Monthly Archives

November 2011

Game News

An In-Depth–And Spoiler Filled–Look At Sonic Generations 3DS

Now that the fires from Generations on PS3, 360, and PC are cooling down, the 3DS version is running… well, slowly, briskly running behind its grander brethren. As we did a small reveal of details before, it only makes sense the 3DS version gets an equal opportunity. Since the 3DS is currently not quite as easy to pick apart as certain consoles, most of the juicy goodness comes our way thanks to Sonic Stadium member Thigolf after getting a copy of the game from a broken street date in Germany.

If the headline itself wasn’t enough of a deterrent, proceed at your own discretion.

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Merchandise

Pix ‘N Love Set To Release L’Histoire de Sonic The Hedgehog

One of the things I’ve always lamented about is the fact that there has never been a proper written history of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sure, the story has been touched upon by short and/or poorly made documentaries, and the English did have magazines about the history of Sonic. However, there has never been a comprehensive single printed volume of the twists and turns of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. That is about to all change…as long as you’re able to speak French.

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Game News

Water Palace Is Not Windmill Isle

A couple of weeks back the Japanese commercial of Sonic Generations aired and showed what looked like Windmill Isle from Sonic Unleashed in the 3DS version. Now it turns out that everyone on the internet was wrong about this, as according to the Spanish Official Nintendo Magazine it’s the other stage with a Mykonos-inspired background, Water Palace from Sonic Rush. This means that one of Sonic’s handheld adventures is being represented on the 3DS version after all. Besides this, the magazine gave it a 90 out of 100 in their review and mentioned that there are more than 100 missions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Via Sonic Paradise]

Game News

Mario and Sonic Visit Some Familiar Places

If you played Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, you may remember the dream events. If you didn’t, they were basically the normal Olympic events mixed up and put in stages from various Mario and Sonic games. For example, there was one where you snowboard through Radical Highway. These events return in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, with events taking place in Sonic levels like Windy Valley or BINGO Highway and levels themed after Mario games like Super Mario Galaxy. You can see them in action in the new trailer below:

The game is out now for Wii and a 3DS version will be released early next year.

Hacking, Miscellaneous

Appealing to the Most Players in a Post-Generations World

So, Takashi Iizuka recently gave an interview to GamesReactor concerning the future of Sonic the Hedgehog, and I was personally fascinated by the following response:

 But we want to reach the widest possible audience. So, you know, we will probably see Sonic going into other genres of games and also seeing Sonic in different media. So we will hopefully be able to have as many people as possible enjoy Sonic.

I am totally down for appealing to as wide an audience as possible, despite the mocking comments I read on that article. Wide appeal is good appeal. My question is this, though: can you appeal to both the three-year-old and six-year-old in all of us?

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Game News

Sonic Generations Soundtrack Announced, No Details Given


So it’s pretty much accepted that the soundtrack to Sonic Generations is awesome. Of course, unless you just sit in front of your television watching the game (or enjoy the music through other means), there hasn’t been a way to enjoy the music on its own. Even in some of his worst showings, Sonic has always been about the music, and yet much hasn’t been said about an official release.

Without much fanfare, SONIC GENERATIONS Original Soundtrack: Blue Blur has been officially announced on amazon.co.jp. Slated to be released on January 11th, 2012, the three-CD set looks to be the final hurrah for the 20th anniversary celebrations. Aside from that info, there hasn’t been anything else said about what the release will contain. No track listing, no number of songs, nothing about anything extra. All we know is that it will exist, which is enough for now. Hopefully, nothing will be missing on the track listing, since I know some people have been afraid it might not even come out since the DREAMS COME TRUE tracks are still owned by Masato Nakamura. Either way, it should prove to be exciting, if only so you can slide in a CD to impress your friends while you’re driving down the highway, unable to resist the urge to jam to Chemical Plant.

The set will retail for ¥ 4,200. No word on a western release just yet.

[Source: Amazon.co.jp]

Game News

SEGA Holds a Sonic CD Fan Art Contest

With Sonic CD getting a re-release done by The Taxman next month, SEGA has started a fan-art contest with 50 prizes being given away in North America, Mexico and the United Kingdom each, so that makes 150 winners in total. The five best winners in each territory will get a copy of Sonic CD on XBLA, PSN or Steam and a copy of the Japanese soundtrack signed by Takashi Iizuka, Jun Senoue, Naofumi Hataya and Kazuyuki Hoshino, something any fan would appreciate. All the other winners will get the same except the soundtrack isn’t signed.

