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Community, Miscellaneous, Site News

PAX Meetup at the Waterfront Park from 12PM on Saturday

Want to meet up with the Retro community and socialize in person like there’s no other chance? Lucky you dear reader as some of the Retro staff are going to head their way to Penny Arcade Expo. You won’t find a better time to hang out with other Sonic and Sega fanatics for a Retro Community Meet-Up. Besides, you should take a break from all those video games else you’ll strain your eyes, stunt your growth and perhaps die of starvation or dehydration. That’s us at Retro looking out for all of you going to the convention this weekend.

Why not return that favor and look for the Meet-Up at the Waterfront Park on Saturday September 1st at 12:00 p.m. located at 1301 Alaskan Way in Seattle? That’s roughly 15 minutes away from the PAX show floor. More food choices, less PAX crowd makes for a nice peaceful getaway. Heck, even if you’re in the Washington area we’ll let you join in.

 

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Community, Sega Retro

Help Retro: Scan Your US/Canadian Genesis Cartridges

Most people are at least vaguely aware  that Sonic Retro also runs a companion website, Sega Retro, to document all Sega-related history that isn’t explicitly Sonic-y in nature. As part of that documentation, there’s a lot of very basic tasks that haven’t been done that we’re trying to accomplish for the basic good of video game research.

One of those is to get pictures of every single video game made for a Sega system. This seems like it should be an easy task–after all,somebody must have done this before–but it turns out that it takes a lot more time and effort than anyone would have realized. And no, no one else has bothered to try to get good photos of everything.

This is where you come in, dear reader! Each week, we’re going to highlight various items we need scans donated for in hopes that we can build the world’s biggest database of Sega knowledge together. One region, one system, one thing, and a list of what we need. 😉

How can I help?

We ask that volunteers go through their collections of Sega games and see if they have what we are looking for. This week, we’re focusing on Sega Genesis cartridges from the US or Canada. If you live in Europe or Brazil or South Korea or Japan, don’t worry! We’ll be highlighting things we need from those regions, too–we just don’t want to overwhelm people. A cartridge that is a good candidate to scan will be free of any stickers (such as from a rental place or a price tag) with a clear label that has no scratches or tears on it. This picture of Asterix and the Great Rescue is a great example of a cart scan. If you’re new to scanning, check out our guides on Sega Retro, but if you’re used to scanning, know we prefer 600DPI images digitally downsampled to 300DPI using Photoshop or another high-quality image editor. You can upload the image yourself on Sega Retro if you’re comfortable, or else post in the Sega Retro forum or leave a comment wherever you read this story (front page, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest.)  You may also e-mail us scans at [email protected].

So, without further ado, the list of Sega Genesis cartridges we currently need scans of!

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Community, Site News

Retro Community Day – Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing Stream Today

Watch live video from vidyaretro on www.twitch.tv

We thank all who are willing to participate in our inaugural Retro Community Day Stream. Couldn’t make this happen without you guys.

We’ll be playing the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 version of Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing. Even if you aren’t participating in the race, we invite everyone to join in our stream along with the Retro crew for live commentary on Twitch TV. To those who are racing, game invites will be sent out to all players. We will do our best to let everyone in at least once. After two races, we will close out a room and start a new one to let others in. We encourage others to try and let others in so that everyone gets a chance. But keep in mind, it’s first come and first serve. Make sure the game is running during the designated times listed below.

Because we can only stream one version of the game at a time, we will start off with the Xbox 360 version then move onto the Playstation 3 version. Check the schedule and keep an eye on the stream to keep up with all the racing action.

All times relate to Central Time.

  • 4PM(?) – Pre Game Stream
  • 5PM – Xbox 360 version
  • 6PM – Playstation 3 version
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Community, Site News

Play Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing with the Retro Crew Next Friday

Come one, come all for a Grand Prix of hijinks with the Sonic and Sega Retro crew playing Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 next Friday August the 3rd, 5PM Central. In addition the event will be live streamed with commentary from Retro staff, talking about the game, the upcoming sequel and more. Streaming and further details will be available soon.

To join in, send a friend request now to VidyaRetro on either Xbox Live or Sony Entertainment Network. Once 5PM Central rolls around, be sure to start the game and await an invite.

See you at the starting line!

 

When: August 3rd, 2012 at 5:00PM Central Time

Where: Xbox 360 and Playstation 3

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Community, Game News, Site News

Sonic Boom 2012 – The Aftermath

In the heart of San Diego as the blood from the San Diego ComicCon pumps through the city, the House of Blues was bumping last night with the ’80s Hair Guitar stylings of Crush 40 belting out fan favourites and all new tracks, and a grand outpouring of love for the spiky Blue Blur from all 800 or so in attendance.

