After all of the leaks surrounding Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing Steve Lycett of Sumo Digital under his S0L tag has been mostly absent in the SEGA/Sonic community but has made one post in a topic over at the Official SEGA Forums Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing board.
Obviously Steve can’t confirm or deny the leaks but he does address some questions people might have on their mind and what had to be taken into consideration when making the game such as the variety of audiences the team had to cater for.
Steve’s full post is below –
I’m breaking cover in this thread of wrongness
First -I’m not going to talk specific characters – certainly not till I see anything official. I don’t see any official reveals – and until you do – I wouldn’t believe anything either 😛 Don’t bother asking or PM’ing me either. My lips are sealed!
When all the characters are revealed, I’m sure we’ll hear a couple of things…
1. “Why isn’t character X in the game! I’m gonna cry and cry till I’m all out of tears till you add them!”
First, wipe your nose, second, stop crying. It’s not a good look on a 35 year old man!
When we make these games, we do two things. First we need to ensure we have a varied and ranged cast – that – and hold yourself- are as interesting to a non-Sega fan, as they are to a die hard Sega fan…
Take yourself back to when you’re a small child, someone hands you the joypad and you take your first steps into videogaming. You’ve no pre-conceptions, you are mesmerised by the blue skies, the vivid green grass, the character you’re playing is joyfully jumping on the heads of passing Koopa’s – no wait – Badniks.
You’re about to be a gamer, you realise this is GREAT! But you don’t know the characters, you don’t pore over the names of stages, you’re enthralled as you’re having fun and you’re lost in a whole new world. Remember games are about fun 😛
So we’re making this game for that kid too. We do out best to get the fan service in the games, and yes, a big part of what it’s about it nostalgia, and we try our best to sit in both camps. But… this game has to appeal to a very wide audience, and we’d like to get some new gamers in and teach them something about Sega too.
2. “You are calling this game Sega All-Stars – yet character Y appeared in only one game, and they shouldn’t be in as I want character Z! (note the Z doesn’t stand for Zool OK!”
So maybe you disagree with our and SEGA’s choices. Be our guest! Again, we’ve got to make sure the cast is varied for Billy’s Gran who got a Wii for Christmas. She’s heard about that game where you can race a hedgehog against a fox, and she wants some of that action!
As we’ve always maintained, we’ve gone for a good mix across ALL ages of Sega. For all those fans who don’t like Jet Set Radio, we’ve got a forum full elsewhere who all high-fived when they saw Beat drift into view. We can’t please you all, but I think when all is revealed, we’ll have pleased a lot more folk than we did with SST.
You can’t accuse of us not listening either. We did a LOT of research after SST shipped, and I feel we’ve got in a lot of characters that were requested last time. Remember Ryo, we wanted him, and we’d got the research to prove that you guys wanted him too! It might never have happened otherwise. Yep, we’ve had a late rush of support for some characters this time, and if we do something along these lines again, or do DLC, maybe we’ll look at trying to get them in a future title. Or maybe some of them are already in, but not in a form you expect. I know at least one that’s going to make a lot of folk happy.
The other thing – is that some characters may not fit in the style of the game we’re making here. We’re doing a bright, colourful, happy shiny game. Some of the ones we’ve had suggested – are clearly not bright happy colourful characters. We’ve also got an age rating to adhere too, and some characters very much certainly would scupper this…!
It’s good you’re all so excited, it’s good you all want to fight for the characters you love. We feel the same way! But we’re still human and we still have budgets and timescales. We still want to spend some time with family and loved ones, who haven’t seen us for months as we’ve been putting the extra special effort into this game for you.
Finally, remember we’ve been doing our very best to make a game for everyone, be they old fans or new, or fans we’re going to recruit soon who will then love Sega in future, just as much as you love Sega now.
Right, back to fixing bugs, or you’ll never get your hands on the game.
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S0L
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A cheeky little hint at a character that appears in the game in some form or another that people are going to like ay? I wonder who that will be?
Thanks to Clisp at the SSMB for the heads up!
