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Animation, Game News, Game Secrets

Clips of an Unused Animated Opening for Sonic Chronicles Found (UPDATE: Or Not)


UPDATE: The animator who made this video, Joel MacMillan, has pointed out in a comment on the video that it wasn’t meant to be used in Sonic Chronicles but was instead a personal project a couple of people at Bioware made in their free time and thus is not officially made by Bioware. He also said that he’ll see if he can find the fully scored sequence.
Turns out that Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was going to have an opening with some very nice looking 2D animation. Shadzter from the Sonic Stadium did some digging around and found a demo reel by Joel MacMillan, an art director at Bioware who worked on the game. The video contains some clips of this opening starting at 1:12. The animation made use of both screens on the DS, with stuff happening on both of them.
Why the final game didn’t have this opening isn’t known. Our best guess is that it’s because the stylistically it looks incredibly different from the game. It’s a shame, because it’s clear that a lot of work was put into making this.

Game News, Podcasts

SEGAbits & Sonic Retro present Boom Talkalaka #1: Sonic Boom Begins


SEGAbits and Sonic Retro team up to bring you a podcast focused on SEGA’s new Sonic Boom franchise! Hosted by Barry the Nomad of SEGAbits.com and David the Lurker of SonicRetro.org, Boom Talkalaka features discussion of the many aspects of Sonic Boom – from comics and episodes of the cartoon, to the video games and toys.
Give the show a listen and in the comments tell us what you think! If you have any questions or comments you want David to read on the next episode, leave your message here with the subject line “Boom-Grams”: http://segabits.com/contact/
[Download] [RSS]

Game News, Game Secrets

Sonic X-treme Content Discovered, The 90’s Live On

Sonic X-treme. Just the name can send a shiver up the spine of anyone who anxiously awaited the release of the game, reading the Red Shoe Diaries over and over again, trying to dissect each screenshot and guess what obstacles were in store for each new zone. Meant to be Sonic’s first foray into the world of 3D gaming, the title was quietly cancelled during 1996, a Sega Saturn port of Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island filling the hole in scheduling. For years, speculation ran wild as to what happened, and over time many of those involved in the project have spoken about it, including Chris Senn who created an entire compendium chronicling the development history of the game.
But with all we’ve come to discover in the last 18 years, there are still aspects that have been hidden away, the most glaring being how it would feel to hold a controller in your hands and move Sonic about in his fish-eye world. The only playable build thus far had been the test arena from Christina Coffin’s boss engine, a green hill-esque terrain with not much more than random Flickies populating a finite plane with no end goal. That, however, is about to change in a very big way.
xtrememulation
Read more after the jump.
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Game News

PSA: Sonic Boom 3DS Demo LIVE

14285206866_92ac1a9fb4_oWant to give Sonic’s new sports-tape gift-wrapped adventure a go just before its U.S. launch next week? For those that missed Nintendo’s Direct for today, then the good news is you can! Sonic Boom: The Shattered Crystal‘s demo is now available on the 3DS eShop for the U.S. and Europe.
It was also confirmed that a Sonic Boom 3DS theme is planned for release, and a Puzzle Swap panel centered around the game will be piped in to 3DS systems very soon. Let us know what you guys think of the demo in the comments below.

Game News

Breaking News: New Sonic 1 Prototype Stuff Unveiled

Even more than two decades after being cancelled, Nick Arcade is still giving us more alpha/beta stuff. The earliest version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that we’ve seen in action was first seen on the show, and now that the unaired pilot from 1991 has popped up online we now have the best footage yet of a Sonic the Hedgehog prototype.Sadly we don’t see that much of it because the challenge had to be completed in less than 25 seconds. The most notable differences shown are the rolling ball, which kinda looks like something that’s meant to be used to experiment with the rolling physics, and the different ring placement. Thanks to forum member ashthedragon for uploading a video of just the prototype footage. The full pilot can be seen here.
And on the subject of Sonic development stuff, this book by Read-Only Memory has lots of never-before-seen visual material from Mega Drive games and the console itself. This of course includes stuff related to Sonic as well. Forum member 87th has been kind enough to post a photo of the design documents for Sonic 1 showing some storyboards of the original ending. If you want to see more of it, you can buy the book here.
Also, yes we know that all of this news is old. We’re playing catch-up. :V

