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

Guten tag mien Sonic brethren.

Okay, so I lied when I said in the last column that this would be about the most important character in the series. It’ll come. Eventually. But for now I want to talk about the wonders yet to come.

If you recall a fair old while ago now, a rumoured Sonic R Extreme, or something along those lines, was disclosed. Leaked out onto a website and covered by SONIC NEWS, the rumour gathered a lot of conflicting opinions ranging from ‘oooh!’ to ‘bwah?’ and ‘cornflakes?’ to ‘your mum!’. Okay, so the last ones were lies as well, but that’s what you get with AAUK columns – one of them always tells the truth and the other one always lies. So beware! As does one of them lead to the answers at the centre of the game review, and the other one leads to ba-ba-ba-boom – CERTAIN DEATH! Ooooooooohhh!

I’m sure I’ve got that mixed up with… something… ah, no matter.

So Sonic Riders lurks on the horizon, like a Spanish armada of fun and multiplayer shenanigans. Despite having no local pals who are up for a good multiplayer hammering, Yours Truly is looking forward to it immensely. Mainly because it just seems to ooze fun from every pore, and appears saturated with great gameplay ideas. Maybe not original ideas, but seasoned ones that at least seem fresh and nicely applied.

What eventually came to light – after that rumour was quashed with SEGA’s giant rumour squashing mallet – was the immortal word that the non-cynical yelled with barely suppressed glee; hoverboards! And as much as SEGA probably don’t want this to happen, you cannot expect riding on futuristic air boards not to be unequivocally linked to the iconic creations of Back to the Future, Pt 2. It’s what the press and journos will say, it’s what we will say (and indeed are saying). So hoverboards arrive again on our consoles for the first time since Super BTTF 2, and they’re looking mighty fine.

Compared to Sonic R – which was essentially Mario Kart without the Kart or Mario – you could say this is what would have happened if WipeOut! had been made exclusively by Sonic Team. Lots of jumping, traffic, obstacles and automatic transition sections – the latter rapidly becoming a staple of Sonic games and I’m starting to fester a bit of agitation to them. They look great, but automatic loop sections, giant bow and arrows, bungee jumps, catapults, trebuchets, cannons, etc are kind of a cheap way of putting in something ‘different’ in a game but having no real way of interacting or improving with them except just setting them off. There’s a vast array of characters to play as (which in today’s multiplayer paradise is an essential feature) and various story paths and circuit routes. The graphics look good, the speed looks fast and the cut scenes are – as in Shadow the Hedgehog – full quality CGI. Music is once again provided by Jun Senoue, and we have a Crush 40 title track, thus providing the Sonic radio people with smiling faces and lots more quality music to play.

So yeah, first impressions are good. I was rather pleased when looking at the game videos. All the levels seem to follow the infamous SONIC LEVEL STANDARD SET(TM), which means when it comes out I won’t have to change S.W.A.G that much, which I’m rather happy about. Heh. A nice hand animated opening sequence, well; I SAY that as I’m pretty sure that despite being available to view on the F.M.P (which my comp doesn’t like) it isn’t on the FTP yet. *Prods Fastfeet with Vector’s razor sharp wit*.

So, all things being equal (except those that aren’t), it seems to at least suggest a fast, slick game with a rather nicely positioned learning curve. Things are looking as sweet as an Amy love letter written on sugar paper by a liquorish quill. Filled with maple syrup.

And now I’m going to look at the characters and nitpick. Again.

The Babylon Rogues and how to make Tails and Robotnik look weak

Following what seems to be the Sonic mantra of ‘Speed, Flight, Power’ which worked OH so well in Sonic Heroes , we have another trio of new characters, more rivals for each of our main trio and mistakes a plenty.

First off is the leader of our merry band of neo-thieves and that’s Jet the Hawk. A lean, mean, speed machine, decked out in British Racing Green and who bears no similarities to Shadow at all. Except the artwork looks like they’ve literally said ‘draw Shadow as a bird’. This doesn’t help by the fact they both seem to use the same red eye liner; some shop somewhere is making a mint out of those two. Mmm. Jet’s voice, if the first trailer is anything to go by, is in the ‘arrogant, yet stupidly weedy’ bracket and I fear this may detract from the character – this is assuming he comes back in the already announced Riders 2. Whether he’s taken seriously or not will depend a lot on the storyline. Shadow, I think, has always been taken as a true rival to Sonic, thanks to the two part storyline in SA2 which allowed you to beat the hell out of the blue blur. What do SEGA have up their enormous, ludicrously Georgian lace cuffed sleeve to make us believe this time? I tell you what, it better be good.

The power element is taken by Storm the Albatross.

…
…
…
…*sniggers*…

Yes, an albatross. What is it with SEGA and albatrosses? Didn’t we have an Egg Albatross in Heroes? Storm is grey, because, y’know, storm clouds are grey and he looks like Big the Cat… again, drawn as a bird. He’s the muscle of the team, and he’s so good that in the trailer – when ordered to lay some smack down on Team Sonic – he gets the crap beaten out of him by Knuckles. Thank god they don’t bury Knuckles as the fight master, because what comes next feels like a violation.

Our final member, and flighty bird (because, y’know hawks and albatrosses can’t FLY can they? You trip over them every day in the street – and I’m sure I saw a couple on a bus the other day), is Wave the Swallow. Now, every schoolboy knows that a Swallow is a long distance flying bird that migrates south in the winter. It’s an insect eating bird of the Hirundinidae family, has a dark blue back, brown head and throat and pinkish breast. Which in the Sonicverse means she’s purple all over. -_-* Swallows also have narrow wings and its signature forked tail, and thankfully Miss Wave does have a forked tail. I checked. Though I got a slap for it, *rubs cheek*. No really, it’s on the artwork. :p

However haven’t SEGA missed a trick here? What, again as every schoolboy knows, is the name of the bird that you can never tell from a Swallow because it looks basically identical and they fly in the same places?

The Swift. Wave The Swift? Doesn’t that sound better?

Now comes the problem I have with her. SEGA have done wonders with building her up on the official site. In fact, to prove my point let me quote the character section directly:

“This mechanically-gifted member of the Babylon Rogues is a genius and Extreme Gear is her speciality. Her father, in fact, was the mechanic for the previous generation of Babylon Rogues. While Tails and Dr. Eggman are talented, Wave’s skills are far superior.”

Thus in a mere few sentences you take the second and third principle characters of the series, and dump all over them. I’m mean jeez, ever since at least Sonic Adventure they’ve been building up this mechanical rivalry between Tails and Robotnik. Tails (who, if his hair doesn’t improve soon is going to turn into Foghorn Leghorn), in the recent games has been positioned as a rival to Eggman. Almost equal to that of Sonic (it’s been a slow burner), but slowly and surely Tails has been creeping up on Eggman in terms of mechanical quality and scale. Even Eggman’s acknowledged this. But now – oh yes, all that build-up, all that anticipation, the prospect of a big all-out fight for when Tails actually equals or indeed surpasses Eggman – that slow burning storyline… Gone. Wiped out. Way to go… Tails’ purpose removed, Robotnik’s stock reduced even further. Well. Frelling. Done.

Few things in life are as pant-wettingly exciting as the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo (otherwise known as E3) in Los Angeles. Maybe chocolate digestives. They’re pretty damn funky, yo. But when TSS was given the opportunity to go right into the belly of the biggest video gaming event of the year, it was time to drop our biscuits and send out the troops. Our US dude, Newton DePaoli, is our Master Chief Spartan for this particular mission, and his task: to relay all footage and images from the latest triple threat of Sonic games, ask SEGA nicely for special stuff (yet AVOID their evil killing glares) and play, play play. Man… why didn’t I give myself that bloody job?

As the event unfolds, you will see first playtests of SONIC the Hedgehog, Sonic Rivals and a special behind-closed-doors playtest of Sonic Wild Fire. We will also be farming you with the latest snapshots and video footage of games and the SEGA show floor itself. Not only that, but our trooper Newton will be on hand to give his account of just how mental the E3 show is. Not a lot of us have gone you know, so it’s good to know that it’s just simply insane in there. Keep coming back to this page every day to catch the latest information! As Arnold Swarzenegger would say, “Do It!”.

Latest E3 Information:

[ 12/May/06; 18:10 ] Sonic Rivals – Playtest
We road test the upcoming PSP racing game from Takashi Iizuka.

[ 12/May/06; 17:10 ] Sonic Wild Fire – Playtest
The new Wii version of Sonic the Hedgehog uses tilt control!

[ 11/May/06; 03:05 ] SONIC the Hedgehog – Playtest
We demo Kingdom Valley as Sonic and Crisis City as newbie Silver the Hedgehog.

Show Floor Images Archive:

During 1996 development of Sonic X-Treme had shifted platforms from the prototype NVIDIA based cartridge system to the Saturn. At this particular time multiple characters were considered as a possibility, and while a storyline was yet to be devised that would incorporate these characters into the game, Christian Senn had a clear vision in his mind for the way in which these characters were to be played.

In total four playable characters were planned (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Tiara), with management insisting that an effort be made to tie the game in with other Sonic franchises such as the SatAM cartoon series. Senn had hoped that each character would have a style of play unique to they’re own abilities, and a unique perspective from which that player would view the action:

“I made the Knuckles Demo exclusive to Knuckles, the Sonic one for Sonic, etc. The idea was to explore not only the technical and gameplay pros and cons of these game concepts, but to consider making them unique to each character’s strengths, etc. This whole concept was very short-lived, though… Tiara’s side-view test was done around the same time, as well… Initially, management hoped we’d incorporate characters from the Saturday Morning Cartoon show (i.e. Sally Acorn, etc.).”

Unfortunately as the project progressed it was clear time would not allow for the use of more than one playable character, and so the idea was scrapped:

“In the end, and for the majority of the project, the decision was to stick to the minimum that would allow us to make a great Sonic game… which meant only Sonic as playable.”

Knuckles Sprite Sheet:

These sprites were modelled and animated using Imagine 3.0. If the Knuckles test demo was allowed to continue then Senn would have developed more complex environments with which to make use of them:

“We’d planned for Knuckles to be a playable character early on. I modeled and animated him in Imagine 3.0 to create these run frames to suit the different angles running through loops and corkscrews would require.”

Knuckles Demo:

The Knuckles demo was devised to explore how his character would play in two different environments. The top left demo show Knuckles in an environment with a rotating camera, while the bottom right does not. Had the concept for multiple characters been allowed to continue, then Senn would have developed environments that made use of Knuckles and his unique abilities.

Sonic and Tiara Demos:

Tiara’s demo is an example of how multiple characters could be played from a unique perspective, and how that perspective would effect the gameplay.

This Sonic demo was devised to explore the effects on Sonic’s shadow and camera issues within a rotating environment.

NB: Article written by Kieran Butcher, proof-read by Christian Senn.

Prologue:

By 1996 the Sonic X-Treme project was severely behind schedule, and time had taken its toll on the members of SEGA Technical Institute (STI). After two years of development the team had little solid production to show, after experiencing key personnel differences, three platform shifts and internal politics. Much of those two years had been spent on the development of Sonic X-Treme’s game editor, created by Ofer Alon. Alon had a vision, he wanted to create an engine and editor that would bring to life the videotape demos created early on in the project, but which would also allow a game to be programmed relatively easily, severely slashing production times, and thus recouping the years that had been lost whilst in its development.

Tension was now mounting, increased pressure from SEGA of Japan, and personal prejudice from the games technical director Robert Morgan, were to spell disaster for Alon. Morgan disliked Alon; he withheld a vital development kit that would allow the transition of Alon’s editor from PC to Saturn, while frequently emailing SOJ to inform them of Alon’s poor behaviour. In reality Alon was a hard and dedicated worker, he’d often isolated himself from the other workers in order to focus his effort upon the development of his editor. Concerned only with coding he’d often neglect others when they required his assistance, and on some occasions he’d work from home just to avoid office politics, and spend time near his family. The way in which Alon conducted his work often drew negative attention from management, but Senn vigorously defended Alon’s position:

“Keep in mind that I had been extremely loyal to Ofer since he’d first arrived. I knew he was extremely talented and respected his abilities. I found myself protecting him many times throughout the course of development out of loyalty and respect for him. Management in particular viewed him as a maverick, not communicating or “playing well” with others, etc. They couldn’t control him and he wouldn’t play politics, nor did he choose to spend time managing other programmers – he spent his time coding… ALL day and ALL night.”

