Welcome to the Archive site of The Sonic Stadium (2008-2023)
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Founder of The Sonic Stadium and creator/co-organiser of the Summer of Sonic convention. Loves talking about Sonic the Hedgehog in his spare time. Likes Sonic Colours a little too much for his own good, apparently.
Yeah, so this one’s been sitting in the archives for a while. Originally recorded on 30th June 2006, Mark Kidley from RadioSEGA and myself sat down with the one and only Richard Jacques for a chat about his career, experience working on Sonic soundtracks and with Sonic Team and much more besides. This was to be used for the original Summer of Sonic event in 2006, but time flies when you’re all of a sudden organising a real life convention.
Even though this interview is two years old, it’s well worth a listen for any RJ fan, particularly as we were out of time during Summer of Sonic 2008 to ask him any pressing questions. Juicy tidbits such as Sonic R’s original work-in-progress name being Sonic TT, his role behind Video Games Live and what game fans pester him the most about. You can download it from the TSS Media Portal – link below.
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Ex-SEGA America President Peter Moore has revealed to Esquire Magazine that he has crossed the nasty path with Sonic programmer Yuji Naka, telling him “F*** you” during a Tokyo boardroom meeting. The tirade came as Moore was presenting the results to SEGA Japan of a consumer focus group, asking gamers what they thought of the SEGA brand.
At this point in time, the Dreamcast was sorely getting its arse handed to it by the Sony upstart, PlayStation 2, and the EA Sports head recollects asking people “If these brands were people, who would they be?” SEGA, unfortunately, was the “granddad with dementia who used to be cool but you couldn’t remember why”. Something familiar with that reaction there regarding today’s gaming climate, but that might just be me. Says Gamesradar:
Moore had tapes of the focus group dubbed in Japanese and headed to Tokyo to report the doddering image of Sega to the company’s board. However, when he arrived, Yuji Naka – who Moore describes as being “a tad conceited” – accused Moore of tampering with the dialogue. “I lost it,” remembers Moore. “I turned to the interpreter and said, ‘Tell him, “F*** you”.”
Although the translator refused to convey Moore’s feelings, he was pretty sure that his message got across. “Naka had lived in the US for three years, so I knew he understood. I walked out and never returned.” What a badass.
I guess Naka’s uncomfortable nature outside of programming awesome code rings even more true, what with his part in the whole Sonic X-Treme tragedy now urban legend. Power can sometimes make a guy arrogant, even Peter in his Xbox 360 days. But we have to agree with Gamesradar… man, what a badass. I’d like to buy him a beer.
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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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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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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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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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I came away from The Summer of Sonic convention learning a lot of things. Most of those things involve organisation skills, and things that I could have done better to make the event a smoother day for everyone involved (and saved me a huge headache). But something I learned that I’d like to talk about is about the Sonic fan, and the atmosphere of SOS which greatly surprised and humbled me. Even after eight years or so being at the forefront of it all, the Sonic community can still surprise me.
We have had problems in the past with in-fighting and segregation in the online community. Hell, it only just recently happened when everyone jumped down our throats for being humourous over an announcement of Sonic and the Black Knight. There’s always this notion of what a Sonic fan should like, shouldn’t like; how they should act and damn you all to hell if you don’t agree.
We’ve seen some bitching in the SSMB Forums – “screw you” if you thought Sonic 06 was a good game, “you’re retarded” if you think Classic Sonic is the only way to go. Everyone’s so damn serious on the Internet. What the hell’s going on, it’s like a warzone out here. I’ve considered quitting the Sonic community on various occasions because I feel that one should feel comfortable liking what they like, or disliking what they don’t. Continue reading The Spin: Is Summer of Sonic the Answer to the Community Crisis?
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During the Summer of Sonic’s live performance featuring Richard Jacques and TJ Davis, Lee Brotherton pulled a rabbit out of the hat and surprised everyone with a brand new version of HIS WORLD. Nice, slow and chilled out, LB’s awesome re-interpretation of the Zebrahead classic features brand new lyrics, and is the official theme song to the Summer of Sonic convention. How cool is that!?
