July 2013 – Page 2 – The Sonic Stadium

The Summer of Sonic website has announced the return of the Cosplay Competition, details are as follows.

“We take great pleasure in announcing the return of a fan favourite event to Summer of Sonic 2013: the cosplay contest! Do you possess the speed of Sonic? Do you have the tech skills of Tails? Or perhaps even the ego of Eggman? No matter who your favourite character is, we’d love to see all you cosplayers out there showing off your creations at the event!

Each year we are blown away by the caliber and variety of cosplayers at Summer of Sonic, and we hope that this year will be even bigger! Once again we want you, the audience to help us judge the competition! Just like in previous years, we want you to cheer (preferably as loud as you can!) for your favourite costume on stage; remember, those cheers equal all-important points for the participants!

If you want to enter the contest, you will be able to sign-up from opening time; don’t worry, we’ll make it’s easy to find! You will be given a group number upon sign up. At 2:30pm signups will close, and the group elimination stages will take place with the best costumes from each group going through to the final. The final ten cosplayers will be called to the stage later in the day, where the overall winner will be announced! We will announce when and where each group is due to gather, so keep hold of your number and come along when we call you!

We will have some fantastic prizes for the overall winner on the day, so we hope to see you guys pull off some amazing get-ups!

Planning on entering this year? Have any favourites from previous years? Let us know in the comments section below!”

Also, we’d like to take this time to remind you, the second wave of tickets for Summer of Sonic go live in just over 1 hours time. Remember, you cannot enter Summer of Sonic without a ticket, so if you still want to go, this is your last chance to get tickets. Good luck everyone, hope to see you there.

Tickets are only available via this link. (or, go to the Summer of Sonic website and click on the ‘Tickets’ link which you can see just under the picture of Metal Sonic). At 18:00 British Summer Time, (which is one hours time. from the posting of this article,) 450 tickets will be released. On friday, 450 went in 6 seconds. So be quick. Tickets are free.

Finally, I’m posting this because some people have been asking, this is Summer of Sonic’s only facebook page.

Source: Summer of Sonic.

The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.

xxOLDCommunity News

SOS 2013 Event Announcement: Never Mind The BuzzBombers!

5th July 20135th July 2013

Dave Luty

4 Comments

From the SOS website…

“Who wants to win some prizes!? As we enter our 6^th year of Summer of Sonic, Never Mind the BuzzBombers returns for its 5^th instalment. Always a fan favourite, two captains will lead their teams to battle as they clash in a variety of games and challenges.

But they won’t be alone; members of the audience will be selected to join them on stage in order to win some amazing Sonic prizes! So if you think you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Sonic, make sure you get down to the stage during selection process and you could be the one who turns the tide in your team leader’s favour.

And as always, I shall be standing… because we don’t have enough chairs… between them both mocking and maintaining order, doing a dance, telling a story, asking a barrage of questions until they can’t take anymore as we attempt to find out just who is the best?

This is Never Mind The BuzzBombers 2013!

Thats right my friends. BuzzBombers will be coming back to SOS this year for it’s 5th installment. I’ll be back with all manner of questions and challenges which will test even the most die hard of Sonic fan. So if you think you’re up for the challenge and know all maner of things from how many rings for an extra life, to tougher things, like, ‘how many different types of badniks has Eggman invented?’

Want to be apart of BuzzBombers? Be sure to be at the stage area when we start so you don’t miss your chance to be recruited into one our two teams.

Source: Summer of Sonic Website.

xxOLDCommunity News

Wave 1 of SOS tickets sells out in 6 seconds!

5th July 20135th July 2013

Dave Luty

24 Comments

Blink, and you probably did miss it! Following the amazing demand of last year, everybody knew this years first wave would go quickly, but nobody expected it to go this quickly. 450 tickets were up for grabs and they all sold out in 6 seconds!

Blimy!

If you got your tickets odds are you’re wiping the sweat of your brow right now and thinking something along the lines of ‘Oh man! I got lucky!’ However if you were unsucessful, do not despare, the second wave of tickets will go live this Sunday 7th July at 6:00PM (BST). There will be another 450 tickets up for grabs.

If you didn’t get a ticket this time, think of it this way… 450 less people attempting to go for tickets. See you on Sunday, good luck!

For more announcements and news on ticket updates, keep checking the SOS website and TSS.

xxOLDOfficial News

Steve Lycett: “We’re not done with ASRT yet”

4th July 20134th July 2013

Dave Luty

24 Comments

The PC version of ASRT got an update a few hours ago, and brought with it a new character as well as a few changes and bug fixes to the game, and it was given away for free.

However, despite this, some people have decided to complain, which has prompted S0L to announce that development on ASRT is still going ahead and that the character they got approval for a few months back is not General Winter and that the game will be reciving more DLC in the future.

