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PSA: All Stars Racing Transformed Has Game-Ending Bug

What can you say about launch day games? They’re usually the sloppiest, trashiest bits of data to hit a system if they’re not from a first party developer. It’s unfortunate that this is so with All-Stars Racing Transformed on Wii U. It seems a bug has been reported that essentially makes the game unplayable.

Those starting off the tour mode in single player find themselves at an impasse on the first boost challenge stage when the checkpoints you must pass through to extend time fail to load, essentially making the level on all difficulties unbeatable. There’s no getting around the stage either, leaving Wii U owners high and dry on the game.

This seems to affect all Wii U consoles that downloaded the update patch for the game upon boot up. Deleting the update data causes the system to redownload it upon booting up the game, and taking it offline will cause the system to complain at you to get an Internet connection to play the game.

If you’re deciding still which version to get, we highly advise staying away from the Wii U port until further notice.  Hopefully Sumo Digital and Sega are on top of this and working up another patch, but such a gross oversight on a release game is reprehensible and lazy. Come on, Sega, this isn’t 2006 anymore.

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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Game News

E3 2012: Danica Patrick Drifts into Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed

With E3 now in full swing, the buzz has been on what new reveals will headline the next year, particularly on Nintendo’s new Wii U. One such game includes Sega and Sumo Digital’s newest party racer in Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed.

In usual E3 flare, Sega kept a surprise announcement for the show as they revealed a car hidden under wraps smack in the middle of their booth. Game Trailers TV blew the secret early while interviewing NASCAR racer Danica Patrick that she will be a playable character in the upcoming game in a Sega-themed NASCAR car. Patrick will also apparently be driving this car in NASCAR events to help promote the game.

And here we were hoping that Sega pulled the trigger on having Daytona USA‘s Hornet as its own racer. At any rate, stay tuned for more E3 updates as they roll in as our own Slingerland is on hand at the show.

Merchandise, Music

Several Sonic Soundtracks Settle onto iTunes

After much fan demand, Sega has begun releasing several of their Sonic series soundtracks on to Apple’s iTunes service. Most of these albums, though recently released, aren’t too easy to track down and import for those looking to legally own the music, never mind worrying about bootlegs.

The albums now available are the 20th Anniversary editions of Sonic CD, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes, as well as “The Best of Crush 40: Super Sonic Songs”, “The Works” (Jun Senoue‘s standalone album featuring several original songs and some Sonic music), and Sonic Colors ViViD SOUND × HYBRiD COLORS, the last one lovingly divided into three volumes for all three discs (Disc 2 and Disc 3 can be found at those links.) Sega further states that the soundtrack to Sonic The Hedgehog 4‘s episodes will also be touching down on iTunes in the future.

It should be noted that the 20th Anniversary album for the two Adventure titles aren’t as all encompassing as their original releases, which may turn some fans off. However, this is the best chance short of importing to show support for the musicians that worked hard to keep series’ reputation for good music alive and well.

Game News

New Episode 2 Trailer Highlights Sonic 4: Episode Metal DLC, Desert Zone

Sega’s Digital Brand Manager Ken Balough dropped by Gamespot’s On the Spot (29-minute mark) to show off another video morsel of Sonic 4‘s second episode and dropped a bit of a bombshell for those who bought Episode 1 and plan to pick up the second episode.

Available as free DLC, players will get to assume the role of Metal Sonic in Sonic 4: Episode Metal as he’s transported to the age of Sonic 4 as a throwback to Sega’s previous “Lock-On Technology” effort.  Metal Sonic can be seen briefly roaming through Splash Hill and Lost Labyrinth, which Balough goes on to state won’t be simple cut and pastes of the original levels, but are new stages exclusive to Metal Sonic in order to connect his importance, as well as Sonic CD‘s, to the Sonic 4 story.

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Miscellaneous

Yasuhara Now Employed At Nintendo, The 90’s Are Forever Confused


When people tell the short version of the development of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, there are usually two names dropped: Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima. The former, though starting out as a programmer, soon became the figurehead of Sonic Team, his smiling mug plastered all over any material regarding the behind-the-scene events. The latter, of course, being the man who designed the characters including the star. However, there was a third man who, one could argue, shaped the title into the addictive game that people still play to this day. That man’s name is Hirokazu Yasuhara, who was the lead Game Planner of the original Mega Drive quartet, as well as the Director to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. While the designs to the characters were amazing, and there was a solid engine being built around it, the actual layout of the game would have been very, very different had Yasuhara not been there to design those level maps that have been burned into our minds over the last two decades. Who knows how things would have gone if he had flown to the United States when he originally planned instead of being delayed to shape one of the biggest video game franchises of all time?

That is why this news, for anyone who was there during the height of the Mega Drive’s success, is a bit crazy to take in. As of today, reported on Gamasutra and confirmed by his own LinkedIn page, Hirokazu Yasuhara is now employed at Nintendo Software Technology, a subsidiary of Nintendo of America. Best known for their work on the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, nothing has been said of what plans Nintendo has in store for the former Sega employee. Since he’s still in the United States, its very unlikely that he’ll have any role in one of the main Super Mario titles, but still. If you were to tell any 90’s kid that the man responsible for the layout of everything from the Green Hill Zone to Death Egg would one day be working at the house Mario built, would they have believed it?

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Game News

Sonic Games Being Removed From Japanese Wii Virtual Console

This is bound to set off those of you against digital download services. Over in Japan, developers are beginning to pull games down from Nintendo’s Virtual Console service on the Wii. On top of WiiWare titles from the now-defunct Hudson and Irem’s library, Sega is pulling several Sonic titles from the service.

According to a report by Japanese website Inside-Games, these titles include the Mega Drive’s Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2,  and Sonic & Knuckles, as well as the Master System version of  Sonic The Hedgehog. The titles are expected to be off the service by the end of the month. It’s currently unknown if other titles will disappear as well or if they will remain up for a while longer.

This development certainly begs a few questions: for those that bought the games and aren’t privy to the homebrew side of the Wii, will they be able to access the titles for redownloading? More importantly, will such a move make its way over to Western shores? It’s too soon to say, but the move is no doubt very discouraging for Virtual Console supporters.

[Via Nintendo World Report]

Game News, Sega Retro

Jet Set Radio Skating Towards XBLA and PSN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfDlHdERxrE

Turns out the new Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 trailer (more on that later) may not be the most important Sega-related reveal today. A teaser trailer for the re-release of Jet Set Radio, a favorite of all Dreamcast fans, has just been released on Youtube. While there’s no release date announced, we do know that it will be released on Xbox Live Arcade and Sony Entertainment Network.

It seems like fans don’t need to worry much about Sega having lost the licensing to the music like with the digital release of Crazy Taxi, considering Funky Radio can be heard in the video above. Now let’s just hope it gets a better treatment than the other Dreamcast ports released so far as well.