NOTE: Mass credit goes to the TSS Australia Team for visiting on behalf of the website.
The Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI), situated in Melbourne, has been the homeplace for analysing entertainment forms such as movies and TV. Most recently the addition of the “Games Lab” has opened up the opportunity to detail how far video games have come over the years. For their second exhibit within the “Games Lab”, the ACMI decided to choose Sonic the Hedgehog as a gaming icon of our times.

The Games Lab exhibit was only two rooms, but a lot was crammed in there.
You might wonder exactly why the choice of Sonic the Hedgehog would be ideal, considering there are other inspiring game series, especially the blue blur’s once-rival, Super Mario. The simple fact of the matter though, is that even Mario fans can understand that the portly plumber was never as much of a sensation as Sonic was during the early 1990’s. More recognisable with the 90’s youth than even Mickey Mouse, the excellent debut Mega Drive title not only started a legendary 50-game strong legacy, it kick-started a franchising revolution only to be matched by Pokemon. While it can be argued which out of Mario or Sonic is a bigger video game star, it is safe to admit that the fanbase and pure following for SEGA’s star is on a much larger scale than the Bowser Battler.

ACMI were kind enough to let us know what a ‘newbie’ was. What, no definition of ‘1337’?
So you can understand why – when ACMI got the go-ahead from SEGA Europe and THQ to host a celebration of Sonic the Hedgehog – there were not only lovable kids of this generation weaned on the ‘Sonic Adventure’ style attending the event, but many older “big kids” who fondly remembered the original Mega Drive smash. And of course, when TSS was invited to the opening evening, we all jumped at the chance.

The idea of the exhibit was two-fold; to celebrate Sonic’s 14th Birthday in style by showcasing his brief history, and to focus on the impact the game series has had on games players and fans alike. It doesn’t take a genius to acknowledge that the arrival of Sonic inspired so many gamers, and even developers – as SEGA USA Simon Jeffrey puts it in a recent Nintendo Power interview, there were many woodland game characters created just to shadow the success of Sonic (Bubsy the Bobcat, Aero the Acrobat, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon…). It was the hearts of gamers that ACMI touched upon most at its exhibit, detailing the large fan culture and following the blue blur has.

“Any chance we could… uhm… ‘inspect’ that signed GBA more closely?”
The first thing on show is a collection of various displays – these housed many past SEGA consoles and Sonic game boxes associated with them. There were many Sonic Adventure and Sonic X figurines being kept in these display cases too and an extra surprise; sitting next to the Dreamcast console was a Game Boy Advance SP with a certain someone’s signature. Check the images above to see who, although it’s pretty darn obvious. The figures weren’t within their boxes as you can see, and were provided by THQ staff, while assumedly the consoles and games were donated by SEGA Europe.

People couldn’t pull themselves from the games. That’s what it’s all about.
The Games section of the event attracted a lot of people, if only because it was the place where visitors could play some classic Sonic games. Many people tried their hand at Sonic titles old and new, and everyone was having a good time. To the hardcore, the list of playable titles would seem rather tame, but considering this event isn’t really intended to offer every single Sonic game (that would be damn silly), the offering is perfect enough for a wide selection to define Sonic’s timeline of titles. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2 and Sonic Spinball were playable on Mega Drive systems, while Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic 3D, Sonic R, Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Heroes were available to play on PCs. Some games were linked to a projector on the back wall, which allowed visitors to show their fearful skills to others. Sonic Heroes, despite lacking in the playability department somewhat, is still lovely to look at. No word on the new Sonic triple threat heading our way this Winter (Sonic Rush, Sonic Gems Collection and Shadow the Hedgehog), but SEGA people and journalists attended the opening evening who tell us that both Rush and Shadow are shaping up to be “excellent”.

Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Rush are reportedly “well good”. Comforting.
Alongside the wall there was a few panels of information regarding Sonic. It featured the concept of Sonic, the character elements that made a good creation and how the blue blur was invented with these in mind, and a brief timeline of Sonic’s biggest releases since 1991. As the wall was way too big to take a clear photo of it, we managed to video capture the wall for you if you fancy seeing it close up. Visitors were also handed a booklet that analyses Sonic’s success and details the games on show. Not only has the event attracted attention with local newspapers (check our scan on the event from the ‘Herald Sun’), but apparently gaming magazine K-Zone has or will mention TSS here or there too, assumedly during ACMI coverage.

Hm, I recognise that website…
Speaking of your very own TSS, this website was one of the websites profiled at the ACMI event, as part of a huge highlight on the fan culture of Sonic the Hedgehog. Both The Sonic Stadium and The Green Hill Zone were spotlighted on PCs, where visitors could see video capture of either website along with a voiceover explaining the nature of each. A good choice, since while TSS and GHZ are both excellent resources, the style of the two (and perhaps even the readership in some cases) can be quite different. You can view a video of TSS’ profiling via the links below. Although near the end (inbetween the Topsite listing and SEGASonic Radio) other sites and artwork are featured that don’t belong to TSS, such as the excellent (and rightly deserved showcasing of) fan flash movie ‘Sonic Stereo’. Fan artwork was also prominent at the event as the images detail, and each section was detailed superbly and without bias. The explanatory texts about fansites and fan creation don’t favour officiality and acknowledges that fan creation is an important part of Sonic’s success, which makes for pretty much the best part of the exhibit. Although if TSS got paid for covering Sonic and SEGA, it’d make our lives (and coverages) much more easier.

All the figures were arranged close together, but decided to leave Big on his Jonah.
Unfortunately when our team arrived at the ACMI exhibit, the Sonic X Screen Pit and Eyetoy stands were not open at the launch evening. If you have any reactions or information on these parts of the event, you’re free to post your thoughts at the SSMB Forums. Check the list below for scans and other media that we have obtained, including movie capture and brochure images. The show is open for another couple of months yet – it appears the ACMI love Sonic just as much as we do – so check out the “Attend the ACMI Event” section below to find the location of the exhibit, and links to the show. While it appeared that there was more emphasis on show and tell rather than information on the game series, the ACMI exhibit succeeded in its aim – to make games more widely accepted in culture. And the fan culture information at the exhibit in itself was very well done. Sonic doesn’t show any signs of stopping, and this event surely was an interesting and entertaining celebration of the character’s birthday.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Icon of our Times Brochure – Scanned by Chibi_Sonic

• Front Cover |  P1 |  P2 |  P3 |  P4 |  P5 |  P6 |  Back Cover

ACMI What’s On Event Guide – Scanned by Chibi_Sonic

• Cover |  P1 |  P2

Herald Sun Article – Scanned by Pyre Blade

• Scan of Herald Sun Article – Tuesday 21st June 2005

ACMI Video Capture – Recorded by Julian Luvara

• NB: Apologies for the crappy watermarks – we’re re-encoding them decently…
• Sonic Teaser Trailer
• Capture of Sonic Timeline Wall
• TSS Profile Video

Additional ACMI Exhibit Coverage – Written by Tim Chmielewski

• Additional Coverage of the Sonic Exhibit at the ACMI

CREDITS:

Article written by Svend Joscelyne. Thanks to our TSS AU team for attending the event, speaking to the ACMI/SEGA people and obtaining media and information for the coverage – Julian Luvara, Matt Newman and Eleanor (Chibi_Sonic). Additional media and information thanks to Tim Chmielewski and “Pyre Blade”.

The Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE for short) is a large fangaming event that showcases the latest efforts of homebrew game creation for the blue blur. Up until now, it’s had not a lot of awareness, but thanks to sites like TSS and Sonic HQ (of which SAGE was affiliated to) people stormed the event in their thousands, reportedly. It was a completely online event, but that’s not going to stop The Sonic Stadium, giving it’s unique account of SAGE 10… from the eyes of a journalist attending SAGE if it ever was physical.