It was these circumstances that lead to Alon\’s removal from the project. Both he and Senn had been ‘Summoned’ to Roger Hector’s (CEO of Sega of America) office. Unable to gauge the reaction his news would provoke from either of the two Hector had a security guard station outside. It was only when the pair had entered that Hector and Morgan decided to voice their concerns over the current development of the project. Morgan also revealed that he had contracted outside help from the then recently established game studio ‘Point of View’ (POV), to which he had co-founded. POV was to handle all of the projects technical development, and that meant Alon was no longer required.

Maintaining their cool, Alon and Senn accompanied Hector, Morgan and the executive producer Manny Granillo to Morgan’s office. Here they demonstrated POV’s work that had helped convince management to choose this course of action. What Alon and Senn witnessed shocked them, for what they saw was rudimentary at best, making it extremely difficult to understand why anyone would scrap the project\’s current course in favour of the POV technical demo. Granillo, sensing their surprise, stated, “See… we’re on a mission,” to which Alon remarked, “have a nice trip.” as he and Senn left the room.

From this point on Senn separated himself from the rest of the team, he began working alongside Alon to produce their own variation of the game. The humiliation and betrayal suffered, not only by Alon, but also by Senn (who believed so strongly in Alon and his abilities), gave the duo the fiery motivation they needed to work quickly and efficiently. Senn reflects on this issue:

“To witness such blatant disrespect and destructive behavior not only by the TD but by management siding and encouraging that behavior, lost my respect for them. Ofer and I discussed this whole charade and decided to blow their socks off with our own version. We were going to come back stronger than before. This treatment fueled our resolve to return with a vengeance!”

It was only when Senn and Alon learnt that that Irimajiri Shoichiro (president of SEGA Enterprises) was to visit STI, to view the current development on the other X-Treme project, that they decided to use the visit as an opportunity to showcase their own version. Alon worked hard to make sure his editor would be complete on time, but when the day of Irimajiri’s visit finally came, Alon was insistent on working out a few minor bugs that were still present. Fearing they may miss the games chance at redemption, Senn took what other materials they had and dashed to meet Shoichiro. By the time Senn arrived at the presentation room he found the Japanese president, fuming with rage at the apparent lack of work which had been attempted on the other project. Unable to approach him in his current state, Senn decided to wait until a time when he had enough courage to inform Shoichiro that he and Alon had been working on an alternative. Unfortunately by the time Senn had found the strength within, and Alon had arrived, Shoichiro had already left the building.

Faced with the knowledge they would never get another chance to present the game to SEGA’s Japanese division, Senn and Alon had only one other option. The two of them continued to work upon the game and build a presentation in order to pitch the concept to SEGA’s PC division ‘SEGA Soft’.

“Our objective was to present our work and convince the PC division to fund production of Sonic Xtreme for the PC. Ofer created a test world and I designed and created four worlds. Our presentation went well, but the PC group decided not to fund Xtreme. Meanwhile, STI had set up Project Condor with a handful of people moved to another building to work in isolation. This ultimately failed as well and Mike Wallis had to pull the plug. And so ended three years of extremely extreme difficulties!!!”

NB: Article written by Kieran Butcher, proof-read by Christian Senn.

Senn took four weeks to prepare the demos for SEGA executives and Sonic Team. This was one of many hurdles that could make or break the project; if the demo didn’t manage to impress the executives then it would have been terminated, and if it did impress, then it would mark the start of a long and arduous journey.

Understandably Senn didn’t sleep much during the four week development, but it was the inspiration provided by Michael Kosaka’s original game design and the music track ‘Stardust Speedway-bad future’ (from the Sonic the Hedgehog CD soundtrack) that gave him the creative energy to complete his task. In fact Senn was so inspired by the music that he decided to include it in both of the test demos.

Senn produced both demos on his Amiga 3000 using Imagine 3.0 and DeluxePaint Animator. The demos weren’t playable, both were merely pre-rendered animations.

At this particular time Sonic had never appeared in a truly 3D game before, and the game’s ‘pitch’ was based on this premise. Senn set out to create a game that would have a visual appeal, a wow factor. In Senn’s own words:

“The intended audience… wanted to see something that would take Sonic someplace new… they wanted dollar signs in their eyes. It was supposed to be playful, fun and colorful. Granted, all the 3D was flat-shaded and didn’t/doesn’t look that impressive, but I think the cleanliness and colors keep it charming in a simple way. Overall, it still shows some basics of Sonic moving around in 3D… The assumption was that if we could visualize the slower, more tedious gameplay, we could definitely have fast sections that went by in a blur…”

Demo 1:

Senn created this demo in two halves. The first half was the animation of the level itself. Later he overlaid the HUD, for which every ring and second that past was manually animated.

“I’d already designed some enemies… and went ahead and modeled those in 3D using an Amiga 3000 and the software Imagine 3.0. I’d already modeled Sonic for use in a demo prior to this one (a bonus round design concept of Michael Kosaka’s). The entire rendered scene was blocked out so it had a small view rectangle so that the rest of the space would be filled in with a HUD I’d design/draw later. I designed a simple 3D playground and planned a route for Sonic to run, coming up with environmental hazards (like the spike plate, the pumping platform, etc.) along the way. I had to tweak Sonic’s orientation each frame, too. (oy) Since I was working with 8-bit (256 colors), I needed to have the 3D images from the Imagine renders to mesh with the 2D HUD I created in DeluxePaint Animator… so I limited the color output of the renders to something like 192… and used the remaining 64 or so colors to draw the HUD. Then I manually updated each frame of the HUD to match what was going on in the game window. I even updated the ring counter graphic and number every time Sonic ran over a ring!”

Demo 2:

The second demo was designed to demonstrate some faster gameplay which had be absent in the first.

Senn’s plan for the geometry of Sonic, the enemies and the background was to work with as few polygons as possible. This would serve as a basic technical test to analyze whether the eventual game could even be done on the target platform (32X). Following the 3D rendering process, Senn went over the demos touching up Sonic’s low-polygon model using DeluxePaint Animator. In this demo the camera zooms in for a close up of Sonic at the end, and DeluxePaint Animator was used to touch him up.

“…You’ll see the detail ‘rez in’… and that’s me cheating with 2D! The Sonic model stinks… but it’s probably the most efficient use of polygons you’ll ever see, baby! lol (that’s me impersonating modesty) …I built 3D models like I did 2D graphics, as efficiently as possible (learned that from some of the most amazing 2D artists at Cinemaware)… and for this demo, the fewer the overall polys, the faster I could work with the wireframes – and faster to render the flat-shaded output. BTW, another reason for the flat-shaded final output choice was to keep the look clean. Knowing that I would need to work with 256 colors, and knowing that the HUD was the only element I could control exactly how many colors and how they were used… I chose to not have shadows or shading. Honestly I think it reads better without them.”

Conclusion:

Both demos helped gain support by management to continue development of the project. But, Senn and the team had planned to use these demos not only for presentation outside the team, but to discuss within the team potential benefits and problems in their game plan.

“Ultimately, these demos were simply exploring what could be done… and the result would inevitably be riddled with all sorts of problems – obvious or not – to discuss when attempting to make the actual game. The first 3D Sonic game wasn’t magically going to fly out of someone’s butt… it was going to take lots of discussions, testing, etc. – and one of the most beneficial forms of exploring the game was to visualize it. From that point, true ‘development’ of the concept began…”

Practically everything was unknown about Sonic X-Treme. How it felt to play, what the levels were, how many bosses, the story… When information was revealed about a female character, people wondered whether she was going to replace Amy Rose, and if she’d be the timid ‘damsel in distress’ type.

Chris Senn, co-lead Designer and Art Director, has revealed concept artwork of Tiara Boobowski. Tiara is a Manx kitten, according to Senn. The concept was going to be a bandicoot, but the resemblance beared more of a Manx.

The character of Tiara was not going to be the helpless girly type, but rather someone more of a match for Sonic. “I didn’t steer towards or away anything other than what seemed to work right as a character I could see Sonic interacting with… she needed to be spunky, and match Sonic’s “tude.” I think the final sketch design of her captures that (at least for me).”

“Michael Kosaka wanted her to have this type of character, so we went in that direction. You’re right in that the “damsel in distress” was not what we were looking for and I think that exemplifies some of the (at least then) cultural differences between the Japanese and American markets.” If we’re going to be talking about cultural ideas as well, Tiara’s ‘well rounded’ figure not only is quite a link to the definition and traits of a real life Manx cat (long hind legs, raised rump and large chest) but also perhaps a (probably unconscious) decision to exercise some ‘girl power’ within the series with the ‘X-Treme’ (sorry!) feminity of the character.

“Personally, I still like the idea of Sonic meeting his “match”… and seeing that involvement evolve through experiences together. Unfortunately, the back story that would support gameplay like this was never really a part of Sonic Xtreme. The storylines we had all pretty much focused on supporting the worlds and basic plot premise between good and evil… but didn’t delve into the involvement of the characters with each other as much as we could have. To make it a deeper, more rewarding game, I think this should take place…”

Not only did Tiara have a matching attitude, she had matching gameplay too. Concept images were made showcasing how Tiara would look if played in the game. This shows that Tiara was under consideration as a playable character instead of a simple storyline piece, but as the project progressed Tiara was removed as a playable character due to time constraints. Click on the thumbnail to see an entire animation of Tiara running through the level, it also displays a lot of the 3D level manipulation that had been designed for the game.

As for Tiara’s occupation and background story, that’s still not been fully revealed to date. We know she is the daughter of a Gazebo Boobowski, who is a revered Professor living in the Castle of Light. An official ‘myspace’ account was created to reveal more on Tiara’s character, which can be accessed here. On this profile it states Tiara is a “Princess”. Which would make sense given her father’s abode and her name – Sonic characters are usually named in relation to their abilities or status. In fact, certain blogs being posted on Tiara’s myspace even appear to reveal certain plotlines to Sonic X-Treme, with references to “climbing the tower” and a recent entry containing the following:

“Breaker says station lost communication with Base Orbit – and I haven’t heard a peep from Dad. I’m worried. He never gets anywhere without contacting me. I’m gonna go run for awhile. Hopefully that will clear my mind a little.”

A blog on January 15th is written as an “Emergency Transmission”, with a broken ‘May Day’ message. Also of equal interest is Tiara’s apparent dislike for Sonic the Hedgehog – her profile mentions ‘arrogant hedgehogs’ as a turn-off, while she openly claims she wouldn’t ask Sonic for water if she was dying of thirst. Pretty bold statement. But is there real dislike there, or is it all a front? Time will tell, when information on the rest of the game is revealed…

Amongst all the mess that was happening with development of Sonic X-Treme itself, there wasn’t a lot of things left for Chris Senn and co to hold on to. SEGA America believed in SEGA Technical Institute and released promotional box artwork to publishers – but it wasn’t quite the box any of the development team had in mind.

“Behind schedule and over-stressed, I found out through the grapevine that the marketing department had chosen box art for our game – without us having ever seen any of it.” recalls Senn, who went out of his way to design and propose an alternative cover (Click image to view full size). “Needless to say, after working so hard and trying to coordinate a team atmosphere, this lack of “departmental coordination” came at the wrong time for me. To top that off, I hated this cover with a passion. Cutesy, poor posing, nothing dramatic, no energy (no fire!).”

So, taking (FUNKEE) action, Chris decided to send a letter to the marketing department with his cover proposal (click the images above to view them in full size). As you can see, the proposal Chris designed is full of character, and would have likely suited the game presentation. Alas, we can only imagine as this becomes another archived pleasantry on the most mysterious Sonic X-Treme.

Well, 2005 has come and soon it will be gone. While it’s been the drag of many Sonic fans to see years pass us by without much to cling onto, 2005 has been a year with a lot of action in it, not just for Sonic but the community. We take a recap of this year, with the highlights of what will make for a bit of an exciting 2006.

