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HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 
It’s back, with a vengeance… and this time, it wants your blood! Or something. Yes, the awesome Hallowe’en pumpkin stencils we offered last year are back, and now they’re permanently archived in a new section in the Media section over on the sidebar. Click on ‘Other Downloads’ and you’ll be taken to a page where our miscellaneous content will go, as and when we get it.
Rally the Cheetah lovingly made these so you can create your own Sonic pumpkins at home! And there’s still a day left to go to prepare, so what perfect timing!
New additions have arrived if you don’t fancy doing the same carvings as last year though, with Silver and an incredible Sonic the Werehog stencil for those looking for a challenge. You’ll need a hell of a pumpkin for the Werehog one, but doesn’t it look badass? Most appropriate for the season, don’t you think?
You can find a direct link to the Hallowe’en Pumpkin stencils here, if you don’t fancy going through that extra click, you lazy git, you. Be sure to write about your own Sonic-themed pumpkin/Hallowe’en stories in the comments box, and from me and everyone at TSS, have a ghoulish weekend!
Various sources are reporting that gamer James Richards, in association with Lucozade and the Guinness World Records, has apparently broken a time trial record for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at the Golden Joystick Awards show in London.
The only thing is, he didn’t.
James attempted the World Record, which involved speed running through Sonic 2’s Emerald Hill Zone Act 1 as fast as possible, and managed a very respectable time of 0:22. Guinness World Records representatives were at the event to adjudicate and officiate the new record.
However, the current World Record for Emerald Hill Zone Act 1 lies with Louis Tsiattalou with a time of 0:20. This was achieved at the Summer of Sonic Convention in August 2008, and funnily enough was also officiated by Guinness World Records representatives. The record was even published in the Guinness Book of World Records: Gamers Edition 2009.
Which begs the question, how did Guinness come to forget their own World Record?
James was happy that he got a quick time, all thanks to Lucozade Alert Plus, apparently. “I’ve been training for weeks for this. Getting my mental preparation right has been just as important as honing my physical co-ordination and reactions. Lucozade Alert Plus has given me the energy boost I’ve needed to increase my focus, concentration and overall mental performance. I’m so happy to have broken the record – one that I hope will stand for some time to come!”
I wonder who will be the poor sod that has to break the news to James that he didn’t actually break any records?
James attempted his World Record on an Xbox 360. The current World Record holder, Louis, achieved it on a Sega Mega Drive console. There are faster times on speed running sites that clock in as quick as 19 seconds and beyond, but these use ROMs, engineered copies of the game or do not take place in front of a Guinness World Record adjudicator, and thus aren’t qualified for World Record placing.
Jun Senoue is a man who needs little introduction. He’s had his hands in the Sonic pie since way back when, working alongside others such as Howard Drossin on the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack. Mr Senoue really stepped into the spotlight with the launch of Sonic Adventure back in 1999, when Jun’s band Crush 40, fronted by Johnny Gioeli, blew most of the community away with its blistering soundtrack of fast-paced rock and epic power anthems. He’s just as awesome in real life too!
Well as most of you know Jun has been busy then, and not just with Sonic stuff. “The Works“ is a selection of tracks from other games such as the NASCAR and Daytona USA racing titles, along with music from the only-released-in-Japan titles, Managing Baseball Team Game / Managing J-League Football Team Game. Those of you who are fans of Ted Poley and Eric Martin will be pleased to know they both feature heavily on the album providing more awesome-sauce vocals.
Anyway, for a limited time Jun Senoue will be personally autographing copies of the soundtrack, which can be purchased on the official Jun Senoue fansite for the meagre price of $30 plus a small postage charge (works out at about £22 in total for UK peoples). Not bad eh? It also looks like Jun will be doing a similar thing with the Best of Crush 40 album “Super Sonic Songs” that will be released next month. The full track listings for both of the albums are listed on the website should you wish to examine them before purchase.
