First up is Scarabesque, which like the name suggests is a scarab-badnik. This one pushes a ball around and seemingly rolls it at Sonic as his attack. Second is a new, more menacing looking version of the Sandworm from Sonic & Knuckles, it having prolegs suggests it can crawl around instead of just jump out of the sand. Considering these badniks are both desert themed, it’s easy to conclude that the game will have a level themed after the desert as well. For more concept art goodness, check back next week as SEGA has shown no sign of stopping with these yet.

[Via SEGA Blog]

Chances are the small percentage of you that picked up the PC version of Sonic 4: Episode 1 have gotten a small update to the game. Upon trying the game out, you might have also noticed that your settings were all gone and that your save file was gone as well.

While we could take yet another potshot at Sonic 4, let’s focus on fixing that issue. What this last update did is create a second executable file: one for Windows XP and one for Windows Vista/7. To restore settings, you’ll need to run the settings application included with the game. As for the save file, it’s still there with all your hard work. It just needs a little renaming.

To do so, head into your Steam folder located in Program Files, click on the folder named “steamapps” and then “common”. Click on the Sonic 4 folder and you should see a file named “Sonic_save.dat”. Simply rename this to “Sonic_vis_save.dat” and all your hard work will be restored.

For us Americans, Sonic Boom 2012 is happening on July 13th at the House of Blues in beautiful San Diego, California. Timed smack-dab in the middle of the San Diego Comic-Con, they’ve also made it very clear that you don’t need to go to the comic convention to attend Sonic Boom. If you’re frightened of comic books, have no fear.

In a reversal of last year, the Brits will be the first to get together and discuss their best times in Sonic Drift 2, as Summer of Sonic will be taking place on July 7th. Where? Some venue in the London area. Where specifically in London? I have no clue. Hopefully Sega will say the exact location before the 7th, or else you’ll be wandering the streets of London, entering pub after pub searching for people dressed in hedgehog attire.

Finally, since it is only a day before their usual concept art extravaganza, we get another round of Episode 2 based images. So what do we get? Some scenery? A random badnik? Oh no, my friends. We get our first glimpse at one of the bosses in the game: Egg Serpentleaf.

That is certainly something. And a bit frightening. Though I’m sure it won’t be long before people compare it to some other boss that has existed in the Sonic franchise.

So yes, that’s your Hedgehog Day update of 2012. Now you should go outside…wait, no. You should stay inside, put on that Sonic 3 & Knuckles cart hiding out in your closet, and play through Hydrocity Zone. Like any respectable human being would on a day like today!

[Source: Sega.com Blog]

Sega’s been showing a lot of love to PC owners as of late with releases of Sonic Generations, Sonic 4: Episode 1 and Sonic CD to the platform. But what of Sonic Unleashed, the game which kicked off Modern Sonic’s current breakneck speed style (and included the highly divisive Werehog)? If anything, those Unleashed stages may soon be making their way as a patch to the PC version of the game.

Forum members Dario FF, Twilightzoney and Chimera have been hard at work trying to bring Unleashed‘s stages over to Generations’ engine. In one week, they went from bringing in the stages without any sort of collision and usage of Global Illumination Ambiance (GIA), the system used in both Unleashed and Generations to give some dynamic lighting to the levels, to the above video. So far, Windmill Isle Act 2, Dragon Road Act 1 and Cool Edge Act 1 have all made a partial conversion. The group admits that while progress is going well, there is still much work to be done.

“Well shadows ARE casting on stuff like Sonic or the objects. It’s there, it just isn’t casting on the terrain for some reason(and it’s not some Terrain -> Terrain thing, Sonic and the objects don’t),” Dario FF said with regards to missing shadow effects. “The only technical explanation we got is, we don’t effing know. But hey, a week ago I wouldn’t even have dreamed of seeing GIA data correctly working, let alone the high-quality DLC one.”

For comparison, check out this run of Windmill Island Act 2.

For more on the progress of their work, check out this topic. If you can’t see it, here’s a lovely gallery of photos of their work so far.

The first featured is the multicolored Fullboar, who will certainly fulfill your pig-badnik needs. The other is the Facebook exclusive “Steelion,” whose name is all sorts of pun. Normally I’d go into super commentary mode, but there isn’t much to say except, hey, they are new enemies. See you next week!

[Source: SEGA Blog]

Nintendo has recently released demos for the eShop on Nintendo 3DS which primarily consist of retail released games, this also means as of Thursday a release for the demo of the hotly anticipated Sonic the Hedgehog title coming out in February. That’s right, the 3DS edition of Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Hold your applause please. Keep in mind that each downloaded demo from the eShop has a limit of thirty uses. Look through the Game Demos section of the store, or search for the game to download the game to the 3DS system. If you rather hold out for the full version, or don’t live in the US, but still carry an interest, be sure to hit the jump for impressions.