At both SSMB & the Sega forums, S0L has stated the following.

“no-one has said we’re done with the game. We’ve not forgot about the poll either. It’s not up to us who we add to the game, I’ve made this clear a number of times. […] I’ll leave you with one interesting tidbit. This isn’t the character I mentioned we’d got approval on either, that was definitely one of the poll topping ones.”

What does that mean? It means that General Winter has been added due to Sega’s takeover of Relic, he is not the final character/update to be added to ASRT. ASRT is still reciving support and that there is at least one more character in development and it’s one of the characters who were voted for by the fans several months ago.

Source: SSMB

xxOLDOfficial News

General Winter Joins the Cast of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed

4th July 20134th July 2013

Dave Luty

14 Comments

Yesterday, Sumo Digitals Steve Lycett began dropping hints that ASRT would be getting a new update. For PC owners, the update has just gone live and… ASRT has a new character, and you will not believe who it is, because it’s technically not a videogame character, or a real person, in fact, if my understanding is correct. It’s a characterised representation of a metaphor.

Let me explain.

The character is called ‘General Winter.‘ Who is General Winter? Well, we need to do a bit of history. In the past, nations have tried and failed to conquer Russia in times of war, famously, Hitler and Napoleon attempted to invade and suffered heavy losses and defeats. Why? Simple. The winter.

Russian winters are notoriously cold. Over the years, as nations have invaded Russia, once the winter hits, their resources and supply lines are heavilly drained and eventually the invading force becomes crippled and has to either retreat or surrender. Hence the name ‘General Winter.’ General Winter is a metaphor, it’s the name given as the reason why well known military leaders in the past have failed to conquer Russia.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ_IKRda6jM[/youtube]

Now… in the game Relic game Company of Heroes 2, (Relic being a studio recently purchased by Sega following THQ’s collapse) there is indeed a character called ‘General Winter’ Who is based off this metaphor.

So ASRT’s newest character is from Relics game, who is a characterised incarnation of a metaphor based off a real life phenomenom. When you put it like that it’s simple. Before anyone asks, it would appear that this character is exclusive to the PC version of the game.

In other news, ASRT is free to play this weekend on Steam.

Source: Sonic the Hedgehog Facebook page & Thanks to SSMB member Xenn for the image.

xxOLDOfficial News

Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed DLC news coming tomorrow?

4th July 20134th July 2013

Dave Luty

33 Comments

Update: More clues have been found at the Steam Forums. See below for full details…

Sumo Digitals Steve Lycett (Aka S0L) has done an awesome job keeping fans updated about ASRT’s development and providing support to fans long after the games release. As well as dropping a few hints and teases that additional content might be in the works for the game. Well… a few hours ago S0L posted the following on the Sega forums in a topic entitled ‘Any News on DLC?’

So tomorrow will be interesting. For a number of reasons. Better pack my flame proof suit…

In other posts made by S0L over at the Steam forums, S0L has dropped other hints.

Скоро зима (If you run this one through google translate, you get ‘winter is coming’)

Is it me, or is it getting really cold all of a sudden. I wonder what tomorrow will bring…

In addition to this, several people who own the PC version of ASRT have noted that there has recently been a number of changes made to that game which would indicate an update is on the way. Could it be that we might finally get that DLC news we’ve been waiting for? Let the speculation begin!

xxOLDOfficial News

Jun Senoue Confirmed to Attend Summer of Sonic 2013

3rd July 2013

Shadzter

2 Comments

The Summer of Sonic website has announced this evening that Sonic Team sound director Jun Senoue will be making his return to Summer of Sonic this year. Sonic fans will know him for his work on the soundtracks for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the Sonic Adventure games and most recently Sonic Generations.

Senoue-san will be performing a selection of tunes from across his career and will even be meeting with fans at the Summer of Sonic signing booth. Times and details are yet to be announced, but we’ll pass that information along when it becomes available.

Source: Summer of Sonic Official Website

xxOLDOfficial News

Crush 40 are coming to Sonic Boom! Tickets now on sale

3rd July 20133rd July 2013

Dave Luty

8 Comments

Boom! Now the announcements start! Sega & the official Sonic the Hedgehog twitter account have announced that fan favourite Crush 40 will be coming to Sonic Boom this year. Although no details were given as to what Crush 40 will be doing, it’s safe to assume that they will be performing, afterall, the venue is a concert hall. However, don’t forget, Sonic Boom does other stage events and both Jun & Johnny have taken part in booth SOS & Boom stage activities at previous conventions, so they might appear in other regards.

Tickets for the event have also just gone on sale and can be purchased from Ticketmaster, according to TicketMaster, a single ticket will cost $29.