Head over to the Official Jun Senoue Site and follow the instructions to buy
If you’re feeling a little tight fisted, or you simply haven’t got enough pocket money to blow on a copy, then don’t fret! There will be a chance to win yourself a copy of the album over the SEGASonic:Radio Project 24 livecast on the 15th of November! Keep your eyes peeled for more info!
Props to Martin aka SOA, webmaster of junsenoue.com, for helping sort out this amazing offer for us lucky, lucky fans!
So there I was, innocently adding the new Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Artwork page (with transparent, clean PNG character art and all), when I came across these monstrosities. These images are part of SEGA’s “lifestyle” advertising campaign for the new Mario and Sonic sports mashup, and… well, they’re quite terrible, aren’t they?
I’ve not seen any of these being used in ‘lifestyle’ print or magazines (although having said that, I don’t make it a point to collect issues of Grazia or whatever), it makes you wonder whether SEGA, Nintendo et al just do these photo shoots for a laugh one day, never to be used for fear of irritating readers with these guys’ faces. Some of these faces are hilarious though, but deep down it really kinda wants you lose the will to live.
Gallery full of 20-odd lifestyle promotional M&S images after the jump. Best captions win Awesome Points™.
Continue reading Let The Olympic Winter Memes Begin!
Thanks to everyone who tuned in to TSS’ Birthday special on The Sonic Hour. We ended up with a great show with some good atmosphere in the chatroom. You didn’t have to tune in to SSR to know who won, though; I have the list right here. Congratulations to the following peeps, in no particular order:
Unlucky to those who didn’t win anything, but that’s the luck of the draw! And double-unlucky to poor Yannick, who won our fabulous booby prize of a boy’s (4-5 years) size of white pants featuring a picture of Sonic on the front. Hopefully you won’t be too disturbed by the arrival of the prize.
The rowdy crowd in the chatroom were so nutty that they ordered us to give away the bags in which we contained the prize and entrant names in. These bags were nothing special – a plastic Forbidden Planet bag and a clear T-Shirt shrink wrap. Anders Muskens won the former and Zacharie Palmer won the latter, FYI – but only if you guys really want it. You know, honestly, what could you do with a piece of plastic rubbish?
The Sonic Hour Episode 506: “Super Sonic Underpants” will be added to the podcast in little over 10/20 minutes. Nominees for the Sonic Site Awards 2009 will appear later tonight, along with the opening of entry polls for you to begin your voting!
This is currently the only part of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter games, that I am truly having fun in.
In here you will notice the likes of, Radical Highway, The special stage from Sonic Heroes, Egg Factory plus an amazing Sonic medley featuring Sonic 2 and Perfect Chaos!
One of our contests, as mentioned a few days ago, will be the random lucky dip that we’ll be featuring on SEGASonic Radio tomorrow night. Please do not email us with your details – I won’t be able to find time to put your names in the special ‘hat’ we have here. Good luck to all our entrants; winners (and the prize they will get) will be randomly plucked out of a hat so the handing of goodies is completely fair. There will be only one prize per winner. Here’s a shortlist of what you can win;
Basically, you want the good prizes and not the crappy ones. 😉 Listen to SEGASonic Radio’s The Sonic Hour at 7pm GMT tomorrow night (click the green button at the top of the page there) and then join in the IRC Chatroom (click the ‘Chat’ link at the top of the page) and chat about the show’s happenings with friends live. Remember that in the UK (where the show will be broadcast), the clocks go back one hour so for many places around the world please take that into consideration. If you’re ever confused as to what time it is for us, click here and look under the “London” section. See you then!
Happy Birthday to us! The Sonic Stadium was launched on this day, nine long years ago. Originally a place I created while at school to just write about my favourite game series, this place quickly became one of the most popular places to go to online. Over its long history, this site has had countless firsts, loads of exclusives, official recognition from SEGA, and been the cause of many legendary community initiatives, with the most recent being the Summer of Sonic convention.
While it’s true that we have led the way in many ways regarding Sonic site communities and approaches to design and philosophies, the real success story is in the many Sonic fans that come to TSS to enjoy what we have to say in one weird way or another. You, the visitors, are what truly make TSS great and I want to thank you so much for giving me the encouragement to stick with it for nine years. Continue reading Happy Birthday to TSS!