There are a few things you need to know before entering the contest: your submission needs to be related to Sonic CD. If it isn’t, your entry will not count and you’ve done all that work for nothing. It needs to be original, created by you and it can’t have appeared anywhere else, so it can’t be something you’ve already put on websites like DeviantArt or on forums, and you can’t show it off before the contest ends. You also need to be 13 years or older to take part in the contest. The deadline is 10:00 AM PT/18:00 GMT November 29th, 2011.

To find out how you can enter the contest and for more information regarding the rules go to the SEGA Blog.

Game News

Sonic Generations PC Getting Boxed Release on November 25th in Europe

While the PC version of Sonic Generations has already been released on digital services like Steam worldwide, those without a credit card or Paypal haven’t been able to buy it yet. If you’re one of those people and live in Europe, you’re in luck. SEGA has announced that the physical version will be released on November 25th, the same day as the 3DS version. Australia will be getting it as well, but no date has been announced as of yet. There will be no retail release in the US or Japan and it uses Steamworks, so you’ll have to install Steam to be able to play it.

The PC version is probably the best version to get if you have the hardware to run it and a gamepad. Besides having prettier graphics and higher resolutions, it has a cheaper price-tag and it runs at 60 frames per second. However, besides a few minor issues some people with ATI cards or laptops with Optimus Technology have reported problems with running the game, so those may want to look for a workaround or wait for a patch or driver update before purchasing it.

For those that already have the game on PC, a patch weighing at 28.5MB recently got released on Steam. It fixes issues like not being able to drift when using the keyboard and the Shop menu being unresponsive at low frame rates. More details can be found in the patch notes:

Updates to Sonic Generations have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

– USA flag is now correctly displayed in Online Mode.
– Fixed an issue where the Shop menu would become unresponsive at low frame rates.
– More accurate timing clock to 60Hz—may fix some issues with fluctuant frame rates.
– Updated default keyboard layout.
– Keyboard controls now correctly support drift.
– Screen display has been sharpened when AA is disabled.

Notes:
– Users of NVIDIA Optimus graphics cards may experience an issue where the Configuration Tool fails to detect the Optimus card. NVIDIA are working on fixing the problem, and will get an update out shortly, during the next driver release window.

– If you experience any other problems, please contact [email protected] with details. To help us identify and fix the issue, please provide as much information as possible on your PC hardware, and the issue that you’re experiencing.

[Via Sonic Stadium and Steam]

Game News

Japan Gets Sonic Generations 20th Anniversary Set

While Europeans and Australians were able to get the collector’s edition of Sonic Generations earlier this month, those in the US only got the standard game with the Casino Night pinball stage as a pre-order bonus. You’d think Japan wouldn’t get this kind of treatment either, seeing how there aren’t a large amount of Sonic fans there. Surprisingly this isn’t the case, Japanese site ebten.jp has listed a 20th Anniversary Set with pictures and information on what it includes. This special edition is completely different from Europe’s CE, so you might want to see what it includes:

The main attraction of the set is a crystal cube with Sonic and a life monitor engraved into it (pictured above) which is 6 x 6 x 10 cm. They used a laser to make this thing, and as you may know everything is cooler with lasers. Other extras include a cloth with both Modern and Classic Sonic as well as Sonic the Sketchhog printed on it and the History of the 1st Stage soundtrack, which is different depending on whether you get the PS3/360 or 3DS version. While this doesn’t have as much content as the European CE, it still has some neat stuff collectors might want. The track list of the the soundtracks, more pictures and links to where you can buy this can be found after the jump. Continue Reading

Game News

Wii Virtual Console Receives Second Online Enabled Mega Drive Title

Wii owners in Japan this month will receive it’s second Virtual Console Mega Drive game that can be taken online: Super Street Fighter II – The New Challengers. The first being Puyo Puyo. Little is known about this version, but Japan Wii owners can expect a release to land for the month of November at the standard price point of 600 Wii Shop Points. The Super NES version will not obtain this feature, despite it already being released. No announcement has been made for other regions. You can check out the teaser direct from Sega’s Youtube channel below.

Credit goes to Nintendo Life for pointing out this release.