#1: SEGA Back on Track
Poor SEGA. After dropping the Dreamcast they became a pale version of their former self, reverting to unappealing ports and massmarket whoring of its IPs. E3 2005 saw a totally different company emerge from recent years. This SEGA had new versions of Afterburner, Outrun, Virtua Fighter, and Sonic running on current and next-gen hardware. And they looked absolutely stunning, dammit! We thought going third party would make them soft forever, but this generation has merely been a recovery stage. We’re about to see the real possibilities of SEGA in this new generation, and Lord knows we’re all very excited.

#2: The Walk of Game
The Walk of Game was a celebratory event congratulating video game stars and creators that had made fantastic achievements in game creation since the inception of the industry. Much like its Hollywood counterpart, the Walk involved immortalising game characters and developers in the floor of Game Fame. Alongside Master Chief, The Legend of Zelda and Hideo Kojima, Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the very first names to be placed onto the floor for all to see. SEGA took this opportunity to announce one of the biggest shocks of the last five years. See #4.

#3: Sonic Rush
Sonic Rush was a huge surprise. Especially considering it wasn’t nearly as hyped by SEGA as it should have been, compared to Shadow the Hedgehog. You’d have thought they’d have put all their marketing efforts on the release that wasn’t a turkey. What’s more, people almost passed this off as yet another Sonic Advance. The problem with the Sonic Advance series were immediately evident, no real level design, run left-to-right and you’re done – with just a hint of bottomless pits and confusing drops where you couldn’t see where you were going. Leaps of faith galore. None of that in Sonic Rush. Well, one or two. But still a vast improvement. And the levels! By George, they’ve finally done something! The classic feature of stage gimmicks return with full force, a tension meter to charge forward whenever you’re in a pickle, and a simple-but-effective storyline seals the deal in making this just about the best damn Sonic game in recent years.

#4: Shadow the Hedgehog
This was one of the biggest shocks of the last couple of years, let alone this year. Not because such a game existed – Takashi Iizuka had been banging on about the possibility of a Shadow game for ages and lord knows lots of fanboys/girls wanted one – but due to the sheer reaction of it. SEGA was probably expecting that in announcing Shadow the Hedgehog, they’d have fulfilled the wishes of all the fans. In actual fact, they had done pretty much the polar opposite. Despite the game not being nearly as bad as the caning it got from the naive print journalists out there, such a game was not necessary. We knew all about Shadow. We knew what he was about – and more importantly, we knew we weren’t going to get a straight answer out of playing this game. Shadow the Hedgehog turned out to be exactly what TSS feared – a cash cow for the black hedgehog’s “mysterious past”. A past that will probably never be revealed in full until SEGA gets every last penny out of a dying rabid fangirl’s hand.

#5: Banging Soundtracks
Call us crazy for putting musical compositions in a list of surprises, but some of the musical accomplishments in the recent Sonic releases have been nothing short of stunning. This year has also been a celebration of past Sonic music – SEGA had an official interview with the original composer of Sonic, Masato Nakamura of Dreams Come True, while Nakamura’s work was homaged in the ‘Video Games Live’ concert that had been touring the USA all Summer. Jun Senoue composes dark tracks for Shadow the Hedgehog – maintaining his excellent flow while cranking out some well-crafted techno during some stages. The big surprise this year came from Sonic Rush, wherein Hideki Naganuma – famed for his excellent audio work in Jet Set Radio – had a dab hand at Sonic composing. And wins. The Sonic Rush soundtrack is one with such groove, feeling and upbeat bounce that hasn’t been really achieved since the Mega Drive era.

#6: Sonic X Gets A New Lease of Life
When Sonic X ended its 52-episode run in Japan, we were to think there would be no more animated blue blur escapades on our screens. Especially considering TV ratings hadn’t been kind to our game hero. When a burst of images arose out of the blue featuring a green character, the world was quite taken aback. Even more surprising was the fact that the ‘Second’ (or third, depending on your viewpoint) series aired in France first, instead of Japan. In fact, Japan kindly waited until China, America and even Australia started their airing before bothering. This second season is darker than the first, with our heroes battling The Metarex, an race intent on removing the face of everyone living. Just about the most shocking thing though – and almost warrants its own bullet point here – is the death of Cosmo in Episode 77. After having a bit of a fling with fox-pimp Tails, you’d have thought she’d have stuck around for a bit.

#7: Yuji Naka Acknowledges BETAs
And here we were thinking he was just being annoying. He simply forgot about them. When being interviewed by GameSpot back in October (check out the SONIC NEWS article for more on that), Yuji Naka was quizzed about hidden aspects of the early Sonic games that dedicated fans had since uncovered. Namely, Hidden Palace Zone on Sonic 2. At first, Naka-san seemed surprised himself that us mere mortals had knowledge of anything of the sort. Then he revealed that – as is a trait with SONICTEAM – a BETA Sonic 2 was stolen at an event back in 1992. If you cast your minds back a few years ago, SONICTEAM lost some pre-release showcase PSO figures to some E3 thievery. The idea behind Hidden Palace was similar to that of Hidden Palace in Sonic & Knuckles, in that it would be a haven for the Chaos Emeralds and would explain Sonic’s origins somewhat. Time constraints prevented that from happening – and a stolen ROM cartridge probably didn’t help. But a pleasing, rare insight into the background and original concepts of the Sonic games from the horse’s mouth itself.

#8: Sonic Websites Grow Up
The Sonic Stadium has done pretty well over the years, but 2005 saw it lead the way to professionalising Sonic Fansites. We took the first steps in bridging the gap between Fansite and Official Source in 2005. We approached SEGA directly and worked on events that has ended up benefitting the Community at large. Acknowledgement from official sources that fansites exist and are there to support the cause has been a growing theme over the past year, with the Australian Center for the Moving Image even dedicating an event to the blue blur, while profiling sites such as TSS and the Green Hill Zone. As has been shown by other Sonic fansites too, professionalism has fast become an important aspect of the larger Sonic websites. The Sonic Community has also become less naive of things on a general level. We truly have grown up.

#9: Sonic’s 15th Anniversary
Even though it’s not due until next year, preperations are already underway, with SEGA chatting to TSS stating that they’re about to hype the event up big-time. Which is no real insider information, considering 15 years is a bit of a landmark, really. Just hearing of the news that Sonic will have been around for a decade and a half makes us all really happy here at TSS, and we have some things planned to make next year a real treat.

#10: New Games
2006 will bring plenty of Sonic goodness with the 15th Anniversary. The two announced headlining titles will hit in the first half of the year. These games look to be the business though, no kidding. Sonic Riders will kick off about February time and seems like it will give a much-needed revival to the Sonic Racing idea. The big title though will no doubt be SONIC the Hedgehog, due on PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360 in the Summer. No title has ever made us feel that Sonic’s classic gameplay can be represented in 3D better than in Sonic Next-Gen. The graphics are superb, the speed is amazing, the physics look fine and from what we’ve seen of the stages, it appears a lot more free-roaming. Fingers crossed that Yuji Naka has finally got it right this time, and that they don’t rush this game. They know their heads are in the noose this time, so we’re hopeful for a surprise.

Hello all, it’s ArchangelUK here!

Yes, before you all react with mass horror and possible projectile vomiting this does not mean SW is merging with TSS. I’ve already had one email demanding answers to questions that aren’t there. I am though now, a TSS in-house-article-writer-person-person so every so often I’ll be waxing lyrical (possibly with turtles, undoubtedly with pizza) about this, that and/or the other. In essence I have a lot to talk about and Sonic Wrecks simply isn’t the place to do it. So roll on article one!

Soooo, did you buy Shadow The Hedgehog? Did you win Shadow The Hedgehog? Did you beat Shadow The Hedgehog? Did you take Shadow the Hedgehog out for strolls in the moonlight and tell him you… no don’t answer that one. I did (buy it that is), the GameCube version, as I don’t own the one that breaks down four days after the warranty expires as if by magic; or the X-Suitcase; but that’s another story for another day.

I should point out here that this article may well be a thing that makes you go “MMMmmmmm”. Oh, and contains some spoilers.

I’m not actually going to give the game a score, but I am going to tell you about it. At the time of writing I’ve completed all the game finales, final story and have 41 A Ranks. (Swish!) And all in all I’ve come to a decision: the game is very good for the most part, it was never going to be a bone trembling, sphincter tightening classic but that’s not the point and never was. The aim of Shadow the Hedgehog was to take the series somewhere new just like Sonic Heroes… okay, bad example, but is it though? It’s amazing to think that the critics loved Sonic Heroes, which for the most part was royally panned by the fan base. It got on average roughly 8 out of 10. 80%. That’s not bad for a game that took the fundamental principles of the Sonic series and gave them so frickin’ big a twist Eggman’s moustache nearly fell off. Incredible to think then that Shadow the Hedgehog, which has done the exact same thing in giving us a Sonic style game with a really dark centre, has been universally panned by the critics and been getting in the region of 4’s and 5’s out of 10 – with even fans calling it the ruination of the Sonic series.

Strong words then. So let’s go back; back to the beginning.

CHAOS CONTROL!
Done, and without so much as an emerald.

So who – when they first saw the Shadow trailer and saw he had a gun – thought this was such a bad idea. (Though you can’t tell from this type I’m raising my hand at the moment.) When you first saw the art you may have thought this was ‘pandering to the whims of the fans’ or ‘further diluting the quality of Sonic games’. I did, and I’m supposedly one of the out-and-out Shadow worshipers, so this may surprise you that of all the Sonic Wrecks comics so far (at the time of writing) Sonic and Shadow have appeared in 19 each with Knuckles on 18 and next on Amy on 15. So, yeah I’m real biased against Sonic. The words I’ve just used above I found paraphrased several times in a fair few reviews by people. So I think it’s time I went through everything about this game and the reaction to it…

1. j00 Shadow loverz suck. T3h gunz are ru66i5h.
Yes, terrifying… are you sure your keyboard isn’t broken?

The big drawback for the game was the immediate negative reaction for it, what surprises me if you look at the reviews that have given 2’s and 4’s and that bracket they’re all from Sonic fans who haven’t played it. Giving the reasons mentioned above, oh Sonic Team have ruined everything with this Sonic game, etc. Hold the phone. Sonic game? This is not a Sonic game. Sonic is not a playable character, not even in two-player mode where you get some metal-esque Shadow clones and one Shadow with the campest orange quill highlights known to mankind. Sonic himself says on the first level (regarding guns) “I wouldn’t be caught dead using those things.” That’s the whole point; Shadow doesn’t care about rules, just about getting his way.

So the gameplay sucks because you have no intentions of playing it? Er, okay but isn’t that a little childish? Surely you give a review of a game if you’ve at least played it first? That’s like me saying the Mona Lisa sucks because it’s not hanging in my room and I can’t see it. This is a Shadow game folks; it’s another Hedgehog operating under different rules.

Another whinge I’ve heard is that there doesn’t seem to be a lock-on mechanism for the guns. Well surprise, surprise! Welcome to the joys of realistic game play. This is a great example of someone reviewing a game they’ve played and not reading the manual for it. A pistol, or handgun does not have a lock-on mechanism; this is because in reality bullets don’t ‘magically’ arc around in mid air. The hi-tech weapons, missile launchers and other related things do because they can in real life. The manual clearly states that with the weapons Shadow will aim for you when you fire and are pointing in the correct direction. He has eyes you see – although you will still need to position him so he faces them. This will only occur though if the enemy is in the physical range of the weapon, so DON’T start pointing your uzi at an enemy ahead of you on the periphery and wondering why your bullets aren’t hitting. It’s out of range of the weapon therefore it can’t be hit.

Also remember the guns are an ‘option’, there’s nothing saying you strictly have to use them or the sword weapons – though to be fair getting past some of the steel doors is rather tricky without them – or there’s the debris which incidentally is a great addition. The only ‘weapon’ you ever need to pick up is the blue torch in Cryptic Castle to light the torches. It’s more difficult by far not using a gun but that’s just part of the challenge (should you choose to accept it).