Since this is the 3DS version, each game will make use of one or a combination of control schemes including pushing buttons, using the touch screen or tilt controls. For the most part, each control scheme works the way it should. Each mini game is prefaced with a handful of pages describing and demonstrating the controls with screenshots and are very easy to understand. Even the ones that are the more demanding can still be understood even on the first try. In regards to the 3D effects, while it is not necessary to use for any of the games, they do better than most other 3D enabled games on the system. Even having the 3D effect on all the way did not cause any eye strain, even when characters appear at the closest point possible on the screen.

The demo consists of five events with five characters pre-selected among four teams. The events include 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Football, Trampoline, 100m Backstroke and BMX racing. While the difficulty defaults to Easy mode settings, each mini game is still simple enough to understand despite the variety of play-styles each game represents. They’re not the deepest games that can be found, but they warrant at least more than one playthrough as each game has an element of timing to consider.

25m Rapid Fire Pistol works as sort of a rhythm based game where you have to fire at the center of each of the five targets with the R button in a straight go and goes faster by each round. At first it would seem as if timing the button presses to the beat would actually help the timing, which is actually a misdemeanor. It’s otherwise fairly easy to get the timing down to get as close to the center of each target. A very simple game.

Football, or Soccer for the yanks, uses the circle pad to flick or curve your shots. This is probably the most difficult of the games to get used to as the ball is kicked to the player character, and must kick it in the goal when the ball begins to flash indicating when to flick the circle pad. Curving shots requires the player to rotate the pad as opposed to letting go for the kick to allow for the trickier shots. The player is placed at different positions on each round, with each ball varying in terms of points and obstacles (Egg-Pawns in this case,) in the way of the goal to accommodate for.

Trampoline is where the player must jump for extra height and must adjust their aerial descent to aim as close to the center of the trampoline and to time jumps to gain extra height for bonus points to build up for a signature finisher stunt. The camera is positioned overhead which works fine with the 3D effect turned on, but is unneccesary as a blue circle on the trampoline helps time when to press the jump buttonto gain extra height.

100m Backstroke is a swimming race controlled entirely by the touch screen by making complete circles in time to speed up. It’s a little tough to get the hang of, since you have to match the touch screen with the circle on the top screen which the game tries to teach by giving off two practice strokes to demonstrate how the game works. For each circle with 90% accuracy or above causes the circle timing to go faster until the accuracy goes under 90%. Getting the timing down can be satisfying with each perfectly traced circle, but difficult for those without a steady hand.

Finally the BMX race uses the face buttons to accelerate and jump, the circle pad to adjust your position on the track similar to Excitebike and tilting the gyro sensor built into the 3DS to adjust the landing of each jump. Even when mistiming the landings or running through patches of mud, it still seemed as if it was still possible to stay well ahead of the other racers by simply timing jumps to go over hazards and other hills. The tilt controls are a bit problematic in this game mode however, as the system must be held horizontally for the entire length of the mini game, and the 3D effect doesn’t work as well since it only works best when looking straight at the system. It’s better to leave the 3D effect turned off to prevent from being disoriented.

It’s not proving to be the deepest mini game collection, but they play well enough and in some cases give enough room for the player to improve their performance. While they prove to be a little more in-depth than the predecessors, it’s simply a matter of seeing if there is still an interest in these kinds of games these days. Plus the demo does not showcase any Dream events, and the characters control the same more or less. While each playthrough selects a preset team, it’s likely that each character from each team represents one type of skill they would excel in and just stuck with a rotation that works for the variety of characters for each event. Definitely give this a try if you’re up for more mini games in the vein of the upcoming Olympic games.

Despite Sonic 4 being readily available to iOS and Windows Phone 7 users for quite some time now, it seems Sega has finally decided that those of the Android persuasion should be so fortunate to finally get Sonic 4: Episode 1 for general consumption, launching on the Android Marketplace for only $3.99/£2.56/€3.05.

Actually, this version of Sonic 4 is once again an oddity compared to the others. Like its mobile brethren, it shares the same stages. That’s right, that means everyone’s favorite minecart level and 100,000 point pinball challenge are back. It also includes the console version’s overworld, though in a much more static variety. Curiously enough, the game also uses the graphical assets of the iPad version, which makes Sonic and his environs look more detailed.

A word of caution for those of you with tinfoil hats: Sonic 4, for some reason, requires permissions to have access to your phone number, potentially knowing who you’re calling. Why a game of all things would need this is beyond us, but we are guessing it may have something to do with a potential phone database where Sonic Brand Manager Ken Balough will personally call you to tell you about Sonic 4: Episode 2. Insider sources!

