Apparently Brazil are STILL crazy for old tech. Sega’s distributor and licensee for games in the South America region, Tectoy, are back with a vengeance and have announced a brand new Master System model. Imaginitively titled the ‘Master System 3′, the console will resemble something of a cross between a Mega Drive and a 3DO, with two six-button pads, 131 built-in MS games and a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog painted on the top.
There’s no cartridge slot for inserting old games, so you’ll have to make do with the ones already pre-loaded - all said to be G-rated games. Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Drift 2 (a Game Gear-only release outside of Brazil - Tectoy were famous for porting GG games over to the Master System) are among the Sonic games you can access on the console, with other titles including the Alex Kidd series, Enduro Racer, New Zealand Story and Cyber Shinobi. Cyber Shinobi!!!
It actually looks quite funky. Collector’s item for the Sonic fan? You (or T-Bird) decide. Probably not worth it’s asking price though - equivalent of £72.
SAGE director, Shadix, and I got to interview Richard Jacques during SAGE and we had an extensive discussion on his favorites, creative process, and various other thoughts. The interview takes about a minute to get into it, as there’s a strange hiss for a bit, but yes, there is an interview after that noise. Also, whenever a caller-hangs up, there’s a bit of dead air. Technical difficulties, ya know.
Also, reminder! At 9 PM EST on Thursday, August 20th (which would be today), Mike Pollock, the voice of Dr. Eggman, will be in the chat channel to field questions and on the air to host a gameshow! It’s a can’t miss event!
There are always short demos on the show floor, so I’m combining them into one post here. Today, I’ll be reviewing a few of the lesser known titles at the show, in order to give them some exposure. The bigger games you already know about and will be getting larger reviews, like Fated Hour, later this year. I’m holding those off, as they always update with bug fixes and stuff throughout the expo.
The following, arbitrary scoring system will be used for these review round-ups:
Sucks: Avoid at all costs
Kinda Sucks: You might like it, but probably not
Meh: Doesn’t suck, but isn’t cool either
Interesting: Worth your time
Way Past Cool: Must see!
SONIC PANIC - Meh
Spike has had this game running for nearly 3 years now and this year, we get new content and a brand new name. Formerly named, “Sonic the Hedgehog 4,” Sonic Panic follows Sonic as he chases Robotnik across various galaxies and planets. The demo features the Planet Mech level of Rail Road, which is a Genesis revamp of Sunset Park from Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble on the Game Gear. I am a complete sucker for Game Gear levels, so I went into the demo with modest expectations.
First off, you will notice that the music is awful. The instrumentation is simply horrific and you will be cursing FL Studio for having such poor guitar samples. Once you get past that, your attention will be directed towards the “close, but not quite” physics of the game, which are decent enough. Jumping could use some improving and the spindash is extremely weak, but otherwise, the whole gameplay experience is serviceable and is hardly game-breaking in the slightest.
As a Genesis-styled game, the level design features branching paths and “awesome secret walkthough wall shit.” While it is nice to have many places to go, there is simply not much to do. The whole level is devoid of any activity, mostly due to the lack of badniks, as I only encountered a couple. There are a few industrial-themed gimmicks in there to tide you over in spots, however.
Augmenting the demo’s emptiness has to be the graphics. Essentially everything is black and any variety the foreground tries to offer is thrown out the window. There is the occasional yellow, construction stripe, but that is about it. The background is nice, with the sunset and all, but the black silhouettes of the towers in the background have no contrast to the foreground, thus adding to the black attack. Read the rest of this entry »
After much hype and hearsay about the return of what some deem to be a cult character from the Sonic Universe, it looks like the Hatted Weasel/Wolf character, Fang the Sniper, WILL NOT be appearing in the up-and-coming multi-platform game Sonic Unleashed.
The SEGA Blognik, run and maintained by the ever present ArchAngelUK, made a post earlier afer enquiries had been made with SEGA’s brand manager in regards to the rumours about the return of Fang the Sniper: ” I asked the brand manager directly. The answer was “who’s he?” “.
