Today, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 turns 19 years old – and how should the hedgehog celebrate this milestone? Well, if you’re Japanese – by playing golf on your phone!
http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Golf_DX
How will you celebrate the blue & spiky one’s final teen birthday? Let us know in the comments!
Among the slew of awesome games coming to the 3DS, a Sonic game is among a list of multiple titles cited for the 3DS. Taken from Nintendo’s press site:
Well, we get to see 20 seconds of old footage with at least 20 seconds of new footage! Also new screen shots for the DS version of Sonic Colors as well as the Wii version! The two levels seen in the screen shots for both the DS and the Wii are “Tropical Resort” and “Sweet Mountain.” Sonic Team didn’t ask us if we’d like fries with that level.
Although details are limited, Sonic Free Riders has been officially confirmed as a launch title for Microsoft’s newly named Kinect (aka; Project Natal). Prepare to waggle like you’ve never waggled before and hopefully in time to see it at this year’s E3! The press release put out for the game is as follows:
SEGA ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST TITLE FOR “KINECT” FOR Xbox 360
Sonic Free Riders™ brings full body motion controlled fast-paced boarding action into people’s homes!
LOS ANGELES (June 14th, 2010) – SEGA Europe Ltd. & SEGA America Inc., today announced Sonic Free Riders™. Set for release Holiday 2010, Sonic Free Riders™ offers an extreme fast-paced boarding game and is developed to take full advantage of “Kinect” for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.For the first time ever in a SEGA game, full-motion body control will allow you to twist and turn your way through a range of visually stunning courses in an action-packed Sonic experience unlike any other! “Kinect’s” unique motion sensor means Sonic Free Riders™ will see family and friends controlling their fully customisable hover board or bike by twisting, turning and jumping in an exhilarating race to be the first to cross the finish line! Choosing from one of your favourite Sonic characters, or your own Avatar, you can reach out and grab a variety of pickups along the course. By throwing, shaking, or swinging your arms to launch your weapon, you can gain the competitive edge over your rivals in high octane single or multiplayer races.
“SEGA is immensely excited to be a part of Microsoft’s line up for “Kinect” for Xbox 360, the full body motion control is an innovative avenue allowing for complete immersion in the game” commented Gary Knight, Senior Vice President of Marketing at SEGA Europe and SEGA America. “This is a whole new way to play as Sonic! By providing a complete level of freedom, movement and ease of play, “Kinect” for Xbox 360 and Sonic Free Riders ensures all the family can enjoy the thrill of racing as if they were actually on their hover boards.”
Sonic Free Riders™ will be available to play with “Kinect” for Xbox 360 for Holiday 2010.
While I was recording the Sonic Retro podcast with the rest of the crew here (it may quite possibly be our fourth attempt on getting an acceptable fourth podcast), the issue of SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics pack now being available on Steam came up, along with the issue of the game’s filesize (reported on the pre-purchase page to be 50MB, but in actuality… 107MB.) In the interest of SCIENCE (and proving that I have no issue with spending $5 of my own money on pointless purchases), I bit the bullet and bought a Steam copy of Sonic 3D Blast.
Why they’re pairing the Sonic 3D: Flickies’ island wordmark and horrendous Sonic render I’ll never know.
I went ahead and installed the game, and I must say–I’m incredibly underwhelmed. Now, given that this is basically a glorified emulator frontend, I had low expectations to begin with, but as I played it became clear why Sega never released any promotional screenshots for this game–and no, I don’t know why that one screenshot shows up oddly in gallery; it’s correct in full-size.
Needless to say, this has been a pretty large disappointment and I would recommend you spend your hard-earned 5bux on a used copy of Sonic Mega Collection Plus for the PC instead.
Really, you should donate
Rather than harassing people every month about the cost of Sega/Sonic Retro, I figure it’d be far nicer to just ask once a year for you to donate—it’s far less annoying for all parties. Given that most of you seem to have a few extra bucks in the summertime, I figure there’s no better time than now.
We here at Sonic Retro try our best to provide you with information and entertainment on a number of different mediums, from our front page news updates to our extensive archives of knowledge to the forums, IRC and podcasts. Considering that we do not put advertising on any of these products nor does anyone on staff get paid to produce these things, we’re offering you a lot for free both in terms of resources and labor. In exchange, all we ask is that you chip in to help us pay to bring these services to you.
Our current costs per operating year are:
That brings us to $940 a year. Normally, I just grab the Badnik costs out of pocket, so that brings the bill to $700. If you could help by sending us money to cover these costs, it would be greatly appreciated.