Overall Verdict: Good.
After years of being shot at in Sonic games a character picks one up and fires back… and this annoys you for some self-righteous reason? Guns add a new dynamic to the game play of this game, you’ll never see them again and Sonic will never use them.

2. Graphics
This one swings wildly from one end of the spectrum to another. The levels are lusciously designed as this dark dystopia the world is sinking into with the Black Arms invasion – an interesting counterpoint to Heroes’ cartoon styling and rainbow visuals. However it doesn’t appear quite as polished as Heroes, many have said in the reviews that they look rather DreamCast-ish. I wouldn’t say that, but I would say they are certainly below what I was expecting. A great example of this is the FMV sequences, the ones done specifically by the CG crew are absolutely mind blowing, these are the ones you’ve seen in the trailer and there are blissfully yet more in the game. Some of which you haven’t seen and are even better, others though use the game engine and game characters and these are in the most part shoddy. At least the Sonic Adventure 2 ones looked good reasonable; some of these are Sonic Adventure quality in places.

The secondary characters, your partners for the most part, too look slightly odd in places; Rouge has gone back to her Sonic Adventure 2 outfit for reasons unknown. Incidentally they’ve also made her ears bigger and yes, her enchanted cleavage has also changed once again in size but at least they aren’t tennis balls wrapped in purple rubber this time. Cream’s cameo looks like they’ve used the Sonic Adventure DX version of her when she made her brief flying appearance in that; though the fact you can knock her down onto her ass is rather fun. Amy looks as though someone has been forced to create her against their will and is bitter for not getting to do Shadow, Sonic, Tails or Knuckles. I swear there’s no need for Eggman to have those strange teeth either, and as for Omega… if you have to feel sorry for a character in this, feel sorry for old E-123.

His appearance in the latter stages of the ‘evil’ arcs has seen him go down in the world. Do you remember him in Heroes? A lovely shiny metallic ball of destruction screaming FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! Like some crazed whirling dervish of steel alloys? Time hasn’t been kind to his paintwork. Imagine you stripped him of his shininess and then recoloured him more or less exactly as before but with dreary versions of those hues and no metallic effects. That’s what’s happened here. Poor sod.

Overall Verdict: Okay
All in all, the graphics are good, though I am informed they’re a mite better and a little faster on X-Box and Gamecube than PS2, but little things that seem to have been left out due to trying to get the game out on time have really cost it.

3. Gameplay and Speed
Here are the top five most common technical complaints about Shadow the Hedgehog as far as I can tell:

1) “It’s too slow!”
2) “I can’t get to any speed without hitting something!”
3) “I can’t stop!”
4) “It’s too short!”
5) “[Insert old bug here] IS STILL HERE!”

Starting from the top then, the game is too slow apparently which is news to me I must say. Shadow moves very fast indeed when he needs to, though I must admit he does seem a little slower to gain speed from a stationary position but is essentially, as per tradition, roughly the same speed as his fellow hog. As for the game being slow, remember the PS2 version is a mite slower on the frame rate than X-Box and GC but the game itself is as fast flowing as any fully 3D platformer that I’ve ever seen. In terms of the previous sonic games, when you bare in mind the advancement of the graphics and how much is going on around you compared to the likes of the two Adventure series with explosions and other effects going on all over the place the speed is amazing.

The fact is the IS the fastest of the 3D generation so far and makes Heroes look positively pedestrian. Let me put it another way. If Sonic Heroes is the Batmobile from the first Batman film with Jack Nicholson in it, then Shadow The Hedgehog is the Batmobile from Batman Begins, but with a Ferrari badge on it. Also there is a lot to do in this game that doesn’t involve speed, such as puzzles and looking around for items. If you are looking for five nice shiny secret discs with Charmy (*shudders*) in one particular level then blasting around at 100mph isn’t going to help you unless you are truly relying on dumb luck.

Number 2: This one really irked me because again it’s a question of people not really thinking this through. You’re racing along a city road, the city is being destroyed around you, there are flaming cars everywhere and police and attackers are swarming everywhere. This means one of two things, and if you’re not in Paris then that means you must be in the middle of a war zone.

The roads are not going to be clear for you! If I sprinted down the street at a car and I hit it, or rather it hits me; chances are I’m going to be rather hurt. Unless I’m a ghost – and I’ve checked my pulse which confirms I’m not – if I ran full tilt into a person I’m going to hit them and probably end up flat on my arse, not somehow magically run through them. With all this chaos going on around you it’s up to you, the player, to avoid the debris, friends and foes to keep your speed up, to time your jumps to avoid things and think ahead. Use some style and panache; don’t expect it to be handed to you on a plate. To quote a certain green dude, and ‘Hi-ho everyone!’

Wait wrong green dude, er, what I meant to say was ‘Control, control, you must learn control!’ You need to play more than once to master this particular hog’s movement. Yes, it is annoying when you run into a grey clad GUN soldier you didn’t see, and sometimes its difficult to make out the objective arrows, but the game is dark and dingy in most places. Westopolis is a mess of explosions and smoke and I’m pretty sure the Shadster doesn’t possess radar.

It might be bad in some respects trying to avoid the obstacles, but you may have noticed the pedestal placed Sonic Rush getting some bad comments regarding some of that games tendency to be a ‘memory recall’ game.

Number 3: Slowing down, or rather stopping isn’t instantaneous. Sonic and the others can screech to a halt no problems but with Shadow it’s not so easy, granted. Unfortunately, this is one of those things where the game assumes you know all about what’s been revealed about Shadow’s past over Sonic Adventure 2 and Heroes. It’s a flaw that undermines the first few levels of ShTH, it’s Shadow, you know him from ‘this’ and you don’t need to be informed about it again unless its absolutely storyline relevant. Not a single mention I can tell you now is made of the events of Sonic Heroes anywhere except in a couple of brief freeze frame flashbacks I’m going to criticise later anyway; in fact, Omega’s first line to Shadow told me everything I needed to know about the Shadow I was playing. Why? Because I’ve played Heroes and know what happens at the end of it.

For a newcomer to Shadow you’re right in the sticky stuff from the off, thrown in at the deep end the equivalent to being stuffed in a meat suit and thrown into a vat of sharks. You don’t know that if you’d just played him before you’d know about him and his fancysmancy footwear.

Shadow’s air shoes are the problem, we the fans know about this, his almost friction free air shoes. Aha, friction. Don’t you need that to stop as I recall? It also rather explains nicely how worn and flaky the fronts and backs of the air shoes are on the hi-res artwork as that’s where the ‘breaking points’ are and hence where the wear occurs. This whole thing so could have been solved simply by the addition of another ‘hint marker’ in Westopolis; you can just see Shadow hitting it, Sonic turning to you and saying:

“Hey Shadow! Those air shoes of yours are really cool, it’s like you’re skating on a cushion of air – take care though, you won’t be able to stop as quickly as I can!”

That’s really all it needed.

Number 4: Good grief, it’s a game with only six levels and a few boss fights thrown in! Come on now, it’s also a game with 10 different endings to unlock ranging from Shadow ending up as personification of darkness, the saviour to mankind or emotionally crippled in one instance. So that’s ten full playthroughs minimum before you unlock the end story and finally learn the truth, play another level and fight the final fight. No, it hasn’t got 147 mission targets like Sonic Adventure 2 to complete (okay, 148 if you count finishing the Green Hill Zone remake); it does though in fact have 146. That’s not possible! How so you ask?

Elementary my dear Watson, for you see there are 71 missions spread over the levels available, these include the three path choices when applicable (i.e., Dark, Hero or Emerald) and the boss fights (mid and final). Once you’ve done all those and A-Ranked them you unlock the expert mode so that’s another 71 missions to master. Making 142 by my maths, then you simply add to that the completion of the final story in both instances – one level and one final boss twice over – one hundred and forty six. That should keep you going for a long time trying to complete that.

There is in fact a mind boggling 326 paths to choose… 326! I’ll get back to this later, but… I mean 320-bloody-6? Yikes!

The levels themselves are no quick fire finishes, long gone are the days with sub-minute levels my friends. They are very big, imposing, and highly complex for the most part with the usual multiple paths available. They also come in the SONIC LEVEL STANDARD SET! What do I mean? Well. I’ve made a checklist:

City Level? Check.
Ancient Ruins Level? Check.
Ghost Filled Haunted Level? Check.
Jungle or Forest Level? Check.
Military Installation Level? Check.
Sky Based Level? Check.
‘Surrounded By Liquid’ Level? Check.
Fire or Lava Based Level? Check.
Casino Level? Check.
Final Space Based Level? Check.

Seems to be ticking all the right boxes doesn’t it? In fact the only one it doesn’t have really is a snow based or winter level. But what of the play features?

Grinding? Check.
Lots of Automatic Loops? Check.
Strange New Way To Get From One Part Of A Level To Another? Check.
Chaos Emerald Collection Through Special Zones: No.

No. Learning I can only assume from the travesty that graced Sonic Heroes (I am still trying to get the bloody third emerald, one and a half years after starting, and if anyone can send me a UK Game Cube game file with the final story unlocked I will be eternally grateful to you) the special zones are out. Chaos emeralds are now the property of the government for the most part. Also out is any plot dynamic involving the Master Emerald, something I also welcomed as that’s been done to death at this point. The grind rail change is much smoother and safer incidentally and the spin dash seems a lot weaker than before.

Bearing all that in mind then, I really cannot agree that the game is short as there is plenty of scope for replay.

Finally point five, a section that can easily be called ‘Legacy Issues’, I’m sighing as I type this. Believe me. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it refers to problems from previous versions or in this instance previous games that have still yet to be adequately fixed or acknowledged. The prime one being the camera.

I’ve always thought the best joke ever in a game regarding a camera (specifically in a 3D third person viewpoint) was in Mario 64 when if you look in a mirror you can see the camera being held behind you. A camera is, like most things, a physical object in games such as this. It has to be so it can be forced down corridors and things and not go through walls when you move it. The problem comes when something gets between the character and the camera following it; it can’t get around it and get stuck. See Sonic Adventure 2. Or you ‘move’ the camera just like you’re supposed to and it isn’t properly free roving. The camera in ShTH is miles better than it predecessors but still nags and lags in places occasionally forcing you to do a blind jump to where you hope the platform was in order to correct the issue. Or leaving you stuck down a series of choice routes without letting you see where your objective is (Mad Matrix).

So a part-fix there. Unfortunately the dreaded ‘homing attack’ problem still occurs.

If I am constantly jump attacking a single robot that say needs more than two hits to kill it and am holding the C stick in the direction of it, I do not expect to randomly home-attack NOTHING in the opposite direction off a gangway to fall to my death. There is absolutely no reason at all for this to occur and the fact this still happens randomly on the third game having this feature is terrible. It turns the whole attack concept into a luck-based issue. Grr!

(Can you tell I’ve been on my way to A-Ranking difficult levels and then that’s happened?)

Number six… oh wait that was the last one of those.

4. Niggles, Annoyances, Continuity and OH MY GODs!
So the gameplay is for the most part great, but now I want to talk about MY play. I want to talk about things within the game that were simply ‘wrong’. Wrong in context, wrong in history, wrong in positioning, wrong in moral or ethical tastes. So wrong it left me with a nasty taste in the mouth, a sore throat from yelling in disbelief and a red mark from slapping my forehead reapeatedly at the stupidness. So let’s start off with one of the most controversial issues pre-Shadow.

The Voices:
Farewell Ryan Drummond & Co, you shall be missed, but what have we been left with in way of replacement with the 4Kids mob.

Sonic & Shadow: If these were anything except all but bang-on what they were in the previous games SEGA would have been strung up by us and attacked by small sharp teethed lizards on long poles à la Ludo in Labyrinth. Kudos to Jase (and thank god for that….)

Eggman: Who’s voice had to be replaced anyway sadly, I like the new voice for the Doc but it just seems like its lost a bit of the presence it used to.

Tails: Oh Tails, how long have we waited for a decent voice for you? The newest of the new voices fits him quite well I think.