Because myself and Rory did our dare and sung the DK Rap on stage, we get to share a high quality MP3 with you of the theme song. Download it off of our media server now, and bask.
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We’re back from the Summer of Sonic convention, held just yesterday in London. We will be posting roundup articles, photos and everything else we can imagine from the event over the next few days, but those who saw our live broadcast feed would have probably heard (as most of the time you likely saw a buttock instead of the action) it was a fantastic success! The first ever Sonic the Hedgehog convention was a triumph.
I’m glad to have met some awesome people, but am sorry if I did not hang around long enough to have a proper chat – I was running around like a blue-arsed baboon trying to make sure schedules and equipment were working properly.
The special guests enjoyed themselves very much – Richard Jacques was a star as always, TJ Davis was very happy to engage with her fans, Lee Brotherton was utterly shocked to have seen a circle of fangirls singing Dreams of an Absolution in front of the stage when the DJ played it (you should have seen his face), and Nigel Kitching is just about the friendliest, down to earth bloke you could meet.
An actual report of the day’s events will be online soon enough, and a second alternative report will be written by none other than the hatted meister himself, Adam Tuff. Yep, T-Bird’s officially back in action and will be writing some shizzle to wet your nizzle on TSS very soon.
In the meantime, chat amongst yourselves about how great the day was on the SSMB – plug your Youtube account to your hearts content or something,
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Did you hear about the spectacularly awesome Summer of Sonic a little too late, or really wanted to come but couldn’t because you live too far away? Couldn’t bear the thought of missing Richard Jacques talk about his life story? Well guess what? You’re in luck.
The Summer of Sonic team have been testing a method of providing a live video feed to everyone who otherwise can’t attend the convention in person. That test being successful, you can expect a bird’s eye view of the show floor as stuff happens during the day. If we get a few willing volunteers, we may have someone walk around with said camera within the hall to give you a closer look in on the action. The best part is, you won’t miss the main stage shows such as the mega-Q&A I will apparently be hosting, and the live Sonic Hour show. Due to quality issues though, it’s unlikely we will be able to provide a live video of Richard’s awesome performance – you have to see it yourself to believe that.
Interested now? Yeah I bet you are. Gimme that funky chunky donkey.
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In news that will make you wish you either lived in the UK, were able to get to the UK, or in any case signed the Convention’s attendance form in time, Richard Jacques and TJ Davis have just been confirmed as special guests to the Summer of Sonic event in London. Richard in particular has been kind enough to dedicate some of his time to help organise and set up things, as well as agreeing to a very special performance that will take place on the main stage. What a guy.
The performance in question will be on the piano, with vocal songs being performed by TJ Davis and Lee Brotherton. In particular, you can expect Sonic R renditions from TJ, an exclusive live performance of Dreams of an Absolution from Lee, and a duet of some kind involving both TJ and LB. We’ll leave exactly what that is, along with other unconfirmed tracks, as a surprise until the day. Gets you wetter.
Richard and TJ will also be milling around the convention hall throughout the day, and are more than up for people chatting to them about Sonic and things so go nuts. Richard’s a bit of a confessed Sonic fanboy anyway from what we hear. The two will also join Lee Brotherton and Nigel Kitching on stage after the performance for a Q&A session that will likely rock your world. Four of them, one of me? I call that Pimm’s o’clock.
The Summer of Sonic takes place in 12 days time. Awesome hall? Check. Playtest Sonic games before their release? Check. Win stuff? Check. Community? Check. The greatest lineup ever? Check that shit. August 9th’s going to be hot.
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Hey, hands up who’s kinda sick of the way the 3D Sonic games are going? Oh, a lot of you? Yeah, me too. Well, Sonic Unleashed is looking like an interesting direction, and a somewhat return to form in terms of at least not-broken gameplay. We’re looking forward to blasting around dragons, yesiree.
