All Stars Racing Transformed is only a little over a month away at this point. With this close to release, a number of people may be looking to retire their copy of Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing. Comparing the two is almost like comparing apples to oranges. That said it still acts as an important stepping stone that deserves an honorable mention. Before it becomes overshadowed from it’s upcoming sequel, we rattled the memories of Executive Producer at Sumo Digital Steve Lycett in an E-mail interview regarding development for Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing and what it’s sequel has benefited from their efforts.
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]
Last November SEGA released a couple of TV commercials for the release of the Wii version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Now that the 3DS version has been released as well another pair of advertisements come with it, again with each having their own gameplay clips and ending.
In this commercial Mario and Sonic get a tour around a royal palace while they try not to act like their usual selves. Above is Sonic’s version, after the jump you can view the version with Mario’s ending and the launch trailer for the 3DS edition.
If you played Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, you may remember the dream events. If you didn’t, they were basically the normal Olympic events mixed up and put in stages from various Mario and Sonic games. For example, there was one where you snowboard through Radical Highway. These events return in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, with events taking place in Sonic levels like Windy Valley or BINGO Highway and levels themed after Mario games like Super Mario Galaxy. You can see them in action in the new trailer below:
The game is out now for Wii and a 3DS version will be released early next year.
Wii owners in Japan this month will receive it’s second Virtual Console Mega Drive game that can be taken online: Super Street Fighter II – The New Challengers. The first being Puyo Puyo. Little is known about this version, but Japan Wii owners can expect a release to land for the month of November at the standard price point of 600 Wii Shop Points. The Super NES version will not obtain this feature, despite it already being released. No announcement has been made for other regions. You can check out the teaser direct from Sega’s Youtube channel below.
Credit goes to Nintendo Life for pointing out this release.
With Sonic Generations recently released and Sonic CD getting an enhanced new version next month, one could forget that there’s a new Mario and Sonic game coming out next week. To remind you, SEGA has released a couple of new TV commercials. The ads are mostly the same, but have slightly different gameplay bits and different endings so they are both worth a watch:
Besides the Wii version, there’s also the 3DS version coming out early next year. Amazon has recently updated the store page with the box-art of this, which has as much promotional art crammed on it as the designers could get away with:
As Sonic’s 20th Anniversary year chugs on, Sega has shown three titles for the franchise in a tease of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2, the duel of mascots thrice over in Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games and an assault of media for the upcoming PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Sonic Generations.
And yet, it seems that aside from a downloadable game and a collection of mini-games that Wii and 3DS owners are hardly getting any love in the form of a substantial Sonic platformer.
That may all be changing as next month’s Nintendo Power magazine includes a rather substantial teaser for the celebration of Sonic’s 20th Anniversary, featuring an edited version of teaser art for Sonic Generations. Could it mean that Sonic Generations is headed to a Nintendo console?
At the moment, it’s unlikely, but considering that Nintendo’s Project Cafe is set to be demonstrated at next month’s E3, and one of its rumored bits of design allows developers to easily port games from Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it’s certainly a possibility.
Or it could even be a brand new title. This would go against what Sega of America Vice President of Sales and Marketing Alan Pritchard said in an interview with GameInformer last year stating that the company only had three new titles lined up for the franchise, as we already have three titles for the most part announced.
After the warm reception Sonic Colors got on both the Wii and DS in sales, a Sonic title for any of the console giant’s trinity is all but confirmed.
Sonic Generations has commanded the attention of the fan base since its reveal earlier in the week. That still hasn’t stopped Sega from quietly confirming that Mario and Sonic will continue their bitter rivalry 20 years too late as they compete in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Excitement.
Although it’s another compilation of mini-games for the Nintendo Wii, Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games will be the series’ debut on the Nintendo 3DS. DS owners need not apply, as it looks like there’s no DS version planned.
New events include horseback riding and football (the non-American kind), meaning those still stuck in the ’90s can finally have Mario and Sonic face off for two halves of headbutts and red cards.
While it’s easy to brush the game aside as another collection of mini-games, having the two mascots face off in the Olympics served Sega well, as the games have so far been sleeper hits for the company, selling over 19 million copies globally.
No release date has been penciled in for the title, but it’s safe to assume it will either be by year’s end or certainly before next year’s Olympic ceremonies begin.
Check out the full press release after the jump.
[Via Sonic Stadium]