Looks like SEGA have figured a way around that pesky Sonic & Knuckles lock-on technology problem, as Japan is about to get the classic mushroom-shaped Mega Drive game soon on the Wii Virtual Console, complete with backwards compatibility across other Sonic MD games.
SEGA Japan announced the lock-on feature workaround, which involves an additional menu before you boot the ROM up asking you if there is another purchased Sonic game you would like to connect it to. Nintendo itself made no mention of the feature, which led us all to worry that the VC version would have nixed lock-on play – as has been the trend these days with Sonic & Knuckles re-releases. Sonic & Knuckles on Wii Virtual Console will hit Japan on the 27th October for 600 Nintendo Points.
The original Mega Drive classic was released in October 1994, eight months after the launch of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. As the two games were confirmed to be two parts of the same game, Sonic Team created a special cartridge that allowed copies of Sonic 3 to be ‘locked on’ the top of it. As a bonus, copies of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 also worked on the lock-on; the former as an ‘endless’ gauntlet of special stage game ‘Blue Sphere’ and the latter allowing players to control Knuckles in Sonic 2 Zones.
Source: Andriasang (thanks for the tip, BassDS!)
Our Mario & Sonic Pre-Order T-Shirt Competition is now CLOSED.
The question we asked was –
Where are the 2010 Olympic Winter Games being held?
A: Antarctica
B: Beijing
C: Vancouver
The correct answer was of course C: Vancouver, we had 27 entries altogether of which were all correct answers.
Now my lovely assistant, I mean wife has just blindly picked one of your names randomly out of a shoebox.
Our winner is….
* Drumroll*
…..
…….
……….
Emma Butler AKA Angel The Hedgehog
The Mario & Sonic T-shirt is yours, we will contact your for a delivery address and it will be sent your way in a Sonic second providing there’s no Royal Mail strikes in the way.
Congratulations!
We are greeeaat at bringing you old news.
And by ‘Bad’ we mean good (and Michael Jackson’s album of course). The link between Sonic 3 and Michael Jackson (R.I.P) has been documented many times in the community, so it’s always nice to see some fans make use of that and try to merge the two together. This recent remix, by Yuzoboy, mashes up MJ’s Smooth Criminal with Sonic 3’s Ice Cap Zone (Acts 1 and 2) together to make an awesome whole. Apparently Yuzoboy’s remix is a new take on an already-existing Smooth Criminal/Ice Cap mashup by MixerProductions too. Fantastic mixing here.
Note the video includes a sneaky bit of Sonic MegaMix as well. Very nice. And there’s more where that came from if you click here too. Thanks to Rio for the spot!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdpaR4cgP3U[/youtube]
If you never got round to picking up the Bioware developed DS RPG title Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood then now is a good time for your wallet. Supermarket chain Sainsburys are currently selling Sonic Chronicles for just £10, saving you a whopping £19.99.
Fellow SEGA fans might also want to keep an eye out for another sweet offer in the bargain bins at Sainsburys, Samba De Amigo on Wii for just £10.
Sonic fans might also be interested in Sonic’s cameo in the game where he gets his groove thang on.
Got to love some good bargains!
To celebrate our 9th birthday that’s coming up soon, we have a few prizes in store for you. At the moment, you can enter for our awesome Mario & Sonic Pre-order T-Shirt Competition, and today I’m announcing the TSS Birthday Sweepstakes. Basically, I’ve been trawling the Internets to find the most exquisite things to give away. I’ve not got a complete list of stuff to hand out yet, but the list includes
And many more besides, including a prize from SEGA too. Ooooh. So, because it’s a veritable mish-mash of stuff, we’re going to give away one prize to one winner! Making many winners instead of just one! How can you have a chance to get your hands on one of these fabulous prizes?
