Monthly Archives

January 2016

Comics, Humor

How Fleetway Played The Games, Part 8: Of Flickies and Space Marines

part8-01Goodness, has it really been a year since the last time we visited the world of Sonic the Comic? Well, as time marches on, so does the progress in our quest, as we cover the penultimate game adaptation in the Fleetway series – Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island (Or Sonic 3D: Blast, as the Yanks might know it, but as that name was only used in North America we won’t be seeing it again in this Euro-focused story!) It’s a short one this time, only covering 3 issues. Written at a time when games were beginning to become thin on the ground in the late 90s, the writers went in a slightly different direction with the story, as we’ll see. The island itself was featured in the comic for a few months afterwards as a base of operations for Dr Robotnik, but just as a location now available for the writers to use. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start back at the beginning, shall we? Hit the jump to continue – there is of course spoilers a-plenty ahead. Continue Reading

Game News, Game Secrets, Interviews

HuffPo Explores Michael Jackson-Sonic 3 Music Collab

upload-59498d50-bfb0-11e5-adfd-6115af8d3263In the Sonic Internet community, there have been few stories that have captured the imagination like the tale of Sonic the Hedgehog 3‘s music. With a feel unique from the previous two entries in the series, the discussion of just who composed what have filled untold pages of conversation for well over a decade.
The reason behind that infatuation? Michael Jackson, one of the biggest pop stars of all time. A man who not only defined a decade with the release of Thriller, but also unknowingly inspired the belt buckle of Sonic’s shoes. The idea that a musical icon that large was connected to the gaming sensation of the 90’s in any way was incredibly tantalizing. It wouldn’t be long before audio files, YouTube videos, and snippets of interviews would fill in the gaps. From Qjimbo to GameTrailers, everyone sought to find the answer to what seemed the impossible – confirmation that the King of Pop had been involved in the soundtrack of Sonic 3 at some point, as SEGA’s official line to this day has been to deny or leave no comment.
While it has been almost certainly determined that Michael Jackson was not only involved but that some of his contributions made it to the cartridge, the Huffington Post’s Test Kitchen released today a brand new look at the entire Sonic 3 Jackson story. From what happened behind the scenes to the fandom’s unending interest in the truth, “The Michael Jackson Video Game Conspiracy” by Todd Van Luling covers it all.
With new interviews from Roger Hector, Doug Grigsby III, Brad Buxer, Cirocco Jones and Matt Forger, to comments from Ben Mallison and Steven Nipper that illuminate the community’s part in the story, the article is definitely worth a read for those with even a passing interest in the subject matter.
The only question I’m left with is…who has ever called a Sonic fan a “Blue?”
Source: Huffington Post

Merchandise

Fastest Food Alive: A look back at the 1994 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 McDonald’s Happy Meal promotion


As we near 25 years of Sonic the Hedgehog, I wanted to kick off a video series looking back at an aspect of the franchise that has always been a favorite of mine – food promotions! From McDonald’s to Topps to Carl’s Jr and beyond, SEGA has teamed their flagship franchise with some of the greatest, and at times weirdest, food companies. In this first installment, I take a look back at the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 McDonald’s Happy Meal promotion which ran worldwide in 1994 and 1995. Everything from the commercials to the in-store displays is covered, and I even clear up some misconceptions about that whole Tails recall situation and figure out just what that yellow Tails ball was. Special thanks to The Gagaman for additional information.
If you enjoyed the video make sure to like, share and subscribe to SEGAbits on YouTube if you haven’t already. Thanks for the support!

Fan Works, Game News, Hacking, Miscellaneous

Retro Digest – Tails Unleashes Tumblr Teases Edition

BreakfastAtDonny's
Right, after Gene stole the glory of doing the last ever Monday Links, it’s time for me to start this Retro Digest thing.
So basically Retro Digest will be replacing Monday Links, the supposed-to-be-weekly summary of what’s been happening around the Sonic scene. Except it was almost never actually weekly and it often wasn’t done on Mondays either. So to stop people from making any more snarky responses pointing this out we’re renaming it to Retro Digest. This is our first step in removing all snarkiness on the internet, wish us luck!
Anyway, 2016 is already off to a pretty decent start when it comes to Sonic stuff, with the community doing cool stuff and Sega teasing the fanbase. So here’s a look at the neat stuff that’s been happening Continue Reading

Game News

SEGA 3D Classics Collection Coming to North America on April 26th

SEGA 3D Classics Collection US box art cropped
So remember those nice looking 3D Classics collections with cover art by Ken Sugimori SEGA put out in Japan? Well, the second one of those is coming to North America as SEGA 3D Classics Collection, probably cause it’s the one that has Sonic in it. It is the better collection out of the two to release here anyway, cause it’s also the one with some 3D Classics that haven’t been released in the west. These ones to be exact:

The collection also includes these games, which are already available on the 3DS eShop:

The collection will be released in North America on April 26th for $29.99 exclusively on Nintendo 3DS. SEGA hasn’t announced a release for Europe yet.
P.S. Click on the image for the full box-art.