SAGE. Usually it’s a nice gentle event to report for, but this year I couldn’t move for bugger crap. The guys behind SAGE did a really good job with the spot they chose – Hidden Palace Zone, but you wouldn’t have known it. The lighting that was used lit up the place brighter than the glint off of Eggman’s specs. Booths everywhere. Where to go to first? As I made my way around a fat kid with a face painted as Sonic, and a skinny dude holding a “convenient” Yuji Naka signed Sonic game, I thought the booth in front of me would be best. A purple hedgehog introduced me to his KSoft Games booth, and showed off a little of his team’s project, Sonic Chaos Planet. It’s a game of which the engine is designed to emulate Sonic 3. Upon playing a one-stage demo, it emulates it pretty darn well. The story is of Eggman attempting to split the planet in two, while preparing a clone of Sonic to boot. The one-stage demo is very well made, it’s impressive to see developers getting the hang of using loops in game makers these days. The resolution chosen was a little strange, but nothing bad at all. The level structure didn’t show off what the game could do though; it was essentially a “hold right except for a few cases to complete the level” kinda deals, and Eggrobos were lazily placed. There appeared to be an upper route, but unless there was none there was no way of getting up there. The one level demo shows how early it is, but it’s still an impressive affair, and you couldn’t do much better for first impressions.
[ Visit KSoft Games’ Website ]

A little further forward and I noticed a blue hedgehog. I pushed him out of the way and came to a booth for a team called The Blue Hedgehog. They only had a few titles in development, and one was cancelled – it was called “Name That Sonic Tune“, and one of the booth guys was whistling very annoying and out-of-key snippets of Sonic music. Some of the visitors took this as an insult to their family and hit the guy in the face. When we realised the whistling guy wasn’t a member of The Blue Hedgehog, attention turned to Shadow Quest, of which only one screenshot and an engine test was released for it. Admittedly, it’s very basic. For a project that began at the end of May, you can’t expect much else. But a few more months of solid work could glean some potentional out of it. Another project coming soon was a game titled 100 Ways To Kill The Crazy Frog. I really like these guys already. For those who can destroy the mascot of chav is truly a master of all power.
[ Visit The Blue Hedgehog’s Website ]

From one spot to another, I saw a mass of people going crazy around this booth in the distance. Curious (being a journalist), I made my way over to the stand. When asking what the commotion was, it appeared that it was a frenzy over the developer Blue Frenzy. Their project on show was Sonic Frenzy Adventure, and after playing a demo I can say that the furore was justified. With a planned 14 zones, great backgrounds and stages and five characters to choose from, zooming through the 2 stage sneak was highly enjoyable. Sonic has his usual collection of moves, while Tails and Knuckles are playable with their signature abilities too. Two new characters, Darkspeed and Aria don’t appear all that impressive or imaginitive (basically, think of a Shadow and an Amy/Tikal crossover), but it doesn’t make them less enjoyable to play as – especially with Darkspeed’s jumps dash move. Playing as Darkspeed was simple, while Sonic had to deal with a pit that apparently had no escape. But bugbears aside, this is shaping up, and for 14 levels of this we’re in for a treat indeed.
[ Visit The Blue Frenzy’s Website ]