Simply email your name, email address and mailing address to [contest now closed to new entries]. That’s it, but you MUST include those three details. Then, on Sunday, 6pm GMT listen in to The Sonic Hour, where myself and Roareye Black put all your names into a hat and pick out a winner for each prize. Click here to listen to SegaSonic Radio while TSH is on, and click here to sit in the IRC Chatroom while we’re on air and have some fun.
By the way; we have a few small/bunk prizes to give away too – just to make it more fun! Including this very nice pair of Sonic Heroes ‘branded’ pants, for ages 4-5. Will you win the awesome UniQlo T-Shirt? Will you win the SEGA prize? Or will you win a pair of grey homemade kid’s pants? The suspense! The fun!
Update: The contest is open to anyone (anywhere in the world, but it’ll help if you live near me! ;)) and it’s not required to listen to The Sonic Hour, we will email you after the show to let you know you’ve won something regardless. It’s just fun to hear the results played out live, is all.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLl1H4UyEe0[/youtube]
One of the few ads on television that actually makes me crack a smile. Bonus points to the commercial’s director for the ring loss noise. Watch it, knuckleheads.
How time flies. This website, born from my unhealthy obsession for Sonic the Hedgehog and eagerness to write whatever crap popped into my head, will soon turn 9 years old. On the 24th October I’ll have a surprise or two for you. Do stick around. In the meantime, we’ll be having a good few (proper!) updates to the information pages and content areas here during the run up. So, enjoy TSS’ birthday week (for what it is right now). 🙂
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLbt31SfOdk[/youtube]
You’ve seen countless Genesis and Advance-styled Sonic fangames, but there is only one project out there that is channeling the look and feel of the 8-bit adventures. I’ve talked about Sonic Mayhem before and I have been always one to praise the project. Over the weekend, the project’s lead, Amesuki, has released a short demo, pictures of the new zones, and a gameplay video.
The brief demo (download here) runs for about a minute and, to me, is a picture perfect re-creation of the 8-bit Sonic games. The music, the graphics, and the physics all feel correct. I just wish it were longer!
Check the video for gameplay of one of the best fangames around and hit the break for screenshots of other levels.
MCV is reporting that Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is the latest victim of supermarket price-cutting, with Morrison’s selling the Wii sports mashup for only £18.99 until Sunday. That’s a discount of over 50%, and a counter to Sainsbury’s free pack-in of the game with new Wii consoles.
Other games that have fallen victim to supermarket price cutting include EA’s FIFA 10 and Codemaster’s Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. The UK games industry has rallied against the increasing trend, calling it ‘worrying’. In the case of Mario and Sonic, although it can be argued that this price drop will get the game into more people’s hands, there’s no real reason to doubt that people would have bought this title at full price anyway. Regardless, it results in less money returned to the developer – money that, in a recession, publishers are finding hard to come by.
Remember that exclusive Mario & Sonic t-shirt HMV gave away with pre-orders of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games? Well if you missed out on the offer then your in luck because we have one to give away to celebrate todays UK release of the game. The t-shirt is a size small, in brand new condition and never been worn.
What’s the catch you say? Well all we want to know is:
Where are the 2010 Olympic Winter Games being held?
A: Antarctica
B: Beijing
C: Vancouver
Send your name and answer in to shadzter@sonicstadium.org, all correct entries will be put into one of T-Birds many hats and picked out at random. Closing date for entries is Friday 23rd October 9pm. Entry is open to UK residents only. All ages are welcome to enter.
The winner will be announced on TSS Saturday 24th October and then contacted to claim their prize.
Good luck everyone!
Just got both DS and Wii versions of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games for review – which incidentally, happen to be available for purchase today too! The last Mario and Sonic game was rather fun, despite not being exactly the result we all wanted from a franchise clash like this. From what we’ve played over the last few months, things are much improved over 2007’s effort, so I’m going to spend some time on this over the weekend. I’m going to a wedding tomorrow so the DS version is likely to get more playtime for the time being. Either way, a TSS review will be inbound for both versions soon.
Anyone getting the game today? Weekend? Never? What characters are making you excited right now? I know Roareye will want to (constantly) play as Waluigi. Myself, I’m psyched to play as Metal Sonic. Anyone have a particular favourite from the lineup?