But Sonic Unleashed isn’t out yet. Won’t be out for a bit. So until then, cast your eyes on the video above, which is a fangame engine that first cropped up on Sonic Fan Games HQ some months ago. Creators ‘Mark the Echidna’ and ‘Damizean’ have built a crude, if not absolutely awesome Sonic the Hedgehog 3D game engine (nicknamed ‘Sonic 360’).
It ticks all the right boxes for everything we feel should be present and correct in a Sonic game – open, expansive areas, multiple routes, momentum and physics based gameplay, slow platforming elements to complement the ability to run like a maniac, spin dash, pudgy Sonic (we’ve never seen a cuter, more awesome looking Sonic model), loops, no homing attack, etc. You see? ‘No bottomless pits’ can be done, and this is proof that you can inject some forward thinking in a classic-looking 3D Sonic game – watch that little bugger run up those walls! Awesome.
Best thing? You can actually download this engine. Trufax. You can grab it here, found via the Youtube page.
SEGA, Sonic Team? Take notes. Hire these guys. Whatever. Just get it done. K?
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We’ve played an early version of Samba de Amigo for the Nintendo Wii. Found it kinda inaccurate in places – but hopefully something that will resolved in the final version, when using two Wii Remotes instead of a Nunchuk. But that new Wii Motion Plus gadget coming out next Spring? Ooh, wouldn’t that have made Samba de Amigo play exactly like the Dreamcast original with no accelerometer guesswork?
Wired.com’s Chris Kohler thought exactly the same thing, and mentioned to Nintendo’s Cammie Dunaway how Sega could have benefited from the new technology – had they heard about it, obviously. Her response?
Wired.com: If I was a developer, and I had a game that was in development that could potentially make use of this, I’d want to delay it until after this device came out. Just as an example, Sega is doing Samba de Amigo, which is a maraca-based music game. With two Wii MotionPlus controllers, you could play the game identically to the original arcade version.
Dunaway: And Star Wars Clone Wars. Hopefully there will be rapid second versions.
Not entirely sure SEGA are all that keen on re-releasing a re-release with technology the console should have arguably had in the first place. Especially since the Wii version of Samba de Amigo comes with Pay-to-Play features to download additional tracks. Could you see a second edition of Samba come Spring ’09? We personally couldn’t, but then nothing’s impossible – look at the Guitar Hero series. Or hell, even Samba de Amigo ver. 2000.
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The first ever Sonic the Hedgehog convention has had to close registrations for attendees – because the event has proved too popular.
Citing problems with fitting the current number of named attendees into the 200-strong Dragon Hall in London’s Covent Garden, the organisers behind the event has has to warn that entrance may involve a waiting period, or those entering may have their time limited if they intend to stay all day. The aim is to let everyone have a fair chance of experiencing the event and seeing evertything the show has lined up, it was announced.
Summer of Sonic 2008 has risen in popularity since its announcement in June 2008, gaining attendance interest of almost double the capacity of the venue’s hall space and earning coverage across respected gaming websites such as Eurogamer, Computer and Video Games and Destructoid. Special Guests announced so far include Sonic the Comic writer Nigel Kitching and Dreams of an Absolution star Lee Brotherton, with more guests expected to be announced.
Attendees will be able to meet, greet, experience live performances and play games with one another, including contests and the first ever play at Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Entrance is free, with the costs of staging the event funded by members of the Sonic community and support from SEGA Europe. The convention will be recorded and the Summer of Sonic website updated, for those unable to attend to experience the event as well.
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If you need a reason as to why Lee Brotherton/Bentley Jones coming to the Summer of Sonic convention is a big deal, you need look no further than Silver’s theme in Sonic 06. Compared to a token performance by ‘hip’ and ‘with it’ Zebrahead and a cover of a past theme, it’s easily the best on the soundtrack.
