be a massive understatement; it was a roaring torrent of win. Walking around the event after finishing up on my slot on the decks, my ears were treated to what I can only describe as a choral rendition of Live and Learn – everyone was singing along to the song as they explored the event, and it was beautiful!!! I couldn’t walk five steps without spotting a familiar face, or having someone stop me to introduce themselves, to put a face to a (screen) name.Nigel Kitching was trapped in his corner, surrounded by fans asking questions having cherished copies of Sonic the Comic signed. The room was filled with people of different colours, creeds and ages, some having travelled hundreds, even thousands of miles to be here, and all to celebrate their one mutual love…Sonic the Hedgehog.
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In a recent interview with Gamasutra about Game Design Psychology Hirokazu Yasuhara was asked a few questions regarding the creation of Sonic. Heres a portion of the interview –
Time Twisted and I have a history together. The game debuted during the same SAGE as my project and we have made an appearance at the show for three years running now. It is always a good sight to see that a project is still alive. Secondly, we both chose the path of emulating Sonic CD, which is a plus, in my book. It remains a highlight of the show for anybody looking for a demo with more content than most (three zones here, broskis). Nonetheless, personally, I am gradually more and more disappointed with each subsequent release.
Spike has had this game running for nearly 3 years now and this year, we get new content and a brand new name. Formerly named, “Sonic the Hedgehog 4,” Sonic Panic follows Sonic as he chases Robotnik across various galaxies and planets. The demo features the Planet Mech level of Rail Road, which is a Genesis revamp of Sunset Park from Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble on the Game Gear. I am a complete sucker for Game Gear levels, so I went into the demo with modest expectations.
The man on the left is Kuzko. He found his groove in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. In this forgettable animated movie, starring David Spade and John Goodman, Kuzko (Spade) is turned into a llama by some crazy, usurper bitch and Pacha (Goodman) has to save him. They run around and do a whole bunch of wacky shit, avoiding the crazy, usurper bitch as much as possible. They get to Kuzko’s palace to reverse the process, an epic battle ensues, and Kuzko returns to being emperor and the big, stupid, comic relief character teaches some kids how to talk to woodland creatures. What does Kuzko learn? While a llama, he changes his arrogant, selfish ways and embraces the world and the people that inhabit it. His 180-degree turn is truly heartwarming, albeit formulaic and uninteresting.
Fated Hour offers up your standard fare of Genesis-styled gameplay, while expanding upon it to keep it more unique amongst the sea of booths at SAGE this year. These new inclusions are first made apparent by Amy Rose, who offers to explain the controls to the game. Rather than only have the jump button, there are four in use during the game. However, only two are in use during this showcase: jump and jump cancel. Jump cancel will break the ball Sonic normally goes into during a jump and allows him to grind a rail or wall-kick. The multiple button setup sounds good on paper, but trying to wall-jump between two walls with two buttons is cumbersome and mapping Sonic’s wall-stick to the jump button or making it automatic would work better. When the game offers high scores for best times, the time-attackist might have difficulty trying to blow by a section of wall jumping. This button tandem is like 
I remember back to October 2006, chilling out at Lee Rosey’s Tea Room in Nottingham after watching Richard Jacques and TJ Davis perform for the first time. I was conversing with my two new friends Kevin and Svend about the event; “We could do something like this” I remember one of them saying.