Monthly Archives

March 2010

Game News, Miscellaneous

Sonic 4 Soundtrack Ripped

Forum member infinity has somehow managed to obtain a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 4‘s soundtrack and has posted it on the forums!

Link.

My thoughts? Splash Hill Act 1 was just really shoddily done; this soundtrack is nowhere near as bad as I thought it’d be! I recommend checking out Mad Gear in particular as well as Splash Hill Acts 2 & 3. Really top notch stuff all around.

Check out the relevant forum topic!

UPDATE: Boss 1 is actually an unused track from the 16-bit Sonic 3D – so at least one track from this game dates back to 1995! See the below Youtube link for the original unused song:

An MP3 download of the above track is here.

Arcade Games, Game News

Two new Sonic games announced

Contrary to what you may think, the two newest Sonic games coming out this year aren’t coming to the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3 or Xbox Live Arcade–they’re just coming straight to the arcade. Sega Amusements USA has released two new arcade games under their new “Sonic Allstars” (no apparent relation to Sega All-Stars) series: Sonic Air Hockey and Sonic Basketball.

Sonic Air Hockey table

Sonic Air Hockey is an air hockey game utilizing the Sonic character and first of the Sonic Allstars lineup. The unit is all dressed up in bright white and Sega blue, the Sonic Allstars branding with a giant Sonic right on the surface of the playfield. This air hockey table is suitable for 2~4 players with a wider playing surface to accommodate 4 players. The unit has a built in ticket dispenser for redemption with an adjustable ticket payout, and the Sonic Allstars line enables operators to build a Sega / Sonic themed area in their locations. It features a polycarbonate scratch-free playfield, redemption ticket payout, electronic coin mech, 2 & 4 player available, neon overhead lights, aluminum body, side and center safe guards, chasing LED lights, time / score display, and Sega-branded pucks.

Sonic Basketball

Sonic Basketball is a ticket redemption game with a built in ticket dispenser, where players are challenged to hit the target scores to move onto the next level and to try to beat the highest score. With each level cleared, the game play will change, the level of difficulty increasing with each stage. The title features include linking up to 15 units, original hip-hop mix music, a high quality bass speaker, built-in ticket dispenser, and Sega-branded basketballs.

Keep a lookout for both of these new machines at your local arcade!

Game News, Humor

Remember those Sonic sackboys?

Good news US players! Sonic’s ReturnToLittleBigPlanet representation is finally landing on the PSN. And usually I would post details but you know me! When there’s a video I don’t say shit! Enjoy this lovely preview.



The kit will be available for $5.99, or the characters individually are $1.99. The kit also includes some Sonic level content to work with! Feel free to read more about it here.

Game News

Sonic 4 Website Updated; New Assets Revealed

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!

Continue Reading

Fan Works

New Sonic Fan Project Shows Promise

Forum member pelikan13 surprised the Retro forums earlier today with his as-of-yet unnamed Sonic fan project. Sporting wonderful 3D graphics and running on the Unity3D engine, the project shows immense amounts of promise, even being instantly praised as how the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 4 “should have been done.”

Here’s a screenshot:

More screenshots and even a video are available in the relevant forum topic.

Humor

Why Sonic the Hedgehog 4 will SUCK (Courtesy of Destructoid)

Destructoid has an article up over here proclaiming the reasons why Sonic 4 will suck – essentially it’s a piss-take on the nitpicky little things that some have been complaining about Sonic 4 that will make zero difference to the game in general, everything from eye-colour to Robotnik/Eggman’s naming argument. Go and take a look, but remember to take it with a large helping of salt. =P

Game News

Sonic 4 Achievements Revealed; Super Sonic Confirmed

French website Succes Full has allegedly obtained 12 of the available achievements for Episode 1 of Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Among the facts confirmed about the game include the presence of E.G.G. Station in the first episode, the existence of leaderboards for both  time and score in levels, and the presence of Super Sonic playable in levels, akin to Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

The full list of achievements is available below:

The Story Begins
Clear SPLASH HILL ZONE, ACT 1. (5)

Crush Dr. Eggman
Defeat a boss for the first time. (5)

The First Chaos Emerald
Acquire a Chaos Emerald. (5)

Enemy Hunter
Defeat 1,000 enemies. (10)

Golden Flash
Clear all Acts as Super Sonic. (10)

All Stages Cleared!
Defeat the final boss and view the ending. (10)

Contender
Upload your recorded scores and clear times for all stages. (10)

Ring Collector
Collect all the Rings in ‘Special Stage 1′ and Clear the stage. (15)

Immortal
Build up 99 or more extra lives. (25)

Super Sonic Genesis
Acquire all seven Chaos Emeralds. (30)

Speed’s My Game
Clear SPLASH HILL ZONE ACT 1 in less than a minute. (35)

Untouchable
Clear the E.G.G. STATION ZONE without taking any damage. (40)

In light of this news, it goes without saying that a lot more fans are likely to be excited for this game. This is the first time since Sonic 3 that Super Sonic has been a fully playable character in normal levels, excluding outings such as Sonic R. Will this start a positive new trend of blasting through levels at breakneck speeds with the ring counter ticking down menacingly? Only time will tell. One thing we can say is this, though–shit just got real.

Game Secrets, Hacking

More Tails Remnants Found in Chaotix

Forum member and resident wiki sysop Andlabs has been very busy tearing through the Knuckles’ Chaotix ROM recently for the sake of documenting its internals entirely. Among the oodles of information he’s uncovered, though, one particular find stands out…

It’s Tails in the Tornado! It’s been known that Sonic and Tails had leftovers in prototype builds of Chaotix, but something of this caliber has never been seen before. Big props to Andlabs for the find!

Check out the forum topic here.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Game_Secrets:Knuckles_Chaotix#Removed_Character
Fan Works, Humor

Mega64 Takes the [Onion] Rings out of Everyone’s Mouths.

Mega64 has certainly gained a lot of popularity since starting as a mere public access TV show. Of course I liked them before they were cool. But whatever…

Today isn’t a day to chuckle at Mega64’s antics, but to observe their classy taste and analysis of…uh…fast food.

(Why this simile isn’t drawn upon more I’ll never know.)