So unfortunately kids, it looks like we aren’t going to see the return of Fang. Disappointed? Perhaps, perhaps not. On the positive side, the images released from Leipzig looks promising, so hopefully the lack of cork guns won’t ruin what looks to be a promising game.
I seem to have misplaced my DS…if anyone sees it, let me know.
Really really nice, as it happens! There were fears that the lack of horsepower on the waggle-console would lead to a decidedly crappier looking game, but Dimps appear to be doing a fantastic job of maintaining the style of the next-gen experience and pumping their own Wii-specific controls into it. Naturally there’s a graphical deficiency that you notice if you compare Wii to 360 graphics, and Nintendo’s console is having a bit of a palette downgrade going on (looking a bit more brown I’d say) but you gotta admit it’s pretty tasty all the same. Looks like Sega really do like to push the graphical power of the Wii as much as they can.
Hit the jump for the gallery, you can also see some Wiire-hog action going on. Look, he’s jumping over razorblades like in Sonic 1! But… he’s a werewolf! Khaaaan! Read the rest of this entry »
New stage screens have appeared for Sonic Chronicles at Leipzig - this will most likely be playable at the press event itself at Sega’s booths. We get to see a lot more of Knuckles here, including some of his POW moves, and we come face to face with a slimy thing that appears to invite Sonic into his parlour. Ooh er missus. Those who played the Nintendo DS RPG at the Summer of Sonic convention can agree that this is shaping up to be a rather awesome little title for the hedgehog, and I’m particularly liking the ‘action’ artwork that appears in the top screen when a character performs a POW move. It doesn’t look like Uekawa’s work, but it sure makes me wish they’d do away with all the CG artwork these days and pump out some drawn stuff now and then.
I had an interview with Miles Holmes, the Lead Designer at BioWare for Sonic Chronicles a while ago, which should be published on a website I’ve been writing for very soon. His favourite game is Sonic Heroes, as a random tidbit of information there. Interesting, no?
Sure, we mock it but Sonic Unleashed is really turning out quite nice. We’re just not sure about the Werehog bit - he’s either fighting some alien creatures that, despite looking rather cute, seem like Sonic’s fighting Iblis Mk2 again (not very ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ at all), or he’s doing careful platform traversing that just makes you wonder “That could have been normal Sonic doing that in his stages”.
If Werehog’s doing all the skilful platforming, does that mean the awesome ’speed’ stages that Sonic’s involved in has no substance other than just running full tilt and pressing the odd button every now and then? We hope not - only time can tell.
By the way, we’ve also been sent a BONUS ART PIECE for the game, you can click the image above to grab it in full size. Otherwise, hit the jump for screens of Werehog dealing out da punishment! Read the rest of this entry »
The Leipzig Games Convention takes place tomorrow, and we can expect plenty of fresh information on Sonic Unleashed. According to the TalkPlayStation Blog however, one reader (called ‘Dan’) couldn’t contain his secrets any longer and apparently spilled some massive story-based beans. Among the unsupported claims is talk of Sonic and the Werehog having separate ‘Super’ forms, Tails appearing with the Tornado and something about a Chaos Golem. Here’s TalkPlayStation with some more tidbits:
The returning character is called Fang the Sniper. He’ll be reinvented like the Chaotix were when they were reintroduced in Sonic Heroes. Fang the Sniper is hired to destroy the Werehog with the promise that he can get the Emerals from his dead body. He becomes an occasional rival in three or four boss battles. In their final battle, he reaches the last Emerald before Sonic and has an adverse effect.
Again, there are no official sources confirming this, so don’t go over the top with this newfound information, kids. There’s a chance that reader ‘Dan’ may just be, you know, making it up. But GC’s only tomorrow, so we’ll know soon enough.
The man on the left is Kuzko. He found his groove in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. In this forgettable animated movie, starring David Spade and John Goodman, Kuzko (Spade) is turned into a llama by some crazy, usurper bitch and Pacha (Goodman) has to save him. They run around and do a whole bunch of wacky shit, avoiding the crazy, usurper bitch as much as possible. They get to Kuzko’s palace to reverse the process, an epic battle ensues, and Kuzko returns to being emperor and the big, stupid, comic relief character teaches some kids how to talk to woodland creatures. What does Kuzko learn? While a llama, he changes his arrogant, selfish ways and embraces the world and the people that inhabit it. His 180-degree turn is truly heartwarming, albeit formulaic and uninteresting.