After a brief spell in the public toilets I walked out to find that maybe someone had flooded something. The floor was wet and slippery, wherever I went. Maybe it was because someone left Knuckles’ fridge door open (he has a big fridge, hearty bastard) or something, but I slid all the way into Hotdog Productions booth. Hotdog had a project in the making called (deep breath) Sonic the Hedgehog: Legend of the Blue Blur 2, so I decided to have a look. The game is being programmed without the aid of a game creator like Game Maker or Multimedia Fusion, and the demo that was shown off was a good start. There were some things that needed fixing, not including Sonic’s constant-left animation (which I didn’t pay mind to, since it was early and it was stated as such). The controls were immensely painful, with the Up Arrow as jump instead of a more convenient key like CTRL or even ‘Z’. The inertia was off-the-rails as well, as Sonic got to a fast pace at too quick a speed for me. And sliding all over the level just brought the slippery SAGE floor back into my mind. That and it made it very hard to precisely jump on small platforms without sliding off. But, credit where it’s due – had this been made in TGF or MMF, I’d have less respect for it, but kudos to Hotdog for actually programming all this stuff in, it’s admirable. The jump tricks off of slopes in the level is interesting too, I’d like to see how well this project turns out.
[ Visit Hotdog Production’s Website ]

After seeing Hotdog’s booth, I was quite hungry for some chili dogs. But I wasn’t to get a moment’s rest. On the way to the hot dog stall, a guy looking like Ash Ketchum almost ran me down in a car. Aside from the fact that I was quite mad at this, I chased after him, quite certain you weren’t able to bring vehicles into the SAGE event. The car led me to Bartman 3010‘s booth, who had a game on display called Anime Rally. It started to make sense, although the guy who looked like Ash was really a blind guy named Colin. I don’t even think he was supposed to be here, he started talking about a Sunday drive with Mavis… Anime Rally on the other hand was very impressive, the graphics were unique and although the premise is a little bit corny, the gameplay stands up well. The demo plays similar to Micro Machines only in a 3D Perspective, so the controls are more “angled” than usual. It does make it difficult to drive using a keyboard, but practice on the rather excellently designed tracks will have you playing like a pro in no time. Initially put off by the corny fascade and the fact that Sonic was only there ‘just because’, I found a racer that was quite something. Look out for this when it’s finished.
[ Visit Bartman 3010’s Website ]

Right next to a jeweller’s stand (God knows why that was there…) I found the booth for Gem Island, which hosts a collection of games being made by Nik Jam. Sonic Mode is a platformer that mixes hedgehog action with ‘real’ music – the name is even inspired by Depeche Mode. Saucy. No sign of Sonic getting a guitar out Sonic Underground style though, so that’s a relief. Nik Jam Violator is a game that has appeared many times in SAGE now, and for those haven’t already played it, it’s sort of like a top-down shooter. Only sorta cuter. Mario For the Masses is a Mario fangame with a new demo – and it’s a mixture of an RPG and classic Mario platforming action. Mario wanders around a 2D Zelda-esque world in one half, and to get to other areas you must complete platforming sections. It plays pretty well, and it’s a good show all round for Nik Jam.
[ Visit Gem Island’s Website ]

After a quick mingle with some other journalists attending the event, I spotted a rather derelict booth out the corner of my eye. It appeared to be the booth of Akira Hedgehog, who had several projects lined up, including a title called Sonic Revitalised, but there was nothing in the way of information, media or downloadables for any of it. Mostly due to the fact that the only screens at the booth were broken. I think I saw Akira yelling at technicians in the background before I moved on. Shame, if I hung around longer a fight would have broken out – that’d have been a good story.
[ Visit Akira Hedgehog’s Website ]

Speaking of technical hitches, SAGE veteran Mj2 was showing off a final trailer for his Chaos Control project, that looked very tasty indeed. A demo of an Online mode was playable, but the servers wouldn’t connect. Typical. Didn’t bother many people though, as the booth babes there were grabbing just as much attention as the game itself. Chaos Control, for those living under a fangaming rock, is a mixture of Sonic and Metal Gear Solid style action. And it’s going to knock the socks off of anything. Mj2 teases us so with so many trailers and so little demos, but I’m assured that the wait for the final final final complete game is not for very much longer. The booth also had a SAGE special release of Sniper Missions that was entertaining for the show as well. Keep your eye on CC.
[ Visit Mj2’s Website ]

Alas, my time was up with the Chaos Control booth babes, for if I was to finish covering the event I’d have to move quickly. I waited till I turned the corner out of eyeshot before I got out of the wheelchair and hid it behind a curtain. Opposite me was a booth featuring a contest. A robot called Chaomerl was holding a competition for the best Engine during the SAGE event. I was about to ask Chaomerl a few questions, and probably find out who won the contest. The booth appeared broken, information pages weren’t working, and Chaomerl wasn’t responding to people’s questions as they approached him. One even kicked him in the gonads, but no reaction still. Feeling the pressure of a deadline, I had to move on.