If you recall the lengthy retrospective on the Sega Mega CD, as well as another one of its landmark titles, Night Trap, the developers put out a short documentary named “Dangerous Games” regarding their perspective during and after the hearings from producers, actors as well as avid ‘gamers.’

Granted, there is probably a certain level of bias coming from a few of these people. After all, they all got a kick out of the ’80s-esque campy presentation of the game where the most violent scene in the game revolved around draining helpless victims for blood through one of the most ridiculous pieces of machinery this side of science fiction. Concerned parents who probably didn’t grow up watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 were warded off as word of mouth slowly formed for Night Trap into this off-putting description of a snuff film. Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan expressed his opinion, among the dozens of other soundbite generators labeling Night Trap as “trash, child abuse, sick, disgusting,” and bluntly stating that the Night Trap developers, along with the other developers under fire have gone too far.

The game was pulled from select store shelves despite high demand, selling over a million copies. Consumers were confused by its sudden disappearance. However it would eventually see a reprint with a new cover as part of the result that was met after the hearings concluded. Even the actors, including the game’s star Dana Plato were surprised when the game was pulled. They would defend the game to the point of asking critics if they have “ever played it.” Digital Pictures’ producer Tom Zito, who wanted to speak out for his game, claims he was told that there probably wouldn’t be enough time for him to speak during the hearing. He faced trouble when senators shunned him for not making it to the hearing. When Zito attempted to take the floor, he was silenced as he appeared to be disrupting the floor.

While they weren’t going to win any favors from those lobbying against the industry as a whole, it did help create the modern day video game ratings system. Despite Sega’s efforts to introduce their own ratings system at the same time to notify potential buyers of what to expect inside their purchased software, it would be discontinued in favor of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The ESRB would become the industry’s answer to avoid government regulation and to inform consumers.

Video games have continued to be the whipping boy of watchdog groups, lobbyists and politicians to ensure the safety and protection of children from these creations. But it is still an interesting viewpoint to witness, at least in America, of an era that will still favor the voice of the consumer, the developer who only produce content to entertain, and keep these occupations strong.

Sony’s official U.S. PlayStation blog revealed that Sonic CD boomed past the competition and was the top purchased digital game on the PlayStation Store for the last month of 2011. Given the cult classic status it has amongst Sonic fans, seeing it bust out the gate strong is always a pleasant sight, though its feeling of familiarity with small enhancements for this HD age to give it a breath of fresh air certainly left us smiling.

The other story is that it no doubt shows success for Christian “The Taxman” Whitehead’s Retro Engine, utilized to power the game and all its modifications, and more importantly sends a strong message to Sega that demand is out there and there is benefit to using the engine in not only new Sonic games, but various new titles in general given the engine’s versatility. Congratulations, Taxman!

If you’ve not gone and purchased Sonic CD or spread the word to friends who enjoy a quirky platformer, what are you waiting for? We’ll even GIVE you a copy of Sonic CD on Steam if you have a nice tale on how you got someone to play Sonic CD!

If it hasn’t clicked yet from the black and white lineart just what that is supposed to look like, then the full color version might be enough to jog your memory…

Yes indeed, we are treated to a relic from a long forgotten age: the spinning wheel things from Sonic the Hedgehog 3. You know, those blue quarter-cirlcles you spindash next to to cause the landscape to change around you in Marble Garden Zone…yeah, who knows if they ever had a real name. Either way, they seem to be making their grand return to Sonic. But that’s not all! Knowing throwing out just one image of something we’ve already seen 18 years ago might not be that exciting, Sega has gone ahead and extended their promotion to their official Facebook page, where they will have additional, exclusive concept art. What do we get to see? Why, the first known badnik in the game. And…wait, what?

That’s…that’s something new! Sure, it does have some similarities to Yadrin from the first Sonic the Hedgehog, but for the first time, we have no idea what to call the little guy. And since he has spikes on his top, that implies that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be forced to roll through him if you want to free whatever is inside, instead of just slamming that homing attack. Crazy ideas are afoot, Sega!

To round out your Sonic 4 moment of the day, Archie Comics has revealed the cover to their Sonic Super Special Magazine #3, which is meant to contain an adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2. Though it’ll be a few months before we get to read it, the cover has been revealed, with quite the interesting upper bar…

Yes, your first glimpse at a screenshot of Sonic 4: Episode 2. Since it’s only a sliver of visual information, we don’t know much aside from the fact that it’ll be a ruins level, though a couple people have already commented that it resembles the pillars from Aquatic Ruin Zone. Either way, we are promised to see something beyond what we saw in Episode 1. Let the speculation commence!

[Source: Sega Blog]