For those who live, breathe and sleep for Bentley Jones though, you can grab a Guitar Hero III mod for the PC that has a note chart for Dreams of an Absolution: LB vs JS Remix. We’d post where you can download this mod yourself, but we can’t find a source and the actual note chart is horrible. So we’ll post this video instead.
You can always hassle the video author on his Youtube page. We’d mention how the guy’s performance isn’t too good but then we’re pretty crap at GH ourselves. Hell, those Wii-groomed grannies can rock out with plastic better than we can. But that’s probably not a topic for discussion on here.
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Last year, The Sonic Stadium attended the Tokyo Game Show in Japan. We reported on all sorts of lovely junk for various video game outlets, not least Nintendo Official Magazine with a preview of No More Heroes. Amidst the madness was SEGA’s booth, which had a healthy dose of Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan!, Valkyria Chronicles and NiGHTS Journey of Dreams. Of course, to help sell the company’s latest wares was none other than Sonic the Hedgehog himself.
Now you can watch as he entertains us with his strong man poses, cute nose-rubbing and photo-taking. We especially like the SEGA rep taking him away shortly after chasing a photo-buddy for not shaking his hand. Genius.
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This edition of The Spin series of columns doesn’t really want to go in depth about anything right at this moment. It simply wishes to represent The Sonic Stadium and extend an apology.
Our coverage of Sonic and the Black Knight has been somewhat controversial. We do not apologise for our “NO” outburst. This is an opinion. In the vast reaches of the Internet, one is allowed to express an opinion, even based on one scan. Can we say the game will suck in terms of gameplay? No, of course not. Can we say it’s a terrible idea? Yes, we can.
The SSMB Forums have been another forum of hot controversy regarding the new game announcement. A few months ago, you couldn’t say anything positive about a Sonic game unless you wanted to get flamed. This situation is very different, and we are thankful for it. However, now there is a situation whereby nobody can say anything negative about a Sonic game unless you want to get flamed. This is unacceptable, and a reason behind why I have been vocal and cracking down on certain people on the forums as of late. All I want is a balance and respect of opinion. If you don’t allow positive opinion, you look like a “Classic Fanboy” website. If you don’t allow negative opinion, you look like an official SEGA Europe forum.
I want to extend apologies to ArchAngelUK. We had a good and healthy debate about the Sonic and the Black Knight news, but it appears he seems to think it was an argument. I have never treated any discussion with AAUK with anger, and the debate the other night was no exception. I’m not exactly sure what drove him to believe TSS and myself were against him for simply voicing an opinion about an announcement, but perhaps it’s a sure sign of the dangers when a website can get too close to the official source. Continue reading The Spin: An Apology
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In light of a few random messages we’ve been getting over the last week, we thought we’d better clear up some of the confusion people are having. The Sonic Stadium used to be host to a news service called ‘Sonic News’. This service involved providing readers with the latest happenings in the Sonic universe by being unbiased, serious and generally governed with a rod up its bum. ‘Sonic News’ became the new word for ‘The Sonic Stadium’, as it was the main thing getting updated every now and then, so something was done to combat this (as it was, after all, getting annoying. There is a website accompanying the news service, you know).
We brought back the News area into The Sonic Stadium. So, as we stated in our very first introductory post since we relaunched last month, Sonic News does not exist anymore. It’s not here. You can’t find it. Not even playing Hide and Seek. It’s gone for good. All news will be relayed via The Sonic Stadium, and will provide the facts you need to know coupled with some entertaining writing and perhaps even some thoughtful/homourous opinion.
“Oh dear Svend, but a News site doesn’t apply opinion into their stories”. Quite right Sir/Madam, which is where you made your first mistake. The Sonic Stadium isn’t a news source. It’s a Sonic fansite. We write about Sonic because we are passionate about the series, we collect the games and merchandise, we watch the shows (even the piss poor ones like Underground). And further, we want to be a fansite that connects with you, another fan. If you don’t agree with our opinions, fine. But don’t get confused as to why we’re trying to be funny, or trying to pour some personality into a post to begin with.
