Archive for the 'Miscellaneous' Category

UPDATE: Apparently, the deal went over rather well since both the PS2 and 360 versions sold out at around 9 p.m. EST. The offer was called off as orders from the game after Amazon’s stock was sold out were being handled by Target, who were not honoring the deal. A good sign to see the game is selling, anyway.

So, you’ve held off buying Sonic Unleashed because of money. Yes, after the chaos this year has wracked on consumers, both in the items being released or because the global economy is in the toilet, saving money is a very big deal.

Amazon understands this and, for today, Nov. 29, only as part of their on-going Black “Friday” sales, Sonic Unleashed on PS2 and 360 (the PS3 version is not included, due to not being released, nor is the Wii version.) are being offered at a $24 discount on the 360 and $14 on the PS2. Of course, this is limited strictly to the U.S. Amazon site.

It doesn’t quite end there. If you use the bonus code, “UNLEASH5″ (no quotation marks), the price will be discounted a further $5. In total, the game can now be gotten for $21 on the 360 and $10 on PS2.

If financial troubles were keeping you away from this game or you’re just cheap and love to save money, today is the day to jump. Again, the deal is only for today.

Amazon.com: Sonic Unleashed

16 years ago, the sequel to one of the most iconic faces in video game history, Sonic the Hedgehog, hit the retail gaming market. This game introduced a new character to the series, Miles “Tails”  Prower, who to this day has remained a prominent face in the Sonic franchise. With Sonic and his new sidekick tearing through brand new zones at breakneck speeds, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 set the bar not only for the Sonic franchise, but for platforming games as a whole at its time. Not used to the speedy platforming that the games delivered, players were blown away by the pace of each level. When asked how they were able to make the game go so much faster than other games at the time, SEGA would explain it using the classic term, “Blast Processing.” Indeed, there was something special about this game!

Celebrate Sonic 2’s 16th birthday with something special! Dust off the ol’ Genesis and give the game a whirl. Get an friend to blast through Emerald Hill Zone in the game’s two player mode! Set yourself some new challenges–for example, I’ve never personally tried getting all of the emeralds because I hate the special stages. Who knows, though–maybe this time I’ll get lucky.

Recall your memories about the game in this forum thread! Share what you decided to do for Sonic’s special day today. Engross yourself in what made this game great. It’s the least you can do, after all!

BE JEALOUS.

An interesting nugget from the pages of the New York Times appeared today to remind us that everything can kill us; it seems terrorist organization al-Qaeda has been looking into making Sega cartridges into detonators. No word as to why they specified Sega only. As pulled from the New York Times:

One detainee is said to have been schooled in making detonators out of SEGA game cartridges.

The story’s origin seem to come from the case of Hassan Bin Attash - a seventeen year old (at time of capture) detainee that several human rights organizations claim was tortured in Jordan before being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Be careful with the prototypes out there, prototype hunters. You may very well wind up with the one Sonic 2 prototype packing Genocide City Zone.

Next President Will Face Test on Detainees [New York Times]

With Sonic Unleashed info a little hard to come by (except that a demo is unlikely to be made for it this month, or even the first week of November), we look to something… else.

“Speedy Dragon” on the Super A’can. Apparently, near the end of the 16-bit era, a Taiwanese company wanted in on the success that SEGA had with the Mega Drive/Genesis. Unfortunately for them, they chose the end of the era to get their operations started. They created a similar system with a number of clone games, only to discover the hard way that the 16-bit era was over.

As a result, they had to scrap their production and this game became much harder to play. Although to the average Sonic gamer, it’s not terribly new; with a super peel out animation, collecting baseballs instead of rings, item monitors, similar death animation, a Sonic 2-esque special stage, and even a boss who resembles Eggman. But it’s still funny to see after all these years, for all of its anachronistic glory.

Watch a gameplay video here
Discuss in the forums
Thanks to Shoemanbundy for finding this, and the wiki editors for putting up so much information.

It just so happens that even though a number of people disliked these episodes, the poor people in Japan who never got to see them in the first place would like to be able to do so. For Sonic X episodes 53-78 were released in the States and to an extent in Europe, but never made it to Japan, despite the fact the original work was done in Japanese.

Interest in these episodes indicates an untapped market for Sega, especially with regards to Sonic X. But it seems that all work on Sonic X whatsoever has ended, leaving us wondering: will SEGA respond, or will they ignore this, like (unfortunately) most fan attempts to get Sonic media from one region into another?

You can read a translation of their campaign here.
Discuss it in the forums.

Despite his recent downward spiral, the Blue Blur remains the U.K.’s top video game character, blazing past the competition with 24% of the vote. It remains a mystery as to how Sonic ranked so high (it must be something about his green eyes, his Nike Check™ like smile, or his ability to just not die.)

This aside, the Hedgehog’s come as little surprise, given the incredibly strong sales titles such as Sonic Heroes and, more recently, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games sported in the region.

The poll was conducted in honor of the opening of the London Games Festival, collecting the votes of 500 gamers. Other notables include Mario (at 21%) and Britain’s own Lara Croft (16%). Hit the jump for the full press release. You may be pleasantly surprised at some of the top 10.

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Back in the day, Sonic was quite a force, and you could find his name on practically anything. Those days are gone now, but it’s always interesting to look at what was there.

Some of these foods can still be found, although the non-candy ones are likely inedible now.

(Pictures from Sonicgear.org)

The pasta is the longest lived item, spanning the old Sonic to the one we see today. A rather plain tomato-based sauce was on it, and it wasn’t really the best pasta, but was fine for a quick lunch. There were many different offers related to it, and it can be considered the quintessential food item; when it ended, it was pretty much over for all the Sonic food items.

The gum… the gum. It came in these weird cases and had weird card-shaped pieces of highly dusted gum. It tasted sorta good, but had not so much flavor. It came with weird cards I wish I had saved… it was interesting, for sure. These cards could be worth something today.

Want to know more about these items? Just go to Sonic Gear’s US Food page for more info; they have pretty much all of the items.

Know an item not on that page? Post it in the comments!

Sega’s own amusement park, Joypolis, is kicking off Halloween this weekend—blame it on holiday creep or something—and in addition to the mysterious masked Pumpking running around and facepainting, you can have your photo taken with Sonic, all decked out for the holiday!

By which they mean you can get an image of Sonic as a frame around your picture. However, it’s still neat art, which is why we’ve included it here. If you happen to be visiting Tokyo over the next month or so and want to check it out, there’s more information at the Joypolis site.

Most of us here at Sonic Retro would like to think of ourselves as hardcore fans: researchers, hackers, TASers, and all-around enjoyers of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. However, there has been a small number of people who have taken their Sonic the Hedgehog fandom to the next level by putting Sonic right onto their skin. While I personally plan on sticking to these Sonic tattoos, others have gone all-out in their inkings.

We’ve gathered a small collection of these tattoos, which you can see under the cut. Do you have a Sonic tattoo? Would you consider getting one?

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