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Sega Saturn

Game News, Game Secrets, Hacking

Sonic 3D Director’s Cut ROM Hack Announced by Traveller’s Tales Founder


How’s this for a little role reversal? Where Sonic Mania features fan game developers work in a commercial Sonic game, a Sonic game developer makes works on a ROM hack?
GameHut is the YouTube channel run by Traveller’s Tales founder Jon Burton which recently celebrated his achievement of 25,000 subscribers. The channel provides a constant stream of video material showcasing old prototypes, special builds and insight on coding techniques of Traveller’s Tales’ work over the years. There’s a greater focus on Mega Drive material and more recently a focus on their work on Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast / Sonic 3D Flickies’ Island. As an example I reported on videos on SEGAbits that covered a prototype for Sonic R and unseen footage of an unannounced sequel to Mickey Mania. 
In a surprise announcement for achieving 25,000 subscribers on the channel Jon announced that he is working on releasing an unofficial patch for Sonic 3D titled Sonic 3D Director’s Cut that focuses on restoring content and adding enhancements to the game. This has no involvement with SEGA or any other company and is only being developed by Jon himself in his spare time. Details about the hack can be seen in the jump.
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Fan Works

Awesome Games Done Quick 2017 Runs Fast with Sonic Today

Watch live video from GamesDoneQuick on www.twitch.tv
UPDATE: Thanks to a donation incentive, a Big the Cat run for Sonic Adventure DX was met!
Consider this as a friendly reminder that Games Done Quick will be featuring three Sonic games today. The event returns for 2017 to continue their support of the Prevent Cancer Foundation with speed runners playing through games to earn the best times all week long. Donations can be used for bid wars to determine specific runs and alterations as well as raffles for prizes to win.
All the Sonic related games come in today, Thursday January 12th, featuring these speed runners. You can also view the schedule for yourself to check out times as well as other games featured at the marathon.

Sonic Retro salutes the GDQ staff and the runners for their continued hard work over the years. Oh, and we feel the fastest animals are prone to survive much longer than others.

Podcasts, Reviews

Multiplayer Showcase Faces Sudden Death in Saturn Bomberman


Its the final minutes until the big 25h anniversary party for our good buddy, Sonic, but wait! Those aren’t rings falling from the sky, its a bunch of weights and a myriad of bombs which means its the last few rounds of Saturn Bomberman before we share our verdict on the game. In the last part of the episode, the group talks about the sudden death mode, discovers a connection with Bomberman and wrestling and share our strategies of playing the game. Also how did people play the game in the mid to late nineties? The round table discussion features my friends Chance, Krys, Randy and Chelsea.
Did you play Saturn Bomberman back in the day? How did you set up the game to play with friends? Do you think other Bomberman games do the job better? Be sure to sound off in the comments!
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Opinion, Podcasts, Reviews

Multiplayer Showcase Sets the Stage with Saturn Bomberman


Wondering what to look for in a SEGA Saturn game now that Saturn game encryption has finally been cracked? Why not one of the biggest multiplayer experiences on the console? Multiplayer Showcase continues to take a look at Saturn Bomberman by covering our favorite stages, gimmicks, exploit the dinosaurs and try to figure out what the kick power up looks like. The round table discussion features my friends Chance, Krys, Randy and Chelsea. (Who didn’t play with us but has actually played the game before!) We talk about the simple wide stage. What are your favorite levels or gimmicks from the game? Do the dinosaurs break the game for you or your friends? Sound off in the comments section.
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Podcasts, Reviews

Multiplayer Showcase Lights the Fuse with Saturn Bomberman


Why stick to fireworks when you can use bombs? A new Multiplayer Showcase installment is out featuring one of the most popular SEGA Saturn multiplayer experiences, Saturn Bomberman starring Hudson Soft’s all-star lineup in a massive free-for-all. We’ll be taking a look at the different stages and examine the differences in the eight and ten player modes, the Saturn’s six player adapter, and how the title holds up to the rest of the Bomberman lineup.
This episode is going to be released in smaller chunks which allows the episode to come out faster. Be sure to subscribe to the channel to keep up with new installments and more multiplayer matches.

Game News

New Sonic Xtreme Release Brings 150 New Levels


Sonic Xtreme has been seeing quite the resurgence as of late, but this takes the cake for the most impressive release to date.
Forum member Andrew75 announced the release of never before seen iteration of Xtreme head programmer Ofer Alon’s V037 NV1. This is a PC port created by Jollyroger and it packs a staggering 150 stages to play around with, most of which never before seen. Andrew does mention that a number of these stages are simply just reskins of other stages in the list, but with either new textures or with some setting changed for testing. Most of these are just test levels after all.
For a full breakdown on changes and download links, direct your favorite point and clicking device to this little bit of text.

Game News, Game Secrets

Playable Build of Sonic X-Treme Now Available

We all know the story. 19 years ago, everyone was getting super excited about the upcoming release of Sonic X-treme, which would mark Sonic’s first fully three dimensional adventure. Long story short, the game was never released, and the Sega Saturn always had a hole in its library, no main Sonic title ever being released.
While bits and pieces of what the game would have been have leaked/been released over the the years, last November JollyRodger showed up with a plethora of material from defunct gaming studio Point Of View, including the source code for a variety of Sonic X-treme builds on both the Saturn and the PC. Being as the code could only run natively on hardware very few people have access to, Jolly took it upon himself to begin the process of porting the code to modern PC’s. Earlier tonight, the first public release of this labor of love was been released, “version 037” of X-treme now fully operational.

Download links and more after the jump.
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Uncategorized

POV Sonic Xtreme Tech Demo Now Runs on Saturn

sonic xtreme pov saturnForum member Jollyroger has managed to get the leaked POV version of Sonic X-treme to run on a SEGA Saturn. While he hasn’t been able to record footage of it yet as he doesn’t have a video capture device, he did take a photo of the tech demo running on his Cartdev/Mirage.
According to Jollyroger, this shows that while the version is nowhere near playable in its current state, it shows that Point of View would have been capable of making a reasonable version of the game for the Saturn if they had enough time.
Be sure to keep an eye on the Sonic Xtreme thread on our forums for more findings about this prototype.

Game News

Video of Sonic X-treme’s Level Editor Released


Jolly Roger has been doing a fantastic job getting stuff from the Sonic X-treme build that was found to work. Most recently he got the level editor used for the game to run on modern Windows and OpenGL, and he has uploaded a video recorded by Andrew75 demonstrating it running on Windows 7. It still needs a lot of work, as it currently has a lot of bugs and crashing issues, but it’s very impressive how fast Jolly managed to get this to work in this state.
Be sure to visit the thread about what’s being found in this prototype on our forums, as lots of interesting stuff is being found from this version of the game. It’s very exciting as it looks like we’re getting closer and closer to having a build of the game that runs well on modern computers, especially now that it looks like we’ll be able to make our own levels. You should also check out this recently recorded footage of the OpenGL port of the prototype that Jolly Roger is working on.

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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