We have different awesome writers with different opinions, making for a fruity bowl of Sonic fun. We could heavily edit some of our work to be a bit more ‘unbiased’ – I almost heavily edited the “Sonic and the Black Knight” article from last night. But you know what? What’s the point if fans can’t go a bit crazy sometimes and just tell it like it is? And if you don’t like it, why do you care?
This is, for all intents and purposes, a blog. Not a news site. If you wanted really serious, boringly-told stories with your seizure-inducing gaming session of Sonic Heroes, you shouldn’t be going to a fansite. You should be going to CNN. And you shouldn’t be playing Sonic Heroes.
We hear a lot of people were in fact confused about why the ‘News stories on Sonic News had gone downhill’, and I thought it best to explain why. This is not Sonic News, we have not gone downhill, we are writing to entertain and to inspire your mind. Or something. And if you didn’t read this, at least we’re covered just in case you’re Quexinos and want to complain that facts you provided to Sonic News in 2007 were sourced incorrectly (that’s why the post doesn’t exist anymore, Richard). Got it? Cool. Let’s rock.
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.
A ‘true Sonic fan’, reading The Sonic Stadium yesterday. Like, chill out man. Walk outside for a bit.
Looks like a few people want Sonic to go all ‘Legend of Zelda’ on us after all. Since our (note) not-news-story broke of the new Wii game, we have had a few comments of complaint. It’s nice when people don’t bother to use the ‘Contact’ form to inform us of new Sonic happenings, but it’s used up the wazoo when a BLOG states its opinion on a new title. Guess all people can do is complain.
But we thought we’d address each comment directly, and provide a broad generalisation as to just why we reacted the way we did. So here goes.
dude seriously i dont think you are a sonic fan i mean seriously mario had to travel through space to find a freaking princess its the same story line over and over again, so what if sonic makes a game about sub characters it just adds to the story line, at least sega is trying unlike nintendo, or YOU, they have great ideas, u can take this feed back anyway u want, seriously just let sonic be the way he is, and stop bitching about something new about him,
yous sincerely a true sonic fan
We’re not Sonic fans at all, no. Oh sorry, for a second there I thought we were on the Mario Stadium and not the Sonic Stadium. OK, so Super Mario has to repeat the same basic storyline ad nauseum. But think about it. Do you play a Sonic game for its gripping storyline? If you do, you’re probably better off grabbing an RPG and playing that – recent attempts to add a ‘serious’ tone to the Sonic games have been poor, and it shows it’s just not possible in the realm of Sonic. When you consider we’ve had seven years of poor console Sonic titles you’d think Sonic Team would drop the whole ‘plot’ thing by now.
Funnily enough, if we wanted to bitch about Sonic, we would really be having a go at Sonic Unleashed right now. But we’re not, because 50% of that game is looking absolutely fantastic. There’s this weird perception at the moment that, because a game concept is totally rubbish (Sonic with a sword? Really?) and we say it is, that means we’re automatically ‘bitching’.
You like the idea of Sonic and the Black Knight. Good for you. Seriously. Have a brownie. But don’t tell us where to get off because a lot of other people are facepalming themselves right now. Consider: Sonic Rush Adventure, the Sonic side of Sonic Unleashed. Now consider: Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 2006. The latter two games sucked – you might love Shadow or Sonic 2006, but no opinion will get around the fact that they are poor, misprogrammed, rubbish-concept games.
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Probably because they’d pronounce it “Un-reashed” and that would just be silly, SEGA Japan has taken it upon itself to rename Sonic’s latest outing for Asian territories.
There were massive rumours that the game had suffered a name change – heavily debunked by SEGA Europe, with the explanation that World Adventure was merely a work-in-progress title. Turns out nobody keeps each other informed in the land of SEGA, and now we have semi-confirmation (semi because it is Japan only after all) in the form of a new official website.
There’s really not a lot else going on with the website, so don’t expect waves of information. But if you’d like an updated Sonic Un… World Adventure experience check it out. The website does look very nice though.