(UPDATE: Haven’t watched the show myself yet(have it recorded) but reports are coming in that Mario won in the end. UPDATE end)
We’re a little last minute with this but Sonic is set to appear on tonights edition of The Gadget Show in the UK on Channel 5. There will be a section of the show where Sonic and Mario will be pitted against eachother in some way or form for a place on their gaming wall of fame.
The Sonic part of this event is in credit to Archangel UK, Sonic Wrecks and SEGA. To see who wins this battle check out the show on Channel 5 at approximately 8pm tonight.
Gamer James Richards will be attempting to break the current world record for fastest completion of Sonic The Hedgehog 2’s first stage Emerald Hill Zone on three formats, Wii Virtual Console version, Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade version and the SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection version on PS3.
The event is being held by Lucozade to promote their new energy drink shot Lucozade Alert Plus. This new drink is proven to boost mental performance, focus, reactions and alertness all of which are a fitting suit for Sonic’s character.
Can James do it? Well he already holds the Guinness World Record for his blistering speed run of Sonic The Hedgehog 3 which stands at 49 minutes and 17 seconds so he’s very capable.
Editor’s Note: The current Guinness World Record for the fastest time through Emerald Hill Zone Act 1 was achieved at the Summer of Sonic convention in 2008. The world record holder is Louis Tsiattalou with a time of 0:20.
Source: CVG
UPDATE 2: My copies of both versions have arrived from HMV via Royal Mail with 2 of the t-shirts and both are size Small. Reports have come in of people getting otehr sizes delivered. It seems HMV are just sending out random sizes. Awful way of doing things but even if you dont get your size they still make good collectors items.
UPDATE: TSS has learnt that HMV accept orders outside of the UK and ship via air mail so if you live overseas and fancy HMV’s exclusive t-shirt then get your pre-orders in. Remember though, Wii’s are region locked so PAL copies won’t work on U.S. consoles. The DS is region-free though.
HMV delivery info page UPDATE end.
Above: Thanks AAUK over at the Sonic City Blognik
If HMV’s free M&S t-shirt shown above wasn’t enough to encourage you to pre-order Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games then maybe GAME and Gamestation can tempt you.
If you pre-order either version of the game at Gamestation you can take home some Official Charms as seen in the photo I took earlier today shown above. Five charms are included, one with the games logo, one with Sonic’s emblem, one with Amy’s emblem, one with Mario’s emblem and one with Yoshi’s emblem.
If your looking for something more on the cuddly side GAME are offering a Sonic beanie toy with pre-orders of either version but unfortunately it is the same beanie they’ve already been selling for ages.
HMV Wii
HMV DS
HMV t-shirt offer available online only.
GAME Wii
GAME DS
GAME Sonic beanie offer only available in-store.
Gamestation Wii
Gamestation DS
Gamestation charms offer available in-store only.
Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com are now talking pre-orders for a Sonic comic universe Guide!
Continue reading Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclopedia now taking Pre-Orders!
Those fan gamers are at it again. The series that is very much the marmite of fangames for some people has just announced that it is releasing a new spin off game in it Sonic Arena series. Will it be shit? Yes, but the trailer is really pretty.
A week after the U.S. received them SEGA Europe have released Sonic Rivals 2 and SEGA Mega Drive Collection to the PlayStation Store for you to buy and download to your PSP. However, unlike the U.S. SEGA Europe haven’t released the first Sonic Rivals game alongside the second. We’ll check back next week and update you if it gets released.
Sonic Rivals 2 is priced at a fair £11.99 and SEGA Mega Drive Collection that contains Sonic 1 and 2 can also be purchased for the cheap price of £11.99. SEGA fans might also want to check out Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars which is also priced at £11.99.
Microsoft have detailed the list of upcoming releases to Xbox Live’s Games On Demand service where you can buy and download full Xbox 360 games for £19.99 each.