Ristar. The number one complaint over at the Official Sega Forums is that Ristar is not playable. Hopefully he will get a respectable cameo appearance.
ristar? RISTAR!?!? its ristar isnt it??? RISTAR!!!!!! AUUUGH!!! WEEEEEEE!!!!!!! ahhhh, that would be cool, but i knda dont think he will make it in. but if he did his superstar move shold be his shooting star attack to bounce ahead of other cars and stuff.
but i have a feeling ratchet and clank are in the ps3, which makes me cry caz im a die hard fan of them too, but what about the wii and ds? i have a feeling it would be mario, but that would piss me off just because of how he would make it in another sonic game or vise versa (however u say that) and what are the odds of seeing rayman riding on the shell? or earthworm jim on his pocket rocket? but you know guys, the virtual fighter guys havent officially been announced yet, how do we know that they arnt the ones everyone is going to be hyped about?
Uh, I said cameo, not playable.
The way I see it Banjo is the ONLY exclusive character. NO Mario NO Ratchet No Sackboy, there’s only Banjo. It’s too late for any other console exclusives. Besides Banjo only got in because Sega had a good relationship with Rare, well that’s what I know from sources I have read.
I hope Vectorman is in, although my favorite character not listed as being in the game yet, Ecco the Dolphin, will almost assuredly not make it in. A Hanging Water racetrack would’ve been awesome, too. Oh well. The game still looks fantastic. 🙂
@Brianzilla2004:
Sadly, Vectorman is OUT for many reasons I can’t go into specifics with. You are going to have to join the party of DLC moaners.
To sum it up : Yes, he can’t hide it, they’ve been hacked and characters have been revealed. Secondly, the more requests you suggest about additional characters, the likely hood those characters are to be available via DLC is increased.. They’re trying to satisfy old school gamers along with the new crowd.. a hint at Mario.. and the poor man is obviously hurt.
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Sorry Steve, you may love the community, but it doesn’t sound like the community respects you or your privacy one bit.
Seriously they leak all this on purpose to build hype… remember Unleashed?? Anyone??? The HD trailers?? all the artwork??? woops SEGA has done it AGAIN… I wish for once they live up to all the hype…
Please be all holy lord of SEGA please be RISTAR !!!!!!!!!!!
Sweet lord Im hoping for Nights. She has been the character Ive been hoping since day one.
He mentioned Zool! This guy is automatically legendary! 😀
Of course Zool won’t be in it cos he was made by the now gone Gremlin development studio. ;o;
Sad Times.
@Roareye Black:
Isn’t he? Wow, I’d never expect anyone to come up with such a game in 2010!
Guys, just enjoy the game, SEGA may launch games with their flaws, but they know the recipe of ‘awesome’ ok? ;]
You know, you people are worrying about what characters you’ll get to see and/or play as, which is fine, but I don’t see much concern and empathy being placed over on his end of the deal. Steve here spent countless hours of his time talking to the fans and earning his trust as a fellow human being, not some far-off videogame developer, and most people here rather than accept the fact he is human, revere him as some sort of god that’s supposed to grant all your wishes. It really sickens me that there are so few people who sympathize with the man.
I understand how you feel Mr. Lycett. Don’t worry about me harassing you or anything. You and your team have done a marvelous job on this game, and I’m sure it’ll be a game no normally functioning gamer and SEGA fan will pass up.
I don’t see how Ristar has more beef then Nights.. how can you compare them?, and Night should be in the game hence he..or she has been in the Sega all stars series.. PERSONALY I love Nights, I grew up with him as i did with sonic…Ristar.. I played the game a few times.. yes he would be a nice addition.. But I think Nights deserves to be in it he has been in the past all star games.. He should be a permanent characters in the series, Though I know he wont be in.. but I think he deservs to be in that game more then the banana bros. Chu Chu rocket I like, virtual fighter is great… But I think Nights should be in the game Or atlest be a DLC character.. Night FTW <3..
Character Y? Maybe it’s a subtle hint that some of the characters from the RPG series Ys will be making an appearance! After all, SEGA did develop the Master System version of Ys: The Vanished Omens, so there is a chance…
@Extaticus: No those are examples… as in “go to point A to head to point B” kind of deal.
Why aren’t more of you guys mentioning Vyse from “Skies of Arcadia”? He’d fit it perfectly, and could ride a ship-inspired car (based on the Delphinus maybe?)!
Some nice suggestions here lol.