2017 promises to be a big year for Sonic the Hedgehog. With not one but two major game releases slated to come out, excitement and speculation has been running wild. Since being announced last July, both Sonic Mania and “Project Sonic 2017” have been shrouded in mystery, with only scant pieces of information being released on either title since their grand unveiling.
Though there’s nothing wrong with keeping things close to the chest, SEGA has promised to reveal some new details on both games at this year’s SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas. To get the hype train rolling, the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter has been teasing some of what’s to come, especially for Sonic’s return to form in the 2D platforming landscape.
Those looking forward to the Unleashed Project will be disheartened to hear that the project is no more. In a statement released by the Project’s head, S0LV0, she’s stated that it was time to call it quits. From the Twitlonger post:
So, here it is. I can’t begin to express how sorry I am about this, but I’m cancelling Unleashed Project 2.0. For a long time I was really passionate about it, and I felt I had something special to share with people by working on it, but that passion is gone. I know of no one I could pass the workload onto, nor do I plan to release my “completed” work as none of it is fully polished. I’m sincerely sorry to those who were looking forward to it, but I hope you’ll understand by this far into my post that it was extremely unhealthy for me.
S0LV0 goes on to talk about what she’ll be doing from this point and more in her full Twitlonger post which can be read here. For those holding onto hope, S0LV0 tweeted that DarioFF, the person in charge of the Unleashed Project prior to her, may be interested in taking the project over. We at Retro wish S0LV0 all the best in what she does and look forward to her projects in the future.
On this SEGA News Bits, we are doing things a bit differently since SEGA news seems to be slow. This week we will be discussing what Nintendo Switch means for Project Sonic 2017. While the Nintendo Switch is a nice piece of portable hardware, there is a big difference between Nintendo Switch and its competitors when it comes to power. Tune in to hear us talk about what we think the differences between the full game’s graphics will be, if Sonic the Hedgehog games need state of the art graphics and the idea of taking a Sonic the Hedgehog console game on the go. Let us know what you think of all this in the comments below.
SEGA News Bits is a production of SEGAbits, covering all things SEGA and Sonic the Hedgehog. When we touch on Sonic stories, you’ll be seeing them here on Sonic Retro as well. If you enjoyed this episode of the SEGA News Bits, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and never miss an episode!
This sucks. CloudFlare screwed up, and this affects more than Sonic Retro, SEGAbits and the rest of our family of websites. A coding flaw has allowed their edge servers to generate a buffer containing sensitive data which means a data compromise, and a big one at that. Our websites use CloudFlare’s services.
Please change your wiki and forum passwords immediately.
The security flaw has been resolved on their end with the assistance of a security researcher at Google’s Project Labs. However this affects several major websites including Reddit, OkCupid, Uber and several others that use their service. Read more about the issue on CloudFlare’s blog.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
[Source: CloudFlare]
Fastest Food Alive returns with one of the most popular Sonic the Hedgehog food products of all time. That’s right, it’s Blue Bunny’s Sonic bar with GUMBALL EYES! Quit reading and watch as we unwrap this famous Sonic foodstuff, looking back on the history of the bar and seeing just how badly they messed up the eyes.
If you enjoyed the video make sure to like, share and subscribe on YouTube if you haven’t already. Thanks for the support!
Today on the SEGA News Bits we discuss brand new revealed information about Project Sonic 2017, including the fact that the game is being labeled an ‘Action Adventure’ game. Other bits of Project Sonic 2017 news we touch upon includes Eggman being the main villain and the fact that Project Sonic 2017 won’t be featuring multiplayer modes. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
SEGA News Bits is a production of SEGAbits, covering all things SEGA and Sonic the Hedgehog. When we touch on Sonic stories, you’ll be seeing them here on Sonic Retro as well. If you enjoyed this episode of the SEGA News Bits, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and never miss an episode!
The SXSW 2017 schedule has confirmed that Sega will hold an official Sonic the Hedgehog panel at the event this year. The panel will feature Aaron Webber (PR), Mike Pollock (voice of Eggman), Roger Craig Smith (voice of Sonic), and Takashi Iizuka (producer) as speakers, and promises to give a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming Sonic Mania and Project Sonic 2017. The full panel description:
Dive into the world of Sonic the Hedgehog in this exclusive behind-the-scenes look at both Sonic Mania and the upcoming Sonic 2017! With presenters from SEGA and Sonic Team’s Takashi Iizuka, this panel will answer questions about both games, showcase a new reveal for each title, and will discuss Sonic’s resurgence in the world of gaming since the reveal of both games. Of course, with Sonic involved, who knows what other surprises might be in store?
The panel will be held on March 16th from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM. And while previously SXSW Gaming was free to attend, tickets will be required for this year’s event. While last year’s Sonic panel at SXSW was live streamed, Sega has not yet announced whether or not they’ll do a live stream again this year.
Sonic Retro user Morph and several others have gone through Sonic Adventure DX and created a mod that restores the lighting effects that were previously seen in the original Sonic Adventure into the PC version. The difference gives off more vibrant colors in the environment that also reacts to objects and characters. You can download the mod from the discussion thread in our forums.
Lighting can be used to set a specific tone or mood in an environment. But why is it such a difficult thing to remain consistent when converting this to other game platforms? The game featured an artistic shift that occurred when the game was converted to other platforms. A combination of technical hurdles and creative liberties can dampen the original artistic intent, and Sonic Adventure is no exception. The original Dreamcast version featured a “Lantern” engine which provided impressive looking lighting effects using palettes on SEGA’s then cutting edge game console. However the dozens of ports of the game left out these lighting effects in favor of using drop shadows instead, until now. Check out additional videos, comparison screenshots and an interview with Morph on the mod after the jump!
Game News, Game Secrets
SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter Galaxy Patrol Dumped and Released to Celebrate MAME’s 20th Anniversary
The once long-elusive SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter Galaxy Patrol has finally been found, dumped, released, signed, sealed, delivered by the good folks of the Dumping Union, a group dedicated to preserving old arcade games that may have otherwise been lost to time. Cosmo Fighter was released in celebration of MAME, a notorious emulator that aims to recreate the hardware of thousands of arcade titles, which turned twenty years old on February 5th. An entire playthrough was uploaded to YouTube by ashthedragon, as seen above. If we’re doing our math correctly, every known, officially released Sonic game has been dumped as of this release, meaning all that’s left are prototypes/tech demos and any rare unreleased games.
Today we spotlight a couple of releases from the community, the Freedom Planet 2 demo as well as a brief co-op run of the long awaited Top Down mod for Sonic Robo Blast 2. Also probably one of the few times you’ll ever see Sonic Robo Blast 2 on our front page. Read more on Freedom Planet 2’s latest demo and links to where you can find it here. If you want to check out the new Top Down mod for Sonic Robo Blast 2, be sure to hit up their forums.
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