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.
Quexinos/Sonique, former administrator of the Fans United for SatAM website, has buried the hatchet with almost-Sonic-film-producer Richard Kuta over claims that a Sonic the Hedgehog movie pitch he made 18 months ago never happened.
Way back in January 2007, Richard Kuta had pitched his fan film project to studios such as Universal in order to produce a brand new Sonic the Hedgehog film. The Sonic Stadium originally reported it here while progress was still young – Richard had then boasted that SEGA had actually “green-lighted” such a project – claims that ended up being false.
While SEGA had not in fact given the go ahead, Richard’s intentions and ambitions were quite real, and were evidenced as such with discussions involving PR spokespeople from various studios. Quexinos made claims that Kuta was not in fact a filmmaker and called into question the validity of the project to The Sonic Stadium some days after the original news story, which you can read here.
Since that time, Kuta and Quexinos have been at loggerheads as the former insisted his project was real and the latter constantly debunked the claims. Quexinos wrote a post in the FUS forums today, reneging on the claims she made in 2007:
Rich did a lot of stupid and dumb things okay? But one thing he did right, was he somehow got Universal and DiC to back him up. Now I know what you’re thinking, “But he’s bullshitting…” well I found out he wasn’t. I talked to someone at Universal who at least remembered who he was (yeah I went there >.>) It was like I was talking to Rich and he said “Go ahead and call them” and so I did. So there I said it.
Richard’s movie pitch eventually fell flat in Decembet 2006, before all this mess began, when SEGA told him they were making a Sonic film internally. Since that time, Richard has been constantly contacting websites in an attempt to convince people such a project is still in production.
Unfortunately, we can say with certainty that, although The Sonic Stadium supported Richard in his original pitch, he is incorrect in believing a communication from early 2007 is proof SEGA is making a Sonic film. Had this been the case, we would have all heard about it by now. You can chalk up the ‘internal movie’ response as a polite form of rejecting Richard’s original pitch and nothing more.
Still, at least a year-long drama between a website and a budding film maker has come to an end at last, hasn’t it? Now, let’s never hear of any of this again. Ever evereverever again.
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.
Everyone and his dog wants to go to the Summer of Sonic convention. That much is obvious. So what exactly will be there for people to salivate over? Sure, Sonic nerds like me and you can hang and play Sonic Rivals for six hours, but will there be any EXCLUSIVES, yo!?
Well guess what. If you can even manage to get inside the hall on the day (I’m not even joking, it’s going to be packed in there) then your prize will be playing Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood first. Before anyone else in the world (it’s being released in September, you see). How does that strike you? You probably won’t be able to hear the lovely Richard Jacques soundtrack with all the background noise most likely, but we should have a remedy for that…… headphones, for example.
It’s probably a good idea to keep an eye on the Summer of Sonic website on a regular basis from now on – there are two (three?) more special guests that have yet to be revealed, all of which will make the Sonic fan cream thyself. The second special guest to complement Lee Brotherton will be announced tomorrow. If you fancy playing a little guessing game, head over to the SSMB where a clue has been dropped of the guest’s identity.
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.
Gamespot’s at E3. We aren’t. SAD FACE. But luckily Gamespot’s able to pick up the slack that we can’t otherwise manage, and have grabbed a SEGA Brand Manager guy to help showcase some real in-game demos of Sonic Unleashed. What’s interesting to note here is that the 3D segments, contrary to popular belief, are not on rails, and many are fully 3D analog-stick playable. We saw some areas in the China stage that looked more like a SatSR-style “shift left, shift right” style of 3D play, but generally we’re looking at some good old 3D movement here.
The guy demoing the game’s not too hot, and there was one section where Sonic glitched and failed an automatic spring-to-grind section, but the rest looks solid. We’re told that there will be equal nighttime versions of every stage, and Sonic segments will be much longer than the Werewolf ones to compensate for the speed at which you blitz through them. The nighttime alter ego is officially labelled as ‘Sonic the Werehog’, and the fighting aspect does look pretty cool.