Fan Works, Game News

Taxman and Stealth celebrate Sonic & Knuckles’ 20th anniversary with a Sonic 3 & Knuckles proof of concept


Today marks the 20th anniversary of SEGA’s Sonic & Knuckles, and to celebrate, Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 remastered developer Christian Whitehead shared a proof of concept prototype from the Taxman & Stealth personal vaults featuring Sonic 3 & Knuckles running on the Retro Engine. Of course, this is presented unofficially, so don’t jump to the conclusion that a Sonic 3 & Knuckles remastered is on the way anytime soon. Still, awesome to see that they’ve done work on the much requested title, even in an unofficial capacity. The Taxman himself shared this link in our forums, stating that “this isn’t an official announcement of any Sega project, nor to we intend to work on this as a fan-project. It’s simply a proof of concept from our vaults that has been kept to our chests for some time.”
You can learn more about the technical side of the project in Stealth’s latest blog post!

Game News

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal Demo Coming to the eShop on November 4th


According to Nintendo World Report, a demo of Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal will be released on the eShop on November 4th. It isn’t known if or when a demo of its Wii U counterpart Rise of Lyric will also be released or if this is the same demo that was playable at events like Sonic Boom or PAX.
The site also recorded a playthrough of the Sonic Boom demo with direct feed audio, so you can also listen to what the game’s music is like. They recorded some gameplay of the Rise of Lyric demo as well, which can be seen after the jump. Continue Reading

Game News

New Trailer for Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal Shows Shadow and Metal Sonic

As you could expect from the Sonic Boom event, a new trailer for the TV show isn’t the only new Sonic thing that got revealed today. SEGA also showed a new trailer showing gameplay and cutscenes from both upcoming Sonic Boom games: Rise of Lyric for Wii U and Shattered Crystal for 3DS.
The most notable thing this trailer shows is more of Shadow and Metal Sonic, who appear in both games as either bosses or rivals to race against. Also it has overly dramatic music and an ancient evil because why not.

Game News

Here’s More Sonic Boom Gameplay From TGS

So SEGA showed some new gameplay of both Sonic Boom games at Tokyo Game Show today. First up is the new Shattered Crystal level they showed off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWc0kQmbql4
The video shows a new tropical-themed level, with the player once again dashing through blocks, swinging over pits with some electric whip thing and switching characters to get past certain obstacles. Overall it’s not really that different from what has been shown in other demos already aside from the setting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM0Pv8SHHMQ
The Rise of Lyric gameplay however shows a side-scrolling level in which Knuckles and Amy go underground to save some mine workers. Each character explores a different part of the level, with the player being able to switch between them at any time to use their special abilities whenever it is necessary. Also there’s some more fighting.
[Source: Woun from Sonic Stadium]

Game News, Previews

PAX Prime ’14 Preview: Super Smash Bros. Wii U and 3DS

screen-1
While Penny Arcade Expo allowed the general public to play Sonic Boom, Hatsune Miku Project Diva F 2nd and Alien Isolation, along with Bayonetta 2 showcased by Nintendo, very little was new to those looking for new information, which included the updated Sonic Boom demo which unfortunately did not make it to the event. This left very little for new SEGA news for fans to pick apart. That is until you factor in Sonic’s involvement in the upcoming release of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. Nintendo was showing off both versions for the general public to play at PAX. With the new installment coming out, there are a few changes that are in place that people can expect to enhance the gameplay, but for what was shown off so far is guaranteed more Smash Bros. to go around.
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