Knuckles: This is what annoys me, the whole point was to ‘standardise’ the characters and voices between the games and Sonic X right? Now I know for a fact that Knuckles is a right gruff bastard in Sonic X, always up for a fight. So why is he some fun-loving happy-go-lucky fight-seeker-if-need-be in ShTH? HE DOESN’T EVEN SOUND THE SAME! Thus the whole point of the change is lost. Well done. *Sighs*

Amy: Another voice that I don’t mind in the slightest with the changes.

Rouge: When did Rouge become a blues singer? *Shakes head in disbelief*

Big: ISN’T IN IT! YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!

Espio: I hadn’t seen the Chaotix episodes of Sonic X so didn’t know what to expect. I’m now pretty sure whoever did Espio’s voice used to play quarterback for the New York Giants.

Vector: Oh Vector! What have they done to you! You used to be like a bouncer in the way you moved and talked. And now you’ve suddenly become Graham Norton’s cleaner. If you want to know how he talks do you remember the really mad one in the Police Academy movies whose voice is all over the place? Bobcat Goldthwait? Yeah, that’s just how bad it is.

Charmy: If you know me, you know I hate the bee. Imagine my surprise then when after listening to the new Charmy voice I found I hated him even more! Surely impossible I thought? Alas… no. It’s very wrong and yet so wrong it validates my hatred for him, so in many ways is spot on.

Cream: Had two lines. No difference.

Omega: The voice is processed you fools, don’t waste my time.

Cheese: Ya see, now you’re just being silly.

New Characters:
Two to add to our merry band. The General (referred to throughout as The Commander) and bad guy Dark Doom. There are big problems with these two, number one Dark Doom sounds like (as Dreadknux has pointed out) Dr.Claw from Inspector Gadget, which results in any menace being replaced by hilarity and derisive calls of ‘I’ll get you next time Shadow! NEXT TIME!” at the TV. The General fits in well, in that we now know who’s in charge of GUN he also suffers from a rare medical condition, heterochromia iridium. Meaning he has different colours in either iris. You see, you learn with AAUK! The problem being this makes him look like a cross between Tommy Lee Jones and David Bowie.

2 Player!
Is practically an afterthought… no way are you going to 2P this game if you want a 2P Sonic experience you’ll go straight to SA2, not passing GO! and not collecting £200.

Script Errors:
The Commander also states at one point that Maria was the only family he ever had, and yet when confronting Shadow states that because of Shadow, Maria was killed AND his family. Another one with gaps in his memory, stay tuned for ‘General the Commander’ from Sonic Team coming autumn 2006.

The Music
Kevin want CD… NOW.

Continuity Problems:

• The President has a photo of Shadow and Sonic together outside the faux-White House. Except such an event never occurred…
• Maria’s death speech, so crucial to the plot of Sonic Adventure 2 has been changed.
• For someone who’s never driven or shot a gun before Shadow is miraculously adept.
• Shadow has both his arm rings when he lost one at the end of SA2.
• Shadow’s super form is now not silvery gold but seems to be Super Sonic with red highlights.
• As Shadow doesn’t know Team Chaotix, why doesn’t he ask them how they know who he is?
• Why are the ‘Top Secret Disks’ Charmy is looking for unguarded, and for the most part sitting on the floor??
• Okay, so Shadow has been transported inside a computer by Doom’s powers and all the ‘robots’ are in fact programs but that doesn’t explain how Rouge is somehow there.
• Since when did Eggman like Chao? And why does he keep so many in his castle?
• Shadow should not be able to remember the flashback snippet of the room full of Shadow Androids in bio-tanks from Sonic Heroes as that Shadow WAS an android as confirmed by Omega.
• Ghosts are now… blue?
• Shadow ACTUALLY leaves Sonic and the others still frozen and presumably being eaten by the remaining jelly blobs at the beginning of the final story.
• Wasn’t the Eclipse Cannon damaged by being stuck up the ass of the Biolizard then?
• Wasn’t the Eclipse Cannon permanently shut down by GUN? Why not?
• In the main trailer and parts of the game, the moon is astonishing whole after being blown to bits in SA2. Miraculous. They must’ve had a telethon or something.

Continuity Joy:

• Maria now looks like she’s got some Robotnik genes in her.
• Omega’s first line to Shadow is “Are you… the Original?” which if you know the prior games should tell you everything you need to know about this Shadow’s origins.
• The Ark. Oh boy, the ARK is completely faithfully restored with large sections of the end levels of SA2 recreated perfectly; it truly is a joy to behold every last second of it. The high-res look of the Chaos creatures is simply sublime.
• Chaos Spear, Shadow’s ‘new’ attack in the final fight was one of his 2P attacks in SA2:B which makes it perfectly acceptable for once and not some mast minute idea shoehorned in.

‘I could have sworn I saw that in…’
For reasons purely unknown Sonic Team decided to rip off the following movies:

Independence Day: The iconic blowing up of the White House is ripped clean off here.

Star Wars: Doom only just stops short of saying, “I AM YOUR FATHER!” at one point.

The Matrix: Doom says they want us humans to be used as energy sources, batteries if you will. Sound familiar?

Tron: Mad Matrix and Digital Circuit are utter Tron rip offs, from the idea to some elements of the actual levels. To top it off the even steal wholesale the iconic ‘de-rez’ sound effect and use it for the (annelid) black worm’s attack! Scandalous! I haven’t found the five lock door yet, but I have all the keys I swear if I find a light cycle beyond it I might just do someone damage.

The Weakest Link
Okay, you’re facing a boss and you’re told you need to find a weak point. Where is it? Do you know? With the exception of the Egg Dealer which operates differently with it’s slot machine system every single one’s weak point is the head. Every. One. Well swipe me, how original!

Sonic The Blasé Hedgehog
I don’t know why but Sonic came across differently over this game, maybe due to the fact he wasn’t being played. In Westopolis he makes a comment about ‘feeling so sorry’ for the people who have lost their homes yet after that he reverts to his “life’s a game, let’s play” persona. Seemingly nonplussed about the clear insanity going on around him. Admittedly this is typical Sonic, seeking fun wherever it can be found, yet the planet being destroyed, millions of people homeless and the possible extinction of mankind are – the last time I checked – not typically things that promote the idea of ‘a fun time’ to someone. In fact Sonic, by the end of a couple of the arcs, becomes so consumed by the ‘this whole thing is fun to me’ aspect of himself that I started to out and out dislike him for it. Something which has never happened before and I hope never happens again.

Keys The Ruin (Again), or “Oh Goody! My Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!”
In Heroes you had to find a key and keep it until the end to get access to the Special Stage, in every level of ShTH there exist 5 identical keys all of which are required to gain access to a very ancient looking door apparently of metal but looks rather like someone’s chiselled it out of part of Stonehenge. This as you may have guessed, looks rather out of place in the middle of a city, cyberspace recreation or high tech battleship for example. I haven’t opened all the doors yet, only the Westopolis one, Prison Island one and (literally just this second) Cryptic Castle one. You might think that after long searching you’ll be rewarded by something nice? Behind the Westopolis door I can reveal lies one machine gun and an armoured car. Woo. Only problem is, by the time you’ve got the keys, you really don’t need them. You’ll know all about the level and it won’t make a blind bit of difference. It looks like these are the three options then; vehicles, weapons, (Prison Island reveals a pair of tank-like mortars which make a big earth shattering ka-boom) and shortcuts (Cryptic Castle’s door leads to a shortcut as such and some more for you rings).

When Is A Life Not A Life?
One pretty big change is that 100 rings do not automatically equal an extra life any more. You now need to have 100 rings when activating a save point. This sucks.

326 Paths…
Okay three hundred plus paths are nice and all but seriously, who in their right mind is going to sit down and work out and play through the 326 paths to unlock them all?

And Finally…
Okay, if I was actually giving this thing a mark this one item would have lost it a whole bunch of marks just for the fact it was so ridiculous and not needed. Aliens are ripping up cities around the world and asked for a response tells his secretary to say that they won’t bow down to terrorists. EXCUSE ME?? TERRORISTS? In no way should this have been written! Aliens are aliens. I cannot recall E.T. being a terrorist, the fact that he and a lot of GUN keep referring to the Black Arms as ‘The Terrorists’ smacks of pandering and cheap ass playing on real world events and is truly sickening. Aliens are always aliens. Always. Muppets…

So in conclusion, Shadow the Hedgehog is a good game, it’s not genre-shaking, it’s not ground-breaking but it’s cool and you’ll have fun. Next time I get the energy to do another column type thing I’ll be discussing the most important character in the series! Who is it? Find out next time… mwah ha ha ha-ha!

…Yes…

ArchangelUK
Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis!
So it is written.

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.

As The Sonic Stadium is to be covering E3 2005 almost from the inside out, SONIC NEWS has made room for a TSS article to collate everything that’s already been said, what’s been confirmed, what’s been rumoured. E3 can be a very confusing and somewhat dangerous place for those who haven’t been catching up, so allow this article to hand you all the current information we have, so you get some background knowledge on what Sonic Team has and might be offering.

First of all, let’s base things on SEGA’s Official E3 Lineup. On the Sonic Team side, you have two titles; Phantasy Star Universe and Shadow the Hedgehog.

Phantasy Star Universe is, as the name suggests, the true sequel to Phantasy Star Online. It’s the “next generation” of PSO games. Sonic Team first revealed ‘PSU’ at E3 2004, but raised more questions than answers. It appeared back then that Sonic Team weren’t sure whether to continue the PSO style of gameplay or revert back to a 3D form of the classic Phantasy Star games of yore. It appears PSU, as it stands, will be a mixture of both styles, offering the same online ability and freedom as PSO while information states that battle won’t be real-time. Whether this will mean we get turn-based battles akin to PSO Episode III is hard to tell, as Sonic Team are being pretty vague about it. And with good reason, E3’s only just around the corner. Characters will be even more customiseable than before, with your average bloke clearly satisfied with being able to adjust the size of female character’s breasts. PSU is only slated for a PC and PlayStation2 release at present.

Shadow the Hedgehog, on the other hand, is a game fans know plenty about by now. When it was notoriously announced at the Walk of Game celebration, many fans didn’t take kindly to it. Even TSS went on the defensive, believing this to be the next game in the Sonic series. As it stands, Shadow is a mere spinoff title, but it simply plays similar. As time has gone on, the game has gotten to be quite interesting, with several unique abilities open to Shadow. The plot’s been milked more than a cow farmer’s wife, but if you ignore that you have a game with multiple endings, based entirely on your actions during the game. Shadow can use Chaos Control abilities to do massive DragonBall Z style explosions and zoom past treacherous space, but the most controversial aspect of play to this day is the ability to weild “real life” weapons and shoot the crap from unfamiliar enemies. GUN makes a return, what a surprise, never saw that one coming either. One to watch, whether you intend on getting it or not. Confirmed for all major console formats.

The most interesting aspect of the SEGA Press Release is the line: “…on the first day of E3, SEGA will announce two new additions to the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise“. Depending on which raving fansite you believe, these two new games are going to be titles that have not so much as been talked about by official sources. Message Boards and other Sonic sites are rife with guesses which they believe to be “dead certs” or big fat definites.

The truth is, nobody really knows. If you put it into context, two of the most popular vague guesses, “Sonic Gems Collection” and “Sonic Rush” (details on these below), haven’t had so much as a real official word from SEGA nor Sonic Team. The best we’ve had is the odd Iizuka and Ogawa quip, but you know how much Sonic Team love to play with our minds – just cast your minds back to the Tokyo Game Show some years back, where a release schedule mentioned NiGHTS 2 in it’s timeframe.

The following are the journal entries that you can unlock in Sonic Battle. To access them, you will need to complete the Story Mode twice over. Maybe more if you’re lucky ;P It’s a good read though, and shows the background of Sonic Battle crosses over with the events of Sonic Adventure 2, just before Gerald went off his grapefruit and went on a vengeance bender. This information was sent to us by Tonykewv1.

Entry 1:

I have uncovered a most interesting specimen from the warehouse. I believe it some sort of puppet or robot made by an ancient people. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but when I was experimenting with ‘Chaos Emeralds’, it began to move. This suggests the possibility that even the ancient civilizations could harness the power of the ‘Chaos Emeralds’. When I was researching various papers related to the ‘Chaos Emeralds’ and this robot, I discovered that there was a possibility that this robot was something incredible. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but this robot may be the cause of the fall of the fourth great civilization. I’m not sure I believe it just yet, though.