Truth be told, this demo lays some concerns to rest, particularly with the Werehog. Sure, we could have done without any brawling segments at all and just had Sonic run from left to right and up a Z-axis, but the nighttime sections do look like they’re going to hold some enjoyable, classic platforming action. There are two attack buttons and a grab move in addition to your jump (which also has a double jump for additional height), and while Werehog isn’t as agile as traditional Sonic, he can use his massive arms to grab ledges and pull himself up. We still don’t like carrying pots around but grabbing enemies doesn’t seem compulsory at least. In fact, the whole thing reminds us that we want a new Streets of Rage game; this mechanic would be perfect for it.
SEGA pretty much confirmed that alternative characters may be playable (using the classic PR “We’re not ready to announce anything yet”) besides Sonic, which sounds like a bowl of fail. Let this be a game about Sonic for once and not his over-publicised friends. Sonic Unleashed will also have an online component, although quite what this is has yet to be revealed. Check the video if you have half an hour, it’s a good watch.
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.
Sonic Unleashed is kicking all sorts of arse, and it’s just round the corner. Has you thinking a few things. Things like, “OK, this is like the third game in a row that Jun Senoue (a person that for some reason TSS strikes a similarity with Ken Watanabe) hasn’t had an involvement in the soundtrack. What gives? Is he gallivanting with roadies on stage or something?”
That’s a good question, but fear not! Rather than sitting in a palace garden reminiscing about Cherry Blossoms (maybe), we have it on good authority that Jun may be busy preparing for the next Sonic the Hedgehog title, and our sources tell us that Lee Brotherton (Sonic Rivals, Silver’s theme in Sonic 06) and Richard Jacques (Sonic Chronicles, Sonic R) is to meet with the Japanese rocker soon to discuss possibilities (maybe ‘Endless Possibilities’?.. Oh God, that joke really will get old very quickly).
According to our super-secret-squirrel, this new Sonic project is very likely canon and not a spin-off – Jun’s involvement only reinforces that. But still, such a project is eons away; given the usual time frame for Sonic games, we’ll probably see this one in late 2009 or 2010 unless it’s continuing to use the Hedgehog Engine. It’s just nice to know these things though isn’t it?
So for now enjoy Sonic Unleashed, safe in the knowledge that Junny Baby is not out, and that as clockwork SEGA are planning the next game in the franchise. Can you imagine a possible soundtrack involving Senoue, LB and Jacques though? Epic. If there’s a God, He better well make it happen.
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.
When SEGA revealed the new, werewolfy Sonic Unleashed trailer earlier today, they probably didn’t expect so many people would take a vested interest in it. So much so that many fans are having trouble downloading it from their US FTP server. If you’re clamouring to get your hands on a copy of the trailer for yourself, we braced ourselves for the stormy bandwidth weather and… downloaded the trailer from the European Press network instead, saving us all the bother.
We’ve taken the ~300MB trailer and cut it down to size, but kept it in a good enough quality for you guys to still get wet over it. Right click, save to your computer and Print Screen all those frames of Super Sonic at your leisure!
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.
Update: Just in case you’ve been redirected here from another website or something, we thought we’d be nice and let you know that since this post the full version been posted online for download – click here to read more.
Who’s a fan of Bowling For Soup then? Must be pretty psyched that the main guy, Jaret Reddick, has had a hand in creating the new theme song to a Sonic the Hedgehog game, right? Or is it like that time when Zebrahead and Akon did Sonic 06 – big names, nobody cared?
Don’t let a lack of awareness from your peers discourage you though – if you reckon Jun ‘parfact’ Senoue deserves a longer break in his tropical paradise surrounded by exquisite Lolita women and think ‘Endless Possibility’ is a worthy track to bounce to while racing through Sonic Unleashed, then you probably want the song to take home with you. Well, you’re in luck.