Here’s the rest of this months releases –
October 13: Grand Theft Auto IV
October 20: Midnight Club Los Angeles, Army of Two, Sonic Unleashed
October 27: Dead Space, DiRT
So if your after a Sonic fix without leaving your sofa and don’t want to deal with the national postal strikes then this is probably your best bet.
Okay, so this is a Sonic the Hedgehog fansite. But we have a long history with the Dreamcast, Shenmue, and just SEGA in general. So it’s with some excitement that SEGA today revealed that Ryo Hazuki, the forklift driving wanderer endlessly looking for his father’s killer, is going to be a playable character in Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing.
Obviously the chap managed to find a way out of Guilin and stop what he was doing to race with Sonic. Racing on the motorbike found in Shenmue, it seems Hazuki’s power up involves hopping into his docklands forklift truck (…!!!!) and mowing down his opponents.
The only thing that could make this better is if the racing game had collectible capsule toys and Ryo’s dialogue consisted of finding sailors. Watch the announcement trailer below.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-fAECDjqY[/youtube]
After the news of the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games pre-order t-shirt at HMV ArchangelUK over at the Sonic City Blognik has revealed SEGA Europe’s second piece of merchandise. The item as seen in the above photo is a sticker sheet of various pieces of art for the playable characters included in the game. Alot of the art you will have seen on the games website but a few pieces are new such as the Bowser art. AAUK hasn’t revealed what SEGA Europe plan for the sticker sheets but we’ll let you know as soon as any information is given.
Source:
Sonic City Blognik
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faooJKvpxY4[/youtube]
YouTube user, n00neimp0rtant, has uploaded an incredible mash-up of Sonic music to the site that incorporates Sonic music from the Genesis-era all the way to today’s games. This labor of Sonic love, which took him a week and a half to complete, is really cool. Listen to it, knuckleheads.
SEGA of France will be showcasing Sumo Digital’s Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing at this years Micromania Games Show in Paris. The event will be running fromt October 30th until November 2nd and will start at the Grande Halle de la Villette. No information on format/s and development build/s have been released.
We’ll be hunting for information and media as soon as things get started and give you all the coverage we can so stay tuned to TSS throughout the event.
Source:
Planete Sonic
Will you be attending the event? Let us know in the comments below.
UPDATE: 7TH Oct: European demo is now available from the European Nintendo Channel.
UPDATE 6TH Oct: ArchangelUK has confirmed on the Sonic City Blognik that a European version of the demo is comng soon. END UPDATE
SEGA of America have released a demo of the DS version of upcoming game Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games to the Wii’s U.S. Nintendo Channel. The demo allows you to try out the touch screen controlled Alpine Skiing event as 1 of 2 characters (yes you guessed correctly) Mario or Sonic. So if you’ve been on the fence as to wether to get the DS version you might want to give the demo a try.
No word on wether we in Europe will be getting this demo on the Nintendo Channel, if one becomes available we’ll be sure to let you know right here at TSS.
Thanks to dabbido for letting us know via the SSMB topic
As I mentioned in yesterdays article about SEGA’s UK Marketing Campaign, SEGA have some pre-order incentives planned. Well HMV.com have updated their product pages for both versions of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games with a new pre-order offer.
Pre-order Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games on Nintendo Wii or DS and receive an exclusive Mario & Sonic T-Shirt (T-Shirt to be delivered within a week of release date)
UPDATE 1 – PIC GET(Thanks Jix Hedgehog): As you can see above, HMV have uploaded a picture of the t-shirt now. The shirt has all of the playable characters emblems on the front and another image on the left sleeve, making for one funky t-shirt.
The Wii version costs £29.99 and the DS version costs £24.99 and both have free delivery available.
UPDATE 2:
When asked at my local HMV store the colleague behind the counter informed me the T-shit offer is online pre-orders only.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zFvjxAje0E[/youtube]
daneboe from Gag Films who created last months classic Contra vs Duck Hunt video has outdone himself with the above Sonic vs Pac-Man video. Sonic clears the maze faster than you can say “Pac-Man has an eating disorder”. Keep the mix-ups coming danboe!