Entry 2:

I’m no longer able to ignore the possibility that this robot did in fact destroy the fourth Great Civilization. I have discovered a stone tablet that explains as much. According to the tablet, “When the figure falls from the heavens, and the Stone of the gods is joined, all that exists will become one again”. Though it is difficult to believe, this robot has been watching my movements, and mimicking all that I do. I was amazed by my scans of this being. Surprising, reams and reams of data scrolled and caused my most powerful computer to crash. More intriguing was that the data was all about melee combat and weapons of that age. Eventually, if the being is ever restored to its former state it will put all the data to use, and recreate all the weaponry and combat abilities that it once had! And that’s not all. If my guesses are correct, it will also have the ability to absorb modern weaponry as well. What have I done? I have uncovered a horrible weapon!

Entry 3:

I now understand why this being was named “Gizoid”. In the ancient tongue, it means “everything”. According to the stone tablet, if the Gizoid establishes a ‘link’ with someone, the Gizoid will swear loyalty to that person. Perhaps it still lacks ‘Chaos Emerald’ energy, but it has been saying the word “link” to me in broken tones it went on to explain: “Show me your true strength, and I shall obey. I am all things, and shall belong to me”. So as it suggested, I brought before it my collection of model guns, and fired them all. Then suddenly it said “I shall follow your every command, and never leave you side”. And since then, it refuses to listen to anyone but me. While is still is a fearsome weapon of destruction, at least it won’t be used for evil. However, If someone with evil intentions where to form a ‘Link’ with the Gizoid… I don’t even want to think about what will happen. I must research how one can re-establish a ‘Link’ with the Gizoid…

Entry 4:

The upper echelon is going crazy. Perhaps they aim to freeze project ‘Shadow’. Soon, the ultimate life form ‘Shadow’ will be completed… The application to my granddaughter is also imminent. I cannot just let them stop my study at this point. Because I am the only one who can save my granddaughter’s life.

Entry 5:

… The higher ups are threatening to shut down this research facility. I had no choice but to hand them the Gizoid to buy more time for my research. I tried to be careful and commanded it to never absorb weapons. Apparently, the way to cause the Gizoid to form a ‘Link’ is to show it power that surpasses that of its former master. While this poses immense danger, I cannot risk losing Maria.

Entry 6:

My worst fears have come true. The Gizoid has absorbed enough weaponry and technology that it has started to got out of control. The resulting rampage resulted in the destruction of most of the “Ark”! I have deciphered the rest of the stone tablet. It says, “When the Gizoid had learned all that it could it become a god of wrath and destroyed all”. The researchers somehow managed to subdue the Gizoid and sealed it away. Luckily it only had one ‘Chaos Emerald’ installed. If it where to have all 7 Emeralds installed, it might of destroyed the planet. The Gizoid is too much of a liability. I tried destroying the core, but nothing I did worked. I understand too little of the technology that built him. My best hope is to try and reprogram its AI into a free-will, emotions-based AI…

Entry 7:

I have heard there was an accident at the research facility. …. ….. ….. Everything! Everything is gone.
My Maria’s name was among the list of casualties. My beloved Granddaughter! They tell me her parting words were, “Bring hope to humanity”. I have decided that the keyword to activate the Gizoids free-will emotions-based AI program will be those very words. “Bring hope to humanity”. My poor, poor Maria!

Entry 8:

A heritage of the past I dug out, “Gizoid”! And the ultimate life form I created by my own hands “Shadow”; I equipped both weapons with ‘heart’. If all powers are not obtained for oneself, but what is to be from heart’s that yearn for someone, I believe all conflicts should cease to exist. Please if anyone listening to my prayers: Bring hope to humanity.

This Fan Shout is written by Psychobob.

The answer is no.
Sonic games have been on and off lately, but their position has been further worsened by groups of people who feel compelled to compare them with the MegaDrive games of yester year. The underlying flaws in this argument are:

• A. Comparisons are being made to games as old as thirteen years and bear no relevance with today’s market.
• B. The newer sonic games are not trying to imitate the gameplay of the originals

The majority of fans continue to concern themselves with judging the most recent of sonic games by standards set when the serious was at it acme (peak). Not only is this a difficult expectation to reach, but it is one which is irrelevant when it is considered that each game was catering for a different industry period.

Why is it then that the fans are continuing to compare the old with the new? I think that perhaps it is because it is easier to judge games with similar aesthetics, rather than on game dynamics. For instance there would be far more relevance to compare “Crash Bandicoot GBA” with “Sonic Advance” because both have been developed to cater for the same industry.

Generally the comparisons made between old and new sonic games tend to focus on comparing the two rather than contrasting them. If more attention was paid to contrasting the games, then it would be seen just how different the new games are from the originals. Just like Sonic Advance 2, Sonic Advance 3 is all about speed. Many would agree that both games were trying to imitate the Classic MegaDrive gameplay, and failing to do so. A more realistic approach would be to suggest the GBA games are not trying to imitate the originals; instead they are trying to establish a new set of dynamics for a new generation of sonic. The problem is that so long as critics continue to think the new is trying to imitate the old, they will always see differences from the older games as a negative, rather than the positive that it is.

The biggest flaw in most comparisons is the inclusion of the speed element. For people who concern themselves so much with the original sonic games, it seems unusual that one important factor has escaped them: sonic never achieves blistering speed, at leased not to the degree we see in Sonic Advance 2 and 3. With the exception of early levels which were purposely designed to be less complex, there was more emphasis put on the platforming element of the originals rather than rip roaring speeds. This is not to say there was no speed in sonic, because there was, but more often than not it was restricted to small sections abruptly ending in cruel object placement and far overshadowed by the platforming elements. Below is a list of levels which demonstrated the greater emphasis on platforming in the original sonic games:

• Marble Zone 1,2,3 (Sonic 1 MD)
• Spring Yard Zone 1,2,3 (Sonic 1 MD)
• Labyrinth Zone 1,2,3 (Sonic 1 MD)
• Scrap Brain Zone 1,2,3 (Sonic 1 MD)
• Casino Night Zone 1,2 (Sonic 2 MD)
• Hill Top Zone 1,2 (Sonic 2 MD)
• Oil Ocean Zone 1,2 (Sonic 2 MD)
• Metropolis Zone 1,2,3 (Sonic 2 MD)
• Flying Fortress Zone (Sonic 2 MD)
• Hydro city 1,2, (Sonic 3 MD)
• Carnival Night 1,2 (vonic 3)
• Icecap 1,2 (Sonic 3 MD)
• Launch Base 1,2 (Sonic 3 MD)
• Sandopolis 1,2 (Sonic and Knuckles)
• Lava Reef 1,2 (Sonic and Knuckles)
• Deathegg 1,2 (Sonic and Knuckles)

If you consider all this, then a game that was far closer to the originals was Sonic Advance. Ironically this gas was criticised for not being enough like the originals.

2004 looks set to be big in terms of online events. We have the sure-fire hit, Sonic Site Awards this year, we also have the Sonic Comic Convention, held by SonicVerse Team, SAGE 9 will hit in September, and you also have this newcoming event, the ‘Chaos Con’. New fansite Prower Power has wasted no time in being a hit with the Tails fans out there, and its Chaos Con is an online convention for all aspects of Sonic works. A bit like TSS’ Sonic Fan Club, only as a convention to make the whole thing a bit more special, perhaps. Over the next few days we will review the different sections – there currently stands “Fan Art”, “Fan Fiction” and “Fan Games” – and all the candidates within them. Here’s to a successful Chaos Con run this year, and a good future for the event!

= 21st June: Fan Art Sector =

Although it’s very hard to review or criticise artwork for what it is, we present a list of the artists that feature in the Chaos Con, and we mention our favourite works within each of them.

– By SonicFanatic

When we checked, there was merely a link to SonicFanatic’s DeviantArt, so we shall just look through this. The artwork consists of mainly fan character work – a character called Naomi the Mouse, that is very well drawn indeed – A Sonic Team style shading of Naomi is presented very well – The drawing that catches our eye the most however is the Sonic X art image of Sonic pulling his eye down. The style of art here is quite different indeed, and much of the other artwork is to be commended. Good job sir.

– By Zebby Zebra

Despite being new to the ‘net, Zebby has gotten the grasp of arting her favourite characters, and being a SonAmy (read: Sonic & Amy… ‘together’. Not like THAT, pervs, in a relationship. Geez…) fan, many works involve Amy and SonicXAmy. The ‘Amy at 17’ artwork is very cute, and our favourite may lie with the Team Rose picture. Big looks so vacant… so perfect… 😀

– By Trigger Happy Rose

We’re big fans of sketch drawings. And Chibi. Gotta love the chibi-ness. Although there are only three art pieces in this booth, Trigger Happy Rose is certainly more than competent at the ol’ pen and paper business. The “Chibi Group Photo” reminds us a lot of our Japanese friend Aoi’s work, but what made us go “Wow” was the “Glare” picture, of Shadow standing there all smug with himself. One of our favourite pictures.

– By Daikonran the Blackice kitsune

Havoc Studio’s Art selection for Chaos Con was not available when we went to write-up. When it becomes available, we will add what our favourite bits and art is in this booth in the near future.

– By Chibi Yoshi

A vast selection of art from Chibi Yoshi, past and present. The pencil colouring works great with the pictures, and some art pieces are rather comedic and quite funny. There’s a thanksgiving funny involving Shadow and Sonic and some Yu-Gi-Oh characters (from what we gather), and since we couldn’t give two rat’s arses about the direness that is Yu-Gi-Oh, our favourite sketch goes to the rather cool Chaos and Eggman picture (“I gave you a baby, now gimme emeralds”) – but our favourite coloured picture must be the ‘Shadow of the Hedgehog’ piece with a rather wicked Shadow cast on the wall in the figure of a familiar character. Good show.

Well, it’s Sonic’s birthday again. June 23rd 2004 – it’s amazing how time flies: not long ago we were all celebrating Sonic’s 10th anniversary! But what have we got to show for it? This would be the part, naturally, where most people would sit down, take a deep breath and count all of Sonic Team’s mistakes non-stop for the space of ten minutes: “Sonic Heroes… countless ports… Shadow’s still alive (well, the Shadow haters would say that anyway)”. Not that this whinging doesn’t stop anyway, but during the birthday period, it’s generally a time to reflect on how far Sonic has come since the previous year.

Call me a strange one, but I rather think that Sonic is on his way up. Upon reflection, Sonic really has come quite far over the last year. You may recall my most recent article before this one, about the general state of games being crowded, over-complex or simply ruined by the addition or placement of too many characters. Although there is a trend there that is really rather worrying – Emerl effectively is ‘reborn’ in Gmel in Sonic Advance 3 – perhaps not literally, but the fact that Gmel is pretty much a copy of Emerl and is obviously there for those fans of the boring belated robot in Sonic Battle – Sonic Heroes is really the only instance in which the character roster reaches breaking point.

Speaking of which, the only real disappointment of Sonic games as of late, if you don’t count the ports, has only been Sonic Heroes. Which, to my knowledge, is the first and only Sonic/Sonic Team game to date that has made me feel that standards are slipping. The first, probably the only, substandard Sonic game.

But no matter what people think of it, people still bought it. And a half. In fact, Sonic Heroes is so popular it’s still in the top 5 of every console chart to date since it’s release in February. Not many games these days actually last this long at all. In this sense, things have turned out very well for Sonic, for Sonic Team and especially for SEGA Europe, who had the massive pressure of making the game a success in our continent.

“But Sonic Heroes is crap!” So bloody what? You bought it didn’t you?
Play the damn thing instead of blasting it, if only for half an hour.

It’s all about having fun, remember?

