It’s that time of year – Geoff Keighley is back on stage, looking business casual as he hosts the Summer Game Fest. Being a Sonic fan, you never really know if you’ll get anything at these events, yet you can’t resist tuning in anyway. Today, sandwiched between news about Remnant II and Honkai: Star Rail, a certain blue hedgehog suddenly ran onto the screen, with a certain weasel watching from the shadows.
Sonic Superstars is coming this fall. It’s a new Sonic game! That’s what we like, right?
Looking to introduce your Sonic hack or mod to the public at large? Want to put it to the test to see how it stacks among the rest? Wonder no longer as this year’s Sonic Hacking Contest is on track to arrive later this year in late October. This year introduces new guidelines and judges over last year’s event. Make sure to catch up to speed by taking a look at last year’s winning entries and the 2022 trailer showcase.
This year introduces upload limits, three per person, to address issues the community had raised over last year’s event and to ensure that judges are given time to address the community’s inevitably large output for this year. Entries will remain unlimited for team entries and non-judged Expo entries. To help tackle this workload, new judges have been introduced for the three entry types; ‘Retro’,’ 2DPC’ and ‘3D’ Entries. This is to also help ensure fairer evaluation for unique fan projects such as Sonic 3 A.I.R. mods that were introduced last year. The judges participating are subject to change before this year’s contest begins.
For more information on what to expect this year, head on over to the Hacking Contest’s website. You can also receive up-to-date information following the official Twitter account. Discuss the contest in the Sonic Hacking Contest 2023 thread on our forums as well as on Sonic Stuff Research Group’s own thread.
This has certainly been a bit of a Sonic week. Yesterday, Sega gave everyone a reason to revisit Sonic Frontiers by releasing the first of three free content updates. Today? The existence of Sonic Origins Plus has been officially confirmed, with a trailer featuring what they’ve added to last year’s celebration of Sonic the Hedgehog.
On June 23rd, 2022, Sonic the Hedgehog’s legally recognized birthday was celebrated by releasing a game compilation featuring some of his greatest adventures. Called Sonic Origins, it was a collection that many considered a no-brainer to put together. After all, people had been asking for the 2013 mobile versions of Sonic 1 and 2 on consoles and PCs for years, with the added hope that Sega could finally clear up the legal issues that were preventing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (and/or Knuckles) to get the same widescreen, Retro Engine treatment. At a point when it was extremely unclear how Sonic Frontiers would turn out (spoilers: Frontiers ended up being pretty good!), Origins seemed the safe bet of having one solid, if not fantastic, release featuring our favorite hedgehog.
Then the game came out. And. Well. It was fine.
To preface: Sonic Retro was sent a review code for the game. I had intended on writing a review months ago, yet when I sat down, nothing came. After some false starts, I just sat there going “what do I actually want to say about this game?” So I kept on sitting. And thinking. And sitting. Got up to get some coffee. Played the game a bit more. Then gave up.
I know, I know. Exciting story.
It’s been over eight months since Origins came out. And with news that a physical version has been given a rating, it’s made me think once more about Origins. What worked, what didn’t, and why I couldn’t bring myself to write a review.
I don’t know if what follows is a review or not, but here we go.
On this SEGA Talk we dip back into the world of Classic Sonic with the portable classic Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble! We look at this Game Gear exclusive and the creation of Fang… or is it Nack?
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
With Sonic Frontiers only days away, it’s been easy to forget that the upcoming 3D platformer isn’t the last we’re hearing from Sonic in 2022. Having been teased for nearly two years at this point, Wildbrain and Man of Action’s Sonic Prime has been sitting in the wings, waiting for its time to shine. Until today, aside from some Green Hill-filled teaser trailers, a concept art leak, and the knowledge that the show was meant to involve the multiverse in some form or fashion, we hadn’t heard much else. Not even a release date! Today, we finally got world on the exact day Sonic’s figure-eight run will hit the small screen: December 15th. Sure, the date was leaked some time back, but hey, now it’s official. They even released a trailer for it!
Its the Blu-ray news Sonic fans have been waiting for since the release of the original Sonic X Blu-ray in 2019. Discotek Media has recently aired a panel on their Twitch channel showcasing new releases leading up to the current plans for next year. Among the announcements was a new Blu-ray set for the ‘subtitled’ version of Sonic X labelled as ‘Original Japanese Version.’ This set features all episodes uncut with the original audio tracks previously unreleased to home video outside of Japan. This includes the “Metarex” story arc that was not broadcast in Japan until 2020. Brought by popular fan demand and even a push internally at Discotek from producer Brady Hartel, this release comes in featuring the best possible standard resolution presentation these episodes have ever seen with the launch window slated for winter of 2023. (Edited 10/26/2022) Which is a few months from now!)