What does Kuzko have to do with a Sonic fangame? Well, BlazeHedgehog’s Sonic: The Fated Hour has been in development for ten years. Ten. Read up on it, because I’m not lying here. Finally, after years of gameplay changes and data wipes, Fated Hour has finally found its “groove” in the alpha version of Sonic Worlds. Kuzko’s change of heart happens after he is transformed back into a human and Fated Hour is at this point still in the “llama” stage. The project has made a huge change for the better, hopefully leading to greater things, but there is still a long way to go to fully develop its character, like Kuzko.
Fated Hour offers up your standard fare of Genesis-styled gameplay, while expanding upon it to keep it more unique amongst the sea of booths at SAGE this year. These new inclusions are first made apparent by Amy Rose, who offers to explain the controls to the game. Rather than only have the jump button, there are four in use during the game. However, only two are in use during this showcase: jump and jump cancel. Jump cancel will break the ball Sonic normally goes into during a jump and allows him to grind a rail or wall-kick. The multiple button setup sounds good on paper, but trying to wall-jump between two walls with two buttons is cumbersome and mapping Sonic’s wall-stick to the jump button or making it automatic would work better. When the game offers high scores for best times, the time-attackist might have difficulty trying to blow by a section of wall jumping. This button tandem is like an old man, because it threw off my groove. Read the rest of this entry »
The good old days of 1992. Sonic was everywhere, your video game systems, your local book stores, American meatball cans, you name it, SEGA had an advertisement campaign involving it.
Member Godofwarordle (what?) at Game Trailers has recently dug up an old gem of a commercial involving Sonic and some inferior company mascot we forget the name of, advertising a box of Honey Nut Cheerio cereal. It looks like the advertisement ran around the time Sonic 2 was released on the Mega Drive… 1992. You received some nifty ‘gaming tips’ for Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine and ToeJam and Earl 2 on every box, plus the chance to win a SEGA Genesis console itself! Chances of winning were 1 in 10,000. Extremely generous of them, that.
You don’t see Mario having a corny Honey Nut Cheerio theme song now, do you?
Spike has had this game running for nearly 3 years now and this year, we get new content and a brand new name. Formerly named, “Sonic the Hedgehog 4,” Sonic Panic follows Sonic as he chases Robotnik across various galaxies and planets. The demo features the Planet Mech level of Rail Road, which is a Genesis revamp of Sunset Park from Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble on the Game Gear. I am a complete sucker for Game Gear levels, so I went into the demo with modest expectations.
The man on the left is Kuzko. He found his groove in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. In this forgettable animated movie, starring David Spade and John Goodman, Kuzko (Spade) is turned into a llama by some crazy, usurper bitch and Pacha (Goodman) has to save him. They run around and do a whole bunch of wacky shit, avoiding the crazy, usurper bitch as much as possible. They get to Kuzko’s palace to reverse the process, an epic battle ensues, and Kuzko returns to being emperor and the big, stupid, comic relief character teaches some kids how to talk to woodland creatures. What does Kuzko learn? While a llama, he changes his arrogant, selfish ways and embraces the world and the people that inhabit it. His 180-degree turn is truly heartwarming, albeit formulaic and uninteresting.
Fated Hour offers up your standard fare of Genesis-styled gameplay, while expanding upon it to keep it more unique amongst the sea of booths at SAGE this year. These new inclusions are first made apparent by Amy Rose, who offers to explain the controls to the game. Rather than only have the jump button, there are four in use during the game. However, only two are in use during this showcase: jump and jump cancel. Jump cancel will break the ball Sonic normally goes into during a jump and allows him to grind a rail or wall-kick. The multiple button setup sounds good on paper, but trying to wall-jump between two walls with two buttons is cumbersome and mapping Sonic’s wall-stick to the jump button or making it automatic would work better. When the game offers high scores for best times, the time-attackist might have difficulty trying to blow by a section of wall jumping. This button tandem is like 