Now we got Sonic Heroes out of the way, Sonic’s presence elsewhere has been felt with, for the most part, happiness and good feeling. Whatever your own personal opinions about Sonic’s offerings outside the games is your own. Whereas Sonic Heroes is to be admired for it’s popularity and success, the rest have been generally decent all round.Sonic Advance 3 was released just before Sonic’s 13th. Which was quite nice, wasn’t it? Perhaps we notice anniversaries more when a game is released in close proximity to it… Sonic Advance 3 does not disappoint, and is a very enjoyable game indeed. What with all this bad feeling flying about regarding Sonic recently, playing this game just about lifts all of those doubts about the blue blur’s future, if only for a little while (until you stop playing it). Indeed, many ideas in Advance 3 have been adopted from past games, although unlike Sonic Heroes they have been done a little bit more tastefully and Advance 3 manages to pull it’s own little twists on the homages. Playing as Sonic with Tails running around after you instantly reminds you of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but rather than make you wish it really was Sonic 2, it stands out as a decent game in it’s own right. Seeing Tails being as dumb as usual will no doubt raise a smile.

Go on, play Sonic Advance 3. Let Tails run around erratically a bit. He may even unexpectedly jump down a pit for no reason. Let’s see that smile. Come on, raise that grin.

That’s better! That’s what this is all about!

Oh, look, it’s cynicism! My, aren’t YOU funny?

When was the last time you genuinely smiled when something Sonic was within your presence? It was most likely something regarding a Mega Drive or a SEGA Saturn. Or maybe even Sonic Adventure 1 on the Dreamcast. Even after Sonic Adventure’s release on SEGA’s last console, the “fans” have found constant things to nit-pick and complain about. All things that come back to bite them in the arse some years later.Take the aformentioned Sonic Adventure. A truly great game, and a perfect example of taking Sonic into the third dimension. Sure, it had a few faults here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed in a future sequel. Some decided to voice their dislike in the Adventure Field; that these free-roaming sections made the game boring, tedious, and resulted in them calling Sonic Adventure a seemingly average game. Fair enough, people have their own opinions. After the release of Sonic Adventure 2 and even Sonic Heroes however, these very same people are exclaiming that Sonic Adventure was the best of the lot and even cite the Adventure Fields as a point for future games to base themselves on!

These hypocrites are everywhere, and constantly fans seem to find more time to nitpick a certain game rather than comment on it’s good points. It’s a little bit different for Site webmasters like myself; we review Sonic games for your convenience, and thus if a decent review is to be executed, good and bad points must be focused on. And if a game has more bad points than good, then so be it. It’s the ‘qualified decision’ of the reviewer. This addiction of slamming Sonic games for no due reason go far beyond the reasons of simply ‘self-reviewing’ a game.

Yes, you see people on Message Boards, who don’t own websites, effectively voicing their opinions on a particular game. People are perfectly within their own rights to effectively “review” a game themselves. But when it comes down to it, many people don’t even make very good opinions on them – if you only have bad things to say about a game, people will just think you are out to bash Sonic and the games that spawn from him. And in this day and age, I’m looking at many people’s opinionated topics, and would have to say this is not very far from the truth.

“I’m an oldie fan, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the best, SA2 sux, blah blah blah!”

Unfortunately, much of this bad feeling originate from a particular fan group – the ‘oldies’. ‘Oldies’ are Sonic followers that claim they have been a fan since the very beginning. And what do these people have to show for it? A bunch of abuse for anything new that appears with Sonic’s name on it. They will say everything after a specific point has been total crap. Some people will say Sonic R, some Sonic Adventure. The worst ones will have a high disgust for anything immediately after Sonic 3 & Knuckles.Much of the criticisms thrown towards Sonic games these days is the classic quip “It’s nothing like the classic Sonic games”. These traditionalist Sonic fans will chuck this line at you all the time, attempting to denounce anyone who likes anything sub-Sonic Adventure (or whatever) as a “newbie fan” and that you’re not worth the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. These people give the real ‘oldies’ a bad name, and many people who have loved Sonic since the beginning and are more level headed in their judgement avoid this title like the plague. Indeed, “oldie fan” has now become the new “N00b fan”. And is it any wonder?

Heading back to Sonic Heroes again for a split second, while this may have been the first real disappontment in a mainstream home console Sonic game, it’s undeniable that it has its fun points. Any review will tell you this – at least the ones that know its ‘gameplay’ from its ‘GamePro’. We’ve already noted that Sonic Advance 3 is quite a worthy game to commemorate Sonic’s birthday this year. The Sonic Archie comics get more flak than most, but at least they are still in circulation and keep many fans happy, and Sonic X has kept many people gripped with the latest storylines revolving around Sonic trapped in a foreign dimension.

These things will all be called upon as some sort of dumbed-down fanboy hysterical rubbish by the ‘oldies’ and they’re almost fascist beliefs (Sonic-wise that is). But their suggested alternative – “Make games more like the originals” – how much would that work, if you actually put that theory into practice?

So, you like ‘classic’, eh?

Perhaps the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) case for detailing a Sonic game with elements adopted from the classic games – Sonic Heroes. Classic tunes, sound effects, cliches, techniques and ideas were used in Sonic Heroes to make the older gamer feel more at home. But did this work? Unfortunately not, for Sonic Team. And yet many of these ‘oldies’, who preach to us like we don’t know what we’re talking about, hate the game themselves. I smell a whiff of irony about the place. Justified for other people to like or dislike it, because although people like you or I would have liked a return to Sonic’s roots, we never paraded around saying anything else was utter crap. A stern realisation in Sonic Heroes is that “classic” just does not translate well into 3D.Another thing to point out, is that much of the ‘Sonic Team’ that worked on the Mega Drive projects of yore no longer work at today’s Sonic Team: they have either since left to follow their own pursuits, or were part of the American ‘SEGA Technical Institute’ team that Yuji Naka abandoned after Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The point is, you will never get a game like Sonic 3 & Knuckles in today’s gaming, it’s just as impossible as you’d never get a Sonic Adventure in the classic days, or in the very far future of game evolution.

Game franchises need to evolve with new technologies, they need to breathe. Sonic Adventure is the “classic Sonic games” of the new generation of Sonic fans, it is now the benchmark for excellent Sonic games. Much like Super Mario 64 is the benchmark for excellent Mario games now rather than Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros 3. That is not to say people should forget all about the classic games – look at Sonic Mega Collection – but you don’t see many Mario fans parading around saying Super Mario Sunshine should have been more like Super Mario World, do you?

SMILE, BE HAPPY YOU CRAZY FOOLS

Why have I been going on about ‘oldies’ for the last half an hour? It brings me to the earlier point, and the whole point of this article – there is too much cynicism in the Sonic Community these days – too many people think that the classic games are the epiphany of ‘excellence’ and should be revived. My suggestion? Leave classic games as they are – bloody classic!The main reason for everyone acting so bloody glum all the time is that they WANT Sonic to be more like his 2D Mega Drive outings. Sorry, but what exact part of Sonic Adventure did you hate so much? These people that think the only way Sonic will get better if they revert are just deluding themselves – the real fans will know that the future of Sonic is the most exciting part of being a fan, and if a Sonic game brings a new element into gameplay while giving good grounds for a storyline and a gameplay mechanic, and there is a potential future for this new line of Sonic game, then let this new Sonic game be tried. By restricting Sonic to just the classic games, you are doing nothing to Sonic games in general, and you yourself are limiting Sonic’s ability to evolve into something that is as equally exciting in this generation of gaming as Sonic & Knuckles was in the 16-bit generation. What impressed in the 16-bit era will not impress anyone, not even yourself, in this generation of gaming.

As I close this birthday article, I urge you to take a look around you, take a look or think about what is here and what lies ahead. You have a line of classic Sonic games that broke the mould in the 16-Bit era. You have Sonic Adventure, which broke the mould for platforming games in general, in much the same way the original Sonic the Hedgehog adapted to Super Mario Bros. own game. We have the Sonic Advance series, and most recently Sonic Advance 3, which is the closest you can get to the ‘classic’ gaming while still managing to impress with it’s own style of platforming gameplay. We have Sonic Mega Collection, a homage to the games we all loved so dearly. We have Sonic Heroes, which does have some great gameplay mechanics and is an enjoyable ride, even if it all does seem dumbed down. We have Sonic DS round the corner, which will introduce us into a new way to play Sonic that no-one can even guess yet, and we have Sonic X and the comics in America, which provide ample entertainment when you’re not being anti-social playing games ;). Now you know what we have around us, just stop being pessimistic over your favourite game character, stop moaning about his direction, stop preaching the classic games, and just sit there, play, read, watch, and enjoy. Listen to no-one and ignore everyone, and revert yourself back when playing Sonic Adventure or Sonic Heroes and imagine yourself as a kid again, reliving this new Sonic world through the eyes of yourself when you played Sonic 2 for the first time.

Be happy, enjoy what we have. Sonic, like all gaming and entertainment mediums, are there to make us happy and let us enjoy the product. Cast aside all your doubts, if even for a day, and just relax in a world of Sonic, rather than regretting a world of Sonic.

Sonic Adventure 2 was, for all intents and purposes, a bloody good game. An excellent game, in fact. It was a perfect game for a perfect time; Sonic fans were growing up and were looking for something to top their current favourite Dreamcast game, Sonic Adventure. It was a very special time for Sonic, and for Sonic Team – at this point in time Yuji Naka and his wickin’ crew could seem to do no wrong whatsoever, after creating the quadruple threat that was Sonic Adventure, ChuChu Rocket!, Phantasy Star Online and Samba de Amigo. 2001 came, and E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo, held every year in May at Los Angeles) was the perfect time to show the world more of Sonic Adventure 2.

2001 was not only a brilliant time for Sonic Team to shine, it was also a landmark moment for Sonic himself: June 23rd 2001 would mark his official 10th birthday, and a lot of fuss was rounded by SEGA around the world to commemorate the 10th Anniversary. Sonic Adventure 2 not only was a landmark game in terms of accomplishment, but in addition to this it was both the landmark game that Sonic fans fondly remember as THE game to mark Sonic’s birthday; and on a sadder note it was also to be Sonic’s last outing on the SEGA Dreamcast. This made Sonic Adventure 2 not only great in the hands of journalists and non-Sonic fans alike, but for us Sonic fans, it was a game to forever treasure and hold even more dear to us.

The story was excellently written, and provided the perfect storyline for a time such as this. It introduced a new character called ‘Shadow’, which would end up being Sonic’s “dark side”. This story was a great gimmick for a time that was so good for Sonic fans, that it was truly something to remember. Sonic and Shadow’s final battle with each other, running along the Space Colony ARK, if nothing else added to the fact that the whole package – like Sonic’s 10th Anniversary – was something of epic proportions.

Then, at the very end of the game, Sonic and friends (even Dr. Eggman, like in Sonic Adventure) have to defeat a great evil in the way of Gerald Robotnik’s overpowering moustache. Oh, and that Biolizard thing. During the final battle where Sonic and Shadow team up to knock the Biolizard on its rectum, Shadow loses power and falls towards the planet, supposedly never to be seen again.

“Maria, this is what you wanted, right? This is my promise I made to you.”

Wow. What a perfect end to a perfect Sonic game. A character who you grow to become fond of during the course of Sonic Adventure 2 “dies”, leaving you only the fond memories of playing as him in the game, just like Sonic and friends are left with only the fond memories of Shadow and his misunderstood character. This gave even more reason to treasure the game, and to keep playing over and over.

Sonic Adventure 2: The Experience of a Lifetime?

It would have been just perfect if that was the last we ever heard of Shadow (excepting possible future spin-off games), but there was a problem. Somehow, somewhere, some group of sad misfits did not want closure on Shadow’s death, infinitely finding him “more cool than Sonic”. ‘Theories’ were constantly, constantly made between this small but significant group of fanboys regarding “Shadow’s death”, including possible ways in how he could have actually survived. And you should have heard them…“Shadow could have used Chaos Control with the last amount of energy he had”
“If you look closely, Shadow still has his flame ring, he could have had some power left…”
“… NO$! ShAd0W’z Nut DED! h3 WUz sTill SuPeR wh3n he fELL!”

Now, I don’t have anything against wanting a character to return. There are many instances in many games before this where a small (or large) group of people want a return of “X character” or “X game”. Cloud, the “mature” Link, a new Gunstar Heroes… But for the period between August 2001 and late 2002 (when Sonic Heroes was announced), the entire Sonic community was riddled with fanboy talk on Shadow and wanting his return. It got to such a point in even The Sonic Stadium’s Message Board, that most talk on Shadow is now outlawed on the SSMB.