Crossing the hall (but narrowly avoiding seeing the CC Booth Babes again in my undisabled state) I accidently bumped into a furry. This guy attended SAGE in a furry outfit – well, I guess weirder things have happened. People cosplay at anime conventions all the time. But before I realised that this particular guy was dressed in a Tails suit, I was picked up and smuggled into a tent with a “Flare Games” banner. Shining a light in my eye, the burly man screamed “You like… Sonic, do ya!?”. Believing I would die should I respond incorrectly, I shook my head. “That’s RIGHT. Sonic sucks. I SPIT on him! Tails is the REAL hero!”, I heard before a click sound and a movie started playing. It was a trailer for Tails Advance, Flare Games’ latest title. I couldn’t really get much from the movie, as it was mostly promotional, but the screenshots (above) and background I recieved sounded promising. Tails has to rescue Sonic from Eggman, with the help of Knuckles; and it looks like Rouge and Nack are in for the party as well. No more information was given, so I was shoved out of the tent… and stared in confusion as the booth opposite me also had Tails Advance and had a Flare Games banner. Only that booth looked more professional. And that booth also had Flare telling visitors about his game…

A touch freaked out about my abduction, I headed towards Double Renegade Productions booth which featured a Mario and a Sonic standing side by side. Heathens! How dare they blaspheme so! It so transpires that two seperate games are being worked on around the same theme. Of Sonic and Mario working together against Bowser and Eggman. Mario: Eggman Strikes Back is the only one far enough to present a demo, and is quite fun to play. It’s not a Mario game in the true sense, and it doesn’t feel like one either. It feels like a mix between Sonic and Mario, which makes for a strange first few plays admittedly. Indeed, it is very difficult to find a middle ground for Sonic and Mario if you plan on putting the two together somehow and DRP have managed this sufficiently. The other title, Sonic: Bowser’s Revenge has yet to be shown fully aside from a snapshot or two. I asked the Sonic and Mario at the booth if they had put their differences aside, and despite them saying “yes”, I was sure I heard a fight break out behind me as I left the booth…
[ Visit Double Renegade Production’s Website ]

Getting rather tired, and looking for a way out of the expo primarily – the amount of insanity I experienced here makes the rather large Hidden Palace claustrophobic. On the way out though, I found time for one last booth. This booth was from Bluefox Team, and their project was The Emeralds Awakening. Supremely stylised, this game was one of the stars of the entire show. Think of a fangame, as close to Sonic CD as you could possibly imagine, right down to the camera engine. It moves fantastically well, with accurate physics and smooth animation and even parralax scrolling. The only minor things to comment on was the ring loss system was a bit iffy, with floating rings making it difficult to recollect them, while the second/third stage in the demo could do with a bit of a design tweak to make it less of a chore to find the exit. But these are tiny gripes in the face of what’s turning out to be a magnificent project.
[ Visit Bluefox Team’s Website ]

As I bursted out of the SAGE doors, catching my breath, I knew that SAGE 10 was something special. Mostly because of the random happenings about it, but also because it’s been widely recieved. A lot of people have turned up to enjoy these fangames, and conveniently the quality of fangames has risen – past SAGE had about 10 booths that had no game to show or just rhetoric for an upcoming project. So SAGE has been a good showing this year. And the new “once a year” event will also not spoil the content people can prepare for it in years to come.