SSMB members Sheza (followed by some fine-tuning by Goku…. lots of numbers) have ripped the title track and we have it on here for you to download. Slap it on your music player, support good ol’ Jaret by listening to his stuff and go rock with your cock out. Or something. Just don’t do it in front of the children.
Endless Possibility (TSS Media Portal) – 2.2MB
Right click and select ‘Save As…’
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.
OK, we dropped the ball a little bit. We didn’t pick up on the new screenshots released by the SEGA Press guys the other day (we may add them to this article later on though), but these are new-new screens, literally fresh from today’s E3 Experience. What you get here is a few shots of a volcano-esque fiery area where you most likely run into Knuckles and Shadow in. There are some screens of Chao being used in battle, and a few character’s special POW moves too.
Finally, you also get to see the GUN Commander in full cartoony form. Hopefully he won’t break down and cry when he sees Shadow or something. Dude’s a soldier man. Ain’t no time to get sappy now.
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.
SEGA like the Wii a lot for Dreamcast ports it seems. Oh, that was obvious? Sorry. How about something extra then to sweeten the deal a bit? In the upcoming Samba de Amigo port release for Nintendo’s white box, there will be a special guest cameo by Sonic himself. And a stage set in the Green Hill Zone. That’s pretty sweet news and should make for a pretty cool bonus for fans out there. Looks like Sonic’s already getting funked with a show of jazz hands in that screenshot there. Will be fun to see how he moves with the ‘riddim’.
On another note, why is it that everyone else at SEGA seems to know how to design a Sonic themed stage/cameo but it still evades Sonic-bloody-Team? Give us fantasy lands and blue skies dammit! Click the images above to get them in high quality, complete with the Incredible Floating Mii Man.
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.
Take a gander at all these new screenshots of Sonic Unleashed. High quality and everything. Some are from stages you’ve seen before, some are from the new China level, and some are HQ snaps of the Werewolf action. If nothing else it’s looking both interesting and tasty. Not an awful lot to report on these snaps otherwise besides the massive reach Were-Sonic appears to have to beat down foes, and some rather nice enemy design during the Sonic segments. Like the rather cool looking robot in the image below, which looks like something out of Knuckles’ Chaotix. If they’re called Badniks as well, that would be win. SEGA, make it happen.
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.
We’ve played an early version of Samba de Amigo for the Nintendo Wii. 
This edition of The Spin series of columns doesn’t really want to go in depth about anything right at this moment. It simply wishes to represent The Sonic Stadium and extend an apology.
Probably because they’d pronounce it “Un-reashed” and that would just be silly, SEGA Japan has taken it upon itself to rename Sonic’s latest outing for Asian territories.
Quexinos/Sonique, former administrator of the Fans United for SatAM website, has buried the hatchet with almost-Sonic-film-producer Richard Kuta over claims that a Sonic the Hedgehog movie pitch he made 18 months ago never happened.
Everyone and his dog wants to go to the Summer of Sonic convention. That much is obvious. So what exactly will be there for people to salivate over? Sure, Sonic nerds like me and you can hang and play Sonic Rivals for six hours, but will there be any EXCLUSIVES, yo!?
Sonic Unleashed is kicking all sorts of arse, and it’s just round the corner. Has you thinking a few things. Things like, “OK, this is like the third game in a row that Jun Senoue (a person that for some reason TSS strikes a similarity with Ken Watanabe) hasn’t had an involvement in the soundtrack. What gives? Is he gallivanting with roadies on stage or something?”
Update: Just in case you’ve been redirected here from another website or something, we thought we’d be nice and let you know that since this post the full version been posted online for download – 
OK, we dropped the ball a little bit. We didn’t pick up on the new screenshots released by the SEGA Press guys the other day (we may add them to this article later on though), but these are new-new screens, literally fresh from today’s E3 Experience. What you get here is a few shots of a volcano-esque fiery area where you most likely run into Knuckles and Shadow in. There are some screens of Chao being used in battle, and a few character’s special POW moves too.