Ed. note: The following is provided by the staff of Sonic Hacking Contest for the year of 2022.
Twenty years ago, the Sonic Hacking Contest started, run by Ayla for many years. The winner of that first contest in 2002 was Sonic 2 Delta…20 years later, the hack is still going, as Sonic Delta 40mb.
Things have massively changed over these 20 years (and 19 contests), we have gone from binary ROM editing with a hex editor and a few tools, to split disassemblies and bringing more flexibility to game modification. But we also have 3D entries too, on many consoles and PC, and for the last few years, mods based on the Retro Engine Sonic games, with decompilations available and tools in the works, offering another way to mod games, rather than just the traditional 16-bit method. There are more people making entries than ever before, no matter when they first started playing Sonic.
The contest itself has changed in these last 20 years. We have gone from private entries being shown behind closed doors to judges only, to fully public entries where everyone can access them. We went from deadlines being missed out and late results at times, to guaranteed set dates.
We went from only offering a contest, to having an expo option where people can choose not for them to be judged. We used to have judges look at everything possible – now they are split between three categories, for judging to be easily managed, and looked at in finer detail than ever before. The introduction of the Evaluations, gave detailed explanations and opinions on each enrty.
We have gone from just being promoted on a few Sonic hacking sites (some still around, some no longer with us) to wider exposure through its own website and the interactive Contest Week, with entries easily accessible, streams during the week on YouTube and Twitch, and of course, allowing the public to vote for their own trophies, something people would not have expected decades ago.
And whilst it all used to happen on forums and IRC channels, these days there are other places to discuss hacks and mods too, such as Twitter and the many various Discord servers out there that cater to different types of games and so on, for people to learn the craft and make their own.
I do not want to thank just this year’s participants, judges, streamers and of course those who played the entries this week. But every single person over the last twenty years who, at some point of their time on the internet, took part in the Sonic Hacking Contest. I hope in twenty years later, we will still have the SHC, in some form or another, and the same applies for fangames with SAGE.
People come and go, their interests and their lives change, but these entries are eternal, especially with the SHC Vault for the last ten years, keeping these entries available for years to come. Without the people who participate, there is no Sonic Hacking Contest. To keep this up for two decades is remarkable and impressive. Who could think in 2002 that the SHC would still be here in 2022.
That being said, for all the pushing about it being SHC’s 20th Anniversary, we weren’t able to celebrate it this week and we are truly sorry about it. We have a few ideas in mind to do something about that, although we have shown many old entries before through the previous pre shows.
And now, here are the results for this year’s Sonic Hacking Contest! (Ed. Note: after the jump!)
Recently revealed is the trailer for this year’s Sonic Hacking Contest of 2022 by BlueVivacity as seen on Twitter. The event goes live next week from October 10th to the 16th. Many ROM hacks, mods and add-ons for your favorite Sonic games will be up for grabs. If you’re not sure what to play, you’ll have a chance to see them in action from streamers as the week goes on. Of course vote for your favorite entries to earn one of several awards. After the jump you’ll be able to see what trophy awards are up for grabs this year and of course what will even show up at this year’s contest.
The upcoming Sonic Hacking Contest for this year (2022) was previously announced for would be entrants to await for further information. That time is now! The contest is now accepting entries on their website. Check out https://shc.zone for more information.
There is some guidelines and additional information available on the website. This includes entry eligibility, the quality control guidelines and submitting footage to this year’s trailer. The rules now list information regarding Copyright and Intellectual Property.
The SHC Twitter account also put up notices on additional features for this year’s contest including one-click installs for mods, as well as the ability for multiple uploads to limit access to the media panel or to contest judges. Splash screens are currently being prepared for this year’s contest with a splash screen ready for Sonic 3 A.I.R. mods.
Finally a reminder of important deadlines and the date for the contest week are as follows.
CONTEST SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE: End of Sunday 4th September
CONTEST UPDATES DEADLINE: End of Sunday 11th September
EXPO SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE: End of Sunday 25th September
TRAILER CLIPS DEADLINE: End of Sunday 25th September
CONTEST WEEK FROM: Monday 10th to Sunday 16th October
Further information can be found on the Hacking Contest website and the official Twitter account. Check out discussion on the contest at the Sonic Retro forums as well as the Sonic Stuff Research Group forums.
