A new E3 means a new Sonic game and this year’s major Sonic release is a pseudo-sequel to Sumo Digital’s SEGA crossover games. While the first outing had SEGA’s superstars matching together in SEGA Superstars Tennis, the remaining titles revolved around Mario Kart racer-inspired titles with the previous one featuring transforming vehicles in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. As the name implies, Team Sonic Racing calls for Sonic & Nobody Else All-Stars Team Racing. Some folks from Sonic Retro and SEGAbits, including myself had hands on playtime from SEGA’s booth at the show floor. You can either hit the jump to check out impressions from me and Neo Hazard or hop over to our sister site SEGAbits for a tertiary (or perhaps quaternary) view from SEGAbits writers Kori-maru and Dakota.
Level creators are nothing new to video games at large, but throughout the long history of the series, Sonic the Hedgehog has only had one level editor officially released. While long since gone, as PlaySEGA itself has been shut down for several years now, those who played it will likely recall a less than stellar recreation of the original Sonic the Hedgehog with some new sprites thrown in for a fairly limited experience. Enter Lapper, a Sonic Retro user who has been working diligently since 2010 to create a more thorough and consistent level creator based on previous Sonic titles on the Genesis dubbed Sonic Studio (formerly known as Sonic Maker.) We took some time to grill Lapper about his project and what we can expect in the future.
Team Sonic Racing has been announced! On this News Bits, Barry goes through all the details including the secrets hidden in the cover art and screenshots. What are your thoughts on the newly announced Sumo Digital and SEGA racing game?
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When looking to define what Sonic the Hedgehog is, many elements can spring to mind. The surreal landscapes, the boppin’ tunes, the cool blue ‘tude. But one of the core elements to the hedgehog’s persona? Speed. So it only makes sense that, over the years, the character has been put in a multitude of games that epitomizes what speed is: the racing genre.
At the end of 2018’s SXSW Sonic panel, the next new Sonic game was teased by SEGA. With some select sound effects and that all-too-familiar “R” logo, it was clear that another racing title was slated to hit stores in the not-too-distant future. As to what form that would be, the public at large was left in the dark until today, when the first proper teaser for Team Sonic Racing went live on the official Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube channel:
It’s April 4th, and that means the official launch of Sonic the Hedgehog IDW series! On this episode of the SEGA News Bits Barry will give you his thoughts on the new direction, how it stacks up against the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog series and much more. Did you pick up the new issue of Sonic the Hedgehog IDW? If not, no worries, this discussion is spoiler free! If you want to support this type of content, you can check out our Patreon!
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In a move that nobody saw coming, Sonic is to join the fray in Tekken 7 according to Namco Bandai’s “Nico Easter 2018” stream earlier today. Tekken is no stranger to bizarre crossover characters (Final Fantasy XV’s Noctis was added just last month), but even by those standards it’s surprising to see a character like Sonic standing toe-to-toe with Heihachi.
Since the stream was only available through NicoVideo, information is limited. From what we can gather, Sonic’s inclusion appears to be some attempt at cross-promoting Sonic Forces – right down to his home stage being Metropolis from the game. It’s expected that Namco Bandai’s western channels will release more information and assets shortly, but in the meantime we nabbed a few screencaps from the stream. Annoyingly, you need a premium NicoVideo account to re-watch the stream, so we don’t have any footage to share.
The Sonic DLC for Tekken 7 is due out in Fall 2018.
Game News, Interview, Interviews
GDC Vault Offers the Sonic the Hedgehog Postmortem For Free Viewing
If you’re like me who wasn’t able to visit GDC this year and are hoping to find a way to watch the GDC talk on Sonic the Hedgehog. You’re in luck as GDC has begun uploading this year’s panels, along with the Sonic GDC panel, onto their website the GDC Vault. The video has been made available for free viewing on their website and may even appear on their YouTube channel. Currently the GDC Vault does not allow video embed, so you’ll have to go over to their site by clicking on the image above or one of the many convenient links like this one here.
In case you missed it, Naoto Oshima and Hirokazu Yasuhara hosted a panel talking about their perspective on the creation of the character, what made him stand out as well as the game design and art direction that brought us the Mega Drive/Genesis title. Previously we were only given a glimpse thanks to the efforts of Frank Cifaldi on Twitter. Now we are able to witness more with an edited video that presents the two speakers along with their slides for easy viewing. The Q&A session follows after the panel, plus a bonus speed drawing from both Oshima and Yasuhara.
The GDC Vault is home to plenty of talks that range from game development tactics, to important topics and postmortems of other games. Some panels will require a paid subscription for viewing. You can watch the Sonic panel or other panels from this year’s conference here.
[Source: GDC Vault]
On this SEGA News Bits, we take a look at the announcements that came out of last week’s Sonic at SXSW event – from physical releases to “don’t call it a sequel” to the return of classic Sonic to animation. Check out the video above for all the Sonic Mania reveals and after the break Sonic Racing is discussed.
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Since the 90’s, speculation as to the future of Sonic the Hedgehog has always been a lively, if sometimes wild, topic of conversation. Fortunately for us, the future looks a little bit clearer as of today. After the double punch of Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, people have been clamoring for a taste of what’s to come next, which is why all eyes turned to the “Gotta Go Fast” panel at this year’s SXSW.
Once again, Aaron Webber led the proceedings of what has become a yearly function for the crew over at SEGA. Joined by Austin Keys, Tyson Hesse, Jasmin Hernandez, and Sonic Team’s own Takashi Iizuka, the panel spent the next hour going across all aspects of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Some jokes were had, some things were teased, and some pretty swell announcements were made.
Yes folks, Mighty the Armadillo is back.
On this episode of the SEGA Talk Podcast we cover one of the most important SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive titles ever released: Sonic the Hedgehog! George and Barry discuss the game’s history, our exposure to the game and, for the first time, we are offering a special YouTube enhanced version of the podcast. We are still working out the kinks and feedback would be appreciated. If you like the show, make sure to leave us a positive five star review on iTunes, it always helps!
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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!