When we occasionally have more funds than our operating costs, we use the excess money to purchase goods and services that help the Retro community. Some of the many things I have paid for this last year include shipping foreign goods to members in other countries so they can produce scans and photos, paying international library fees, and buying products to scan. Many of these items tend to pop up on a random basis on auction sites and it always handy to have money to cover these costs. The only thing I know right now that I do want is a 50-page Sega slot machine service manual to scan and distribute, which runs around $25.
In addition to the server expenses I mentioned earlier, I am interested in purchasing some t-shirts to sell for fundraising in the future (most likely a brown/black/blue run of shirts with the Retro star logo and/or a blue shirt with the 1960s-style Sega logo on it.) However, I would need to know if you guys are interested in buying such shirts (which would be between $12 and $15 plus shipping depending on how many I could order at one time.) I’m friends with a company that does professional merchandise for many well-known bands, so this isn’t shoddy shit—these are nice, high-quality American Apparel or Alternative Apparel shirts.
What’s in it for me?
If you donate between now and July 15, you will receive:
You can donate by using my PayPal address of [email protected] or using this donation page to donate by credit/debit card or bank account. Thank you for donating to support Retro! Your donations are the fuel that powers our Speedboat of Awesome.
I know we all love Sonic the Hedgehog. But sometimes we need a different kind of fast paced frantic fun-fest. Although some of SEGA’s modern Sonic offerings haven’t quite fit the bill, Valve created a great multiplayer shooter a few years back called Team Fortress 2 that does a great job of filling our poor, empty, violated gap. Not too long ago, the Sonic Retro Steam group had a server of its own to call home, but it eventually died out when I could no longer afford to keep it running. This is a shame since according to the Sonic Retro Steam group stats, members play TF2 at least half of the time they spend on Steam! But now I have a better job and better shopping skills! What that means is we now have ourselves a new server to play TF2 on when we just need a break from break-neck speeds.
Curious what kind flavor of TF2 we play with? Well this isn’t a competitive server. It’s actually pretty customized with several mods and fun tweaks. Truth be told, Retro TF2 isn’t the server you want to join for a serious game. For now though, we still have a little bit of setup work to do. So none of our customizations are really available. Although we have setup administrative functions and the server is up and running. So if you’re feeling a little bored and want to shoot up a few friends, check out the details for joining below!
Name: Retro TF2
Game: Team Fortress 2
IP/Port: 208.43.15.123:27015
Slots: 24
Note: Post image by toughset on DeviantArt.
Keeping in line with that leaked document last year that detailed plans to bring Dreamcast titles to Sony’s PlayStation Network service, an ESRB filing shows that Sonic Adventure will also be making its way to the PlayStation 3.
The Xbox 360 is also listed, though its existence has been known about (unofficially) for quite a while. Sega has yet to officially reveal the titles arriving on the two services.
While the 360 version is based off the PC port of Sonic Adventure DX, it’s unknown if the PS3 version will be the same, though extremely likely. However, the rating lists entries for both versions of the game.
What’s your take? Will you be picking this up if the price is right or has the title aged unfavorably for you?
[Via Siliconera]
Finally, solid information about Sonic Colors! Clearly Sonic Team is on the right track this time.
As the webmaster of a video game website, I tend to get a variety of real-life mail related to the site, but most of it is incredibly boring: server bills, webhosting quarterlies, boring books of documentation. However, once in a very rare while I will receive something so incredibly amazing my sheer joy can’t be held back. So wonderful that I feel I must tell the entire Internet. And today, my friends, I received something just that wonderful.
(Click for full size)
The Sega Boozometer is a bar game to “test sobriety”–the player inserts a nickel and attempts to move a ring on a handle along a curved rail without the ring actually touching the rail. If the player succeeds, they get their nickel back. It’s a simple enough game, but it doesn’t appear to have been a popular one–in all the research I have done online and off (including quite a few snoozefests of old books and magazines), I have never come across this machine before now. I’d probably place the machine as having been manufactured somewhere in the mid-60s, possibly as late as 1969-70, though I would think the vaguely racist drawing in the top-left corner would have been removed if it were later than that. Bear in mind that such illustrations were par for the course for the industry back then (Seeburg in particular had some very offensive stuff in the 40s), so this is no cause to run around and call Sega racist.
In any case, it’s a neat bit of Sega history that had been forgotten before now; if on the off-chance you own one of these machines (or do a Google search and find this page years later), contact this site, as I’m eager for actual photos of the machine. Until then, I’m definitely framing this ad and keeping it above my liquor cabinet.