Tickets can be purchased from TicketMaster as of now.

xxOLDOfficial News

Sonic the Hedgehog 2014 Calendar Pops up for Pre-Order

2nd July 2013

Dave Luty

8 Comments

It seems odd that we’re only at the start of July, yet here I am reporting on more merchandise with the year 2014 written on it. According to a listing on Forbidden Planet, Sonic will be getting a calendar for 2014.

The calendar will be released at the end of this month, yes you read that right. Despite it being for 2014, it’s getting a very early release date of Tuesday 30th July. However, Pyramid International, the company making it claims the release date is the end of August, so not sure whats going on there.

The price is also very reasonable at only £6.89. Considering most calendars cost over £10 near christmas, this is one heck of a deal.

No teaser pages were given, just the cover page that you can see above, personally, I really hope there are some original artworks in this one like the ones from the early 90’s which look stunning.

According to the product page on Pyramid International, the size of the calendar is 30X30cm.

So, anyone going to pre-order?

Source: forbidden Planet & Pyramid International.

xxOLDCommunity News

Sonic Boom 2013 Ticket Details

2nd July 2013

Dave Luty

1 Comment

Sega have announced on their facebook when tickets for Sonic Boom 2013 will go on sale.

Wednesday, July 3rd at 10am CT

And thats it. No really, thats all the details they gave! I have no idea on price, where you can get them from or how many will be available. Of course I’ll update this with more information when I get it, until then, keep checking the Official Sonic Boom facebook page and Sega Blogs for more information when it’s posted.

Sonic Boom facebook page

xxOLDCommunity News

Summer of Sonic 2013 Ticket Details

1st July 20135th July 2013

Dave Luty

10 Comments

In 2008, when SOS was held in a place called ‘The Dragon Hall’ it was situated directly opposite a pub. A lot of the staff and many of the guests at the time joked that ‘nobody but the drunks over the road would turn up!’ It seems amazing to think that with more than 3 times the capacity of the Dragon Hall, last year, it took less than 3 minutes for all the tickets to be sold out.

With that in mind, this is probably one of the most important announcements if you want to attend this years event. The Summer of Sonic website has published the details of how tickets will be distributed this year. Here is what you need to know.

There will be two waves of tickets.

The first wave will be on Friday 5th July at 7:00PM (BST)

The second wave will be on Sunday 7th July at 6:00PM (BST)

There will be 450 tickets in both waves.

Furthermore, the ticketing system this year has altered too, you now get to select how many tickets you want, (maximum of 4). Before you fill out your details. So you won’t have to race to fill out a form and then click submit and be disapointed if all the tickets for that wave have gone.

Booking tickets is done via the SOS website, at this specific link.

Authors Note: I shall update this with more specific details as and when I get them.

If it’s anything like last year, tickets are expected to sell out very quickly. Please be online and ready before they go live in order to avoid disapointment.

Oh and, if you were wondering how much it will cost you to get a ticket for this years event…

Tickets are Free!

See the SOS website for more details.

Ticket booking page.

SOS 2013 is held on August 3rd at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London.

xxOLDOfficial News

Sonic Drift 2 Races Onto 3DS Virtual Console This Week

1st July 20131st July 2013

Doctor MK

12 Comments

There’s even more retro Sonic love on the Nintendo 3DS eShop coming your way this week, this time in the form of Game Gear title Sonic Drift 2. Before Sonic R, Sonic Riders, and Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing came this handheld kart racing spin-off starring everyone’s favourite blue hedgehog, alongside other playable characters including robotic doppelganger Metal Sonic and the treasure hunter Fang the Sniper (or Nack the Weasel – what is it with Sonic characters and having different naming conventions?). Unlike the original Sonic Drift, this game was released outside of Japan and it was initially renamed Sonic Drift Racing in Europe, even though the title screen still called it Sonic Drift 2.

A description of the game is included in Nintendo’s announcement for this week’s eShop releases, as below:

Start your engines and prepare for the race of your life! Choose from seven of your favorite Sonic characters including Sonic, Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman (AKA Dr. Robotnik) and race your way to the finish line. Use each racer’s special ability to gain an edge over the competition and win the fabled Chaos Emeralds! Race across 17 courses in the ultimate Chaos Grand Prix! Challenge a friend via local two-player multiplayer! Choose between seven classic Sonic
characters including Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, and the nefarious Dr. Eggman!

Sonic Drift 2 will be available to download from the Nintendo 3DS eShop in Europe this Thursday, priced at £3.59 (€3.99).

Will you be jumping into one of Sonic and co.’s karts and drifting round the track later this week? Or are you thoroughly perplexed by the idea of Sonic driving a car when he can run at the speed of sound? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Source: CVG