However, the unthinkable happened. Sonic Team showed screens of Sonic Heroes, and along with it the definite proof that Shadow was alive and kicking. The response was a mix of pleasure (for the most part), hatred and indifference (I pretty much stood inbetween ‘hatred’ and ‘indifference’). Many people were so happy that Shadow was alive…

However, the repurcussions this event would have on how people percieved Sonic Team, and their subsequent game Sonic Heroes, would be catastrophic. And who can blame us? It’s true, many people were happy that Shadow returned, but thinking rationally for a second, what exactly would that have accomplished? Perhaps more levels like Sonic, another “Sonic’s Dark Side” story twist, being the opposite of Sonic again?

This is where Sonic Team lost points severely with audience morale. Except for maybe the Shadow fans of today, but even now these fans are starting to lose interest in Shadow. The whole point was that Shadow was meant for one game, and one game only – Sonic Adventure 2. By effectively “reviving” the character, you completely destroy Sonic Adventure 2 entirely, in terms of both storyline plotholes and the special experience that fans felt back in 2001.

Sonic Adventure 2 is no longer a special game to fans. In fact, most people now hate the game, and even Sonic Team themselves, because of the huge fact that Shadow has been uneccessarily revived. And as a result, Sonic Team have now lost their “invincibility” that they had from 1999, up until they announced Sonic Heroes.

Un-Happy 10th Anniversary, Sonic!

Why did reviving Shadow destroy Sonic Adventure 2? First of all, it’s the experience that fans had in 2001, which is the most important reason for this turn of events. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, Sonic Adventure 2 had a massive impact on the fans when it was originally released – it was a special game that made fans feel special themselves when playing it. The storyline was unlike anything ever written before, surpassing Sonic Adventure 1’s storyline. This made the fans feel that extra effort was being spent on SA2, and therefore more effort was being spent on Sonic’s 10th Anniversary and the fans that have loved Sonic up until that time.Now Shadow is “alive”, what will happen now? Well, in Sonic Heroes, exactly the same happened. Shadow was a “Dark version of Sonic” more or less, with him being ‘evil, but misunderstood’. The same character background is being repeated from Sonic Adventure 2, and that completely undermines Sonic Adventure 2’s original storyline and charm.

Sonic Heroes was poor on many levels, but the most relevant one to note for this article is that nothing was done with Shadow’s character. It was almost as if Sonic Team just copied Shadow’s story from Sonic Adventure 2, minus the “Maria” part and pasted it into Heroes. At least if Shadow’s background or character was taken further, then most fans would have tolerated his return.

The very fact that Shadow is alive in Sonic Heroes means that he has indeed “survived”, which means the whole ending and atmosphere of Sonic Adventure 2 has been ruined, as well as losing the special appeal that the game had. Instead of one landmark game where you could play to save the world or conquer it (Sonic Adventure 2), you have a pathetic ‘Fisher Price’ style Sonic game (Sonic Heroes) that steals that very idea and makes the previous landmark game redundant and unimportant. It’s almost as if, in doing this, Sonic Team actually have no respect for Sonic’s 10th Anniversary and their fans during that period at all, instead favouring the fanboys who really know no better, with their only opinion being “Please bring back [insert character here] back”. Geez, no-one went this nuts for Gamma did they, and Gamma’s levels had more significance than Shadow’s did in SA2: at least Gamma didn’t have the same abilities or style of stages as Sonic did.

It’s all about the kids, remember?

Of course, if it’s the kids’ decision to want Shadow back, then who the heck are we to argue? We’re only fans that not only have been knowledgeable about Sonic longer than them, are actually wiser about gaming ourselves and would know a little more about how a game would be percieved or end up playing. Unfortunately, as it happens we are now considered adults, and Sonic Team no longer want to listen to us. Funny, because they seemed like their ears were open for almost everything we said back in 2001, a mere three years ago.Of course, while the whole ‘kids’ debate is something to be spared for later, it was mainly their views that were listened to when Sonic Team decided upon whether to bring Shadow back. And then Sonic Heroes arrived. Which provided an onslaught of characters, not only Shadow, but even dusting off old favourites such as Chaotix. Surely an attempt to try and make up with us older fans who actually knew who the Chaotix team was before Sonic Heroes was released.

Getting a bit cramped in here…

The amount of characters, especially new ones, is overwhelming in the Sonic universe, if we were to break off from Shadow for about ten seconds. Sonic Adventure gave us Big the Cat, E-102 Gamma and Chaos, SA2 brought us Shadow, Rouge, Maria, Gerald Robotnik, and Sonic Heroes provided us with E-121 Omega. The new characters from Sonic Adventure were created tastefully, with only one game in mind. Sonic Adventure 2 broke that rule with Shadow and also thought it would be funny to make Rouge a returning character too. No doubt we’ll see Omega again as well.But just what good are all these new characters? Sonic Team are making new characters in every game, and almost seem to want to make some kind of “Sonic Colony” where there’ll be about 200 new characters by 2030. All of them seem to have next to no real purpose of returning – even Cream the Rabbit and Cheese the Chao was a new character as of Sonic Advance 2, and she probably is the most useless of the lot (sorry all you Cream fans ^_^).

Perhaps a general response would be that, since I’m an old fan from “the beginning”, that I would have no bones about old characters like Fang/Nack, Mighty and the Tails Doll returning in a new Sonic game. And while yes, I do have a lot of fond feelings towards those sidelined characters, my opinion would be no different. Only bring them back in a new game if it’s necessary and it helps. Let’s face it, Team Chaotix looked really out of place in Sonic Heroes, and some would even take a dislike to they way they “mutilated” Vector and the disappearance of Mighty. And Shadow returning in Sonic Heroes was certainly NOT necessary.

Go on now, back to your graves!

Is this character misuse something that will happen in the future? At the moment, most definitely – Sonic Team have seriously gone downhill since Sonic Adventure 2, and I’m not even sure if Naka-san and co are aware of it. The latest news on the rumourmill is that even Emerl may return for a new Sonic game. Why? Because the fanboys want ‘him’/it back.Sigh. Is there no hope for these people? G-mel appeared in Sonic Advance 3 because of the ‘Emerl Collective’ and that was frankly when I just lost interest. On the back of this, it could well be inevitable that we see Emerl and his stupidly DragonBallZ style fighting ways return on our screens. It’s as if the Shadow fans have died and it’s all about Emerl now.

My advice to Sonic Team, and especially Naka-san, before they dig themselves an early grave (which will be too small to fit all the Sonic Team members and the Sonic characters they’ve created so far – Naka-san will have to decompose in next-door’s coffin) with all these stupid returns of one-hit-wonder characters like Shadow and Emerl, would be this: Don’t take everything the kids say for what everyone else wants.

Kids are fickle, are outspoken and they certainly don’t really know what they’re wanting really for the most part. It’s like a toy. They will want the latest Action Man just because “it’s there” and after weeks of going on about it, the new toy is finally bought for the kid. Do they actually play with it after receiving it at long last? No. They just push it aside. And the parent who buys the toy suffers, because they spent money on a useless toy.

So please, Sonic Team, don’t make the same mistake – don’t bring back a character just because kids want them. Because, like Sonic Heroes, the kids who wanted Shadow back now couldn’t care less, and it will be the more dedicated fans and the older fans that will suffer because of your errors. So please listen to the dedicated fans as well as the kids.

Oh, and kill off Shadow, never bring him back – and save whatever last grain of honour you have left for your Sonic fans of 2001. Thank you.

E3. The Electronic Entertainment Expo. The biggest video games showcase on this living earth, and also known as the Journalist’s Zoo. Taking place every May, Sonic Team have been on hand to show the world their latest games, alongside other worthy stalwarts such as Nintendo and… Nintendo. Oh and Bungie. Last year brought Sonic Heroes to the Los Angeles show floor, 2002 was comparatively minimal due to the exchange in SEGA’s first-to-third party involvement, and 2001 – well, 2001 blew everyone away with Sonic Adventure 2, didn’t it? Thankfully, Sonic Team made a pretty good presence at this year’s E3, bringing more to the table than the blatantly obvious, with even a kitsch little demo of Sonic on Nintendo’s new DS portable system. This page showcases all of Sonic Team’s showings at the LA gathering, how we can expect them to play like, and just how damn excited we should be with them. Onward, noble steed – sorry, that was The Legend of Zelda again wasn’t it? I should stop doing that.

Click on the images to enlarge them…

SAGE 8 appears just in time for the Spring Season, and much talk has been discussed about the March show of the Sonic Amateur Games Expo being canned in favour of the Autumn section of the show, the latter of which being traditionally more popular. But now that SAGE 7 helped make the event interesting again (not to mention TSS’ exclusive coverage), SAGE 8 has literally blown us away! 68 registered booths for the March event, with the website taking a more classic look – seems like there’s life left in the old donkey after all.

Words by Svend Joscelyne and Cyberblade

Chao Online – Marc Gordon
Chao Online is an advanced version of the Tiny Chao Gardens you find on Sonic Advance, Sonic Pinball Party et al. Essentially, it brings all the features from the 3D games, like Chao Karate, Racing, Chao Adventure… into a fully online title! This sounds like a very interesting concept, and since Chao are pretty much a broken commodity on Sonic games, despite the rather large fanbase for them, Chao Online could be just the community get-together we could wish for.

Sonic: Project Mettrix – Organised Chaos
If you’ve never heard of “Project Mettrix”, then prepare to be amazed. It’s a Sonic fangame, but the quality is such that you’d think it was “Sonic 3 & Knuckles 2”! The engine is perfected and last SAGE there was a playable demo that stunned the world. This SAGE unfortunately the only thing that’s new is a new engine. But, more exciting than it appears, this engine is much more advanced than the last one, so when they return next time expect to see some, as some delinquents would call, 1337n3$$.

Sonic the Fighters II – Shadow Team
Sonic the Fighters 2 is the latest major title from Shadow Team, a fangame development ‘studio’ that’s deeply linked with The Sonic Stadium. In STF2 you take control of many of your favourite Sonic characters and duke it out with others to beat them and progress – your aim? To defeat Quicksilver, a robot formed from a nasty experiment from Eggman involving Metal Sonic and Shadow. Multi-player modes are confirmed, with dedicated 2-Player and 4-Player party modes planned. The first demo was launched at SAGE 8, and most people who have played it seemed to love it, which is cool. Shadow Team’s booth also consisted of ‘Sonic Ultimate’, the major project from a new arm of Shadow Team, Cyberblade Productions. Sonic Ultimate is a platforming Sonic game with back-to-the-roots action, and it’s coming along great. We’ll be back for SAGE 9, so look out for us there!

Dimension Warped – Intelligence Squared
Could this be the first true 3D Sonic the Hedgehog fangame? Time will tell, but Dimension Warped is currently impressing all and sundry at SAGE, even with limited information and nothing but concepts and CG art in the way of images. The promise is riding heavy on this, and hopefully the promise will be fulfilled: A custom level editor, 2 player co-operative mode and even customizeable characters are slated for addition, the latter most likely coming along as some kind of patch soon after the actual game is finished. The concept arts and models of Sonic, Shadow and company look great, with a cel-shaded twist to them. Keep a fat eye on this one.

Retro Sonic – Taxman
The last time we saw Retro Sonic, we were blown away. Much akin to Sonic Mettrix, this is a Sonic game that we last saw in 2002 that is being made in C++ programming. The developer, Taxman, is incredibly talented and the demo we played made our jaws drop. The appearance of Retro Sonic at SAGE 8 brings nothing but more surprise, as Taxman announces he’s to completely re-write the engine for the game to include a multi-player option, larger levels, accurately programmed shields and other gameplay elements and even a better special stage. Even more breathtaking is that Taxman is also in development with the ‘Retro Sonic Development Kit’, which when finished, will allow your average joe to make a complex new or even recreate original Sonic the Hedgehog zones. When Retro Sonic is finished you’ll be packing your pants to see it, just like we are right now… Maybe we shouldn’t have said that.