And Sonic Retro was there in force to experience it.

After a little meetup at a nearby Yard House with some of our older members and a few other fans, we made our way to House of Blues to discover that the line was already stretching around three corners of a block with people eager to attend Sega of America’s Second Annual celebration of all things Sonic. And while those of us in line joked about the stranger sides of the fandom, we ran into a familiar face frantically scurrying around the block to make sure the line was moving: Sega of America’s Sonic Generations Brand Manager Aaron “Ruby Eclipse” Webber. After some small talk, we left him on his way to continue making sure the line was moving at a steady pace.

As a little bit of a game after letting him go, a few of us wagered on a social experiment: if the six of us belted out loudly the first four lines of Live and Learn, how many people would join in? The result was far greater than expected and can only be truly enjoyed by the video captured of it. Keep an eye out here as we’ll post it once I’m able to get on an Internet service that can handle video uploading.

With that, we went inside the club.

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Community, Site News

SoS 2012 – The Seaside Edition

Another year rolls around and like clockwork, it’s time for another Summer of Sonic – my 4th and the event’s 5th. With not just a new venue this year but an entirely new town in Brighton, and with all the tickets selling out in the space of around 5 minutes, the show was even more hotly anticipated than last year. So, what’s the skinny, you ask? Well, dear audience, please read on.
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Community, Site News

Pre-Sonic Boom Meetup at Yard House 3 to 5 p.m. Friday

Odds are you’ve been following Summer of Sonic‘s festivities through the magic of Internet streams today–and major kudos to the SoS team on pulling off a smooth convention given every obstacle that came up this year! However, if you’re located in America, you’ve probably been wishing you could attend Summer of Sonic without going overseas. Or at least something vaguely like it. If that’s the case, Friday your lucky day–it’s time for the second annual Sonic Boom during San Diego ComiCon!

We’ll be holding a Sonic Retro meetup from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, July 13 at Yard House, located at 1023 4th Avenue in San Diego. That’s about a block from House of Blues. I’m also happy to announce that unlike last year, this is an all-ages venue, so anyone is free to show up and grab a bite, something to drink or just chat and goof off with us.

It’s also a great venue because we like beer, and hey, LOOK AT ALL THAT BEER.

Please keep in mind that parking in downtown San Diego is tricky and often accompanied by a fee in a garage, and that you’ll be battling ComiCon attendees for spots, so showing up early may be necessary. As someone who’s now a veteran of these sorts of meetups, I just want to say that we are minimum creepy and maximum fun, so come out and join us!

eta: For some reason the permalink on Facebook says “2 to 5”; this is incorrect and the time is 3 to 5. Thanks.

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Community, Fan Works

Sonic Unleashed Blasts PCs to Pieces in Sonic Generations Mod

Two months ago, we posted some very promising videos from a triad of gifted Retroites working to import Sonic Unleashed‘s stages into the PC version of Sonic Generations, because despite Sega’s apparent new-found love for all things computer, Unleashed never got the chance to pop up. And those videos? They were nothing short of impressive work.

The trio–Dario FF, Twilightzoney, and Chimera–are happy to show you the fruits of their labor since then as Sonic zips around locales like Mazuri, Empire City, Shamar, and the original Spagonia to name a few. The team not only managed to get collisions working on the stages, they’ve been able to successfully import breakable objects and even the Global Illumination Ambiance lighting effects of the original stages so that they look like their original selves.

Oh, and a much-requested golden streak of light makes his in-stage presence felt as well.

Check out the gallery for more photos and the trailer below to watch their efforts in motion. Of course, from the looks of things, the team is only getting warmed up with Unleashed levels and have set their sights to other areas…

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Community

LOst Removed As Sonic 2 HD Head Programmer, DirectInput Error Cause of Keylogger Scare

The Sonic 2 HD team announced today amidst the flurry and confusion of an alleged “keylogger” being detected in the program that it has decided to move on without their head programmer, LOst.

The decision comes on top of several allegations from team members that LOst held the project hostage through the inclusion of DRM, public feedback of a bloated engine running an otherwise simplistic game, and other behind the scenes issues. The final straw was the massive negative reception after reports of a keylogger were detected by various antivirus software.

After some careful examination by forum member Guess_Who, the “keylogger” was confirmed to be benign and a false positive, revealing that it was a result of shoddy DirectInput programming. This is how the program was able to register key presses even when the window was not selected and running in the background. In other words, it’s like how CW Cheat can trigger antiviruses as a trojan horse, despite having no malicious software behind it.

As such, we’ve since corrected our earlier PSA.

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