Site News

PSA: Deadline for RAGE Submissions Friday

[UPDATE: The games will be played on stream here, Saturday Jan. 23 at 8:30 p.m, so drop on by!]
If you’re enrolling in RAGE, our Really Amateur Games Expo, you’ve got until Jan. 22 at 11:59 p.m. CST to produce a game of some sort based on this year’s theme: Sonic Boom.
It doesn’t have to be a full scale game so much as a 5-10 minute long demo or an older game (think Space Invaders or Breakout for example) and it doesn’t necessarily have to be good, just technically sound (read: no crashes, memory leaks, or texture failures.) If anything, have fun with it and maybe it can expand to a bigger (and better) game down the road.

Site News

Sonic Retro webmaster shares her thoughts on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in the latest issue of Retro Gamer

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The latest issue of the UK classic gaming magazine Retro Gamer is celebrating its 150th issue in a big way by counting down the 150 Greatest Games Ever as selected by readers. What’s so cool about the issue is that for many of the entries, they turned to those in the fan community to wax nostalgic on the greatest games. Several classics from the developer have made the cut. Just some include 1986’s OutRun with a piece written by Sumo Digital’s Steve Lycett, Shenmue with thoughts from the Shenmue Dojo webmaster, and (as stated in our headline) a write-up on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 by Sonic Retro’s very own webmaster Scarred Sun.
Seeing as the magazine is out there for sale right now both physically and digitally, I’m not going to spoil the surprise of the game’s placement or what was said, so you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Retro Contests

RAGE (Really Amateur Games Expo) Returns on January 17th, For Real This Time!

dymaftu
RAGE (Really Amateur Games Expo), which was originally going to return last month on December 18th, is going to return for real this time on January 17th! If you don’t know what RAGE is, basically it’s a sort of game jam where you have five days to make the worst but also funniest fan game possible.
While the goal is to just do whatever and somehow churn out the shiniest turd you can make, there are still guidelines that need to be followed:
• Games need to stick to the theme, this is the most important requirement to note.
• Submissions need to be in by 11:59 pm CST on Friday, January 22nd.
• Send all RAGE submissions to [email protected]; submissions before January 17th will not be accepted.
• Games should really only be 5 – 10 minutes long. We’re not looking for an epic here.
• Feel free to use any engine/platform/program you like, just make sure it’ll run on modern day systems!
• If you don’t have something on hand, there’s trials of several commonly used programs, as well as free versions. Less experience might even help you here!
• Have fun with it! Sure you’re shooting for bad, but you’re wanting to make funny bad, like The Room or Birdemic of video games. (In other words, you’re aiming for humor, not just garbage.)
Of course, you wouldn’t want to spend time and effortless effort making something terrible without getting rewarded for it. Thankfully, the RAGE organizers thought of that. If you win this contest, you’ll get a $50 Amazon gift card. (Or if you don’t live in the US, your country’s equivalent of $50.)
If you’re a member of our forums, be sure to take a look at the official thread. You don’t have to be a member to take part in this contest though.

Game News

Crush 40 “Might” Write New Songs for Sonic’s 25th Anniversary Game


Update: Johnny has since deleted this post from Facebook.
It looks like we may get more of Crush 40’s amazingly dumb but also still amazingly great songs in the 25th anniversary game. While answering fan questions on Facebook, Johnny Gioeli said this when asked about their next album:

When will there be news about the Crush 40 album?
~We are planning a few performances for 2016 to commemorate the anniversary of Sonic. We “might” participate in writing new songs for the anniversary game…stay tuned…

Really at this point it’s probably already been decided if they’ll be doing new songs for the game, so it’s looking pretty likely that that will actually happen. Meaning that it’s 2016 and we’re probably still getting Crush 40 songs in Sonic games. Really there’s no better way to start the year than knowing this.