Sonic Retro News

• This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise at this point, but Sonic CD is coming to XBLA, PSN and a bevvy of mobile devices. Oh, and it’s being ported by Retro’s Own (TM) Taxman. Also, it’s pretty awesome. [ Sonic CD coming to everything except Nintendo systems ]
• Bgvanbur has been researching Cinepak on the Sega CD, which needless to say, isn’t the best-documented codec. So why not make a technical demo with…Nyan Cat? I’m sensing a trend here with hackers and that cat. [ Demystifying Cinepak for Sega ]
• The KKM linked a very odd video on the forums looking for an explanation behind it. Personally, I don’t have one, but it still needs to be seen for its sheer weirdness. That, and maybe one of you actually do know its origins. [ A weird video in the Supreme Topic ]

Sega/Sonic News

• Lots of great things happened for Sega at this year’s PAX: a great party at Gameworks, an award for best booth with Aliens: Colonial Marines, but most importantly…dance-off. [ Details on Twitter, for now ]
• Speaking of PAX, a new trailer for Rise of Nightmares was released for the expo, continuing the campy theme seen with their last video. This also confirms my feelings that watching anyone play with a Kinect will always be unintentionally hilarious. [ Rise of Nightmares - PAX 2011 Undead Spokesman Live Action Trailer ]
• The under-appreciated Valkyria Chronicles II is receiving a re-release in Japan as part of “Sega the Best,” a budget line there, for about $20. DLC is thrown in to boot. [ SEGA of Japan Gives Fans Another Edition of Valkyria Chronicles II! ]
• Junpei Takiguchi, known to Sega fans as the voice of Dr. Eggman in the Sonic the Hedgehog OVA, passed away today. He was 80 years old and lost a battle with stomach cancer. [ Voice Actor/Narrator Junpei Takiguchi Passes Away ]

Other Stuff

• From Portal helping a guy through house arrest to how a transwoman used video games to accept her identity, this blog is a great collection of essays on the importance of gaming. [ How games saved my life ]
• Think you can name any game just by the sound (or, more likely, are bored and have a few minutes to kill?) PBS has a neat little flash game that quizzes players on classic video game sound effects. [ Name That Game ]
• A set of French illustrations demonstrating life in the year 2000 done in the year 1910 have recently been scanned and uploaded to the Internet. brb, gotta refill the helium in my dual-blimp ship. [ What People in 1910 Thought the Year 2000 Would Be Like? ]

Monday Video

OK, So many fishies I got caviar for ovaries isn’t really a lyric I can drop in everyday conversation, but that is certainly not going to stop me from trying.

It’s called Sonic Freehand according to the actual blog post (though it just says Sonic the Hedgehog on the title screen) – it’s a 2D platform game entirely in doodle graphics, check out this little animation:

Japan really does get all the cool stuff. I want this

Stay tuned to Sonic Retro for more news as it develops (and to our forums where a 40-page argument will inevitably break out. )

Who wouldn’t want to buy “Super 12 in 1″? I mean, c’mon! There’s Battletoads, Duck Tales, Pikachu and Sonic all on one Game Boy (surprisingly not “Game”) cart! In fact, most of the golden pirated Sonic games from Brazil aren’t from modern games (where the pirated material look s mostly identical to the real games) but from the Mega Drive era, where things just get downright silly.

If you think Sonic 4 is passe, you’ll be happy to know that this game has Sonic 5 on it (clearly the prequel to Sonic 6), and apparently as a bonus has Sonic Adventure 2.

Alternately, you could just skip directly to “Sonic Adventure 5,” also for the Game video game system. However, if you’re turning to the Mega Drive and looking for quality, I’d recommend checking out the following pirate titles:

Though I must say when I saw the last cart was a “Sonic the Hedgehog/Top Gear 2″ combo title, I was sort of secretly hoping it’d be this:

Oh well. Pirates are good, but they’re never that good, it seems. There’s always just something a little off about what they do when making a cart.

And sometimes, when I say a little off, I mean literally:

But bear in mind that pirated carts are not all Mercado Livre has to offer a Sonic fan! Tune in tomorrow for even more Brazilian merchandise.

Today the official Sonic the Hedgehog 4 website was updated with a hefty amount of new material. The site’s design was revamped to look more like Splash Hill Zone, the first planned level in the game, and several more assets–namely screenshots and the music for the level itself–were released to suit. In addition, the second character box in the Characters section of the website has been revealed to be none other than Dr. Eggman, alleviating any prior rumors of “Classic Sonic” being the second featured character bio.

Check out the official Sonic 4 website!

More screenshots and material after the bump.

UPDATE: Now with looping ADX version of the Splash Hill Act 1 track!

Splash Hill Zone Music

Looping ADX version (right-click –> Save As)

As you can see here, SEGA’s website has offered an additional hidden graphic which names the N2 platform as the fourth release platform for Sonic 4. This is strange considering SEGA already slipped a graphic that the iPhone was the last platform.

For those who don’t know, the N2 is an arcade game platform built on Nvidia graphics technology and very easy to port to PC. So this begs the question: Did SEGA anticipate our snooping after all? Or are they adjusting their marketing to suit it? Whatever the case SEGA, keep doing it. It’s far more entertaining then the past few Sonic games. But hopefully not as fun as Sonic 4 should be.

Sonic 4 Jingle (Mega CD Version)

Credit goes to multiple members of the boards for the picture and Tweaker for the music.

Sega, please, please reconsider the direction you are going in. Pay attention to the things your fans are making in response.

For those of you who are interesting in the product for reasons outside of that strange nostalgia factor, the console will be available in the UK starting in April of 2009. You can pick it up for about £39.95 and it will feature a total of 50 titles. 20 of them being official licensed SEGA titles such as Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, and Alex Kidd with 16 others being special motion controlled sports games. The other 11 will be a variety of arcade titles. I know what you’re thinking though. “As great as those games sound, what if I get bored of playing waggle-tennis 2D?” There’s good news! Turns out the Zone40/SEGA Zone (as the console is named) will be able to take Genesis (or in this case, Mega Drive) cartridges, leaving you free to play whichever classic titles you want while pretending it’s still 1992 with a twist from the future.