Monthly Archives

July 2015

Fan Works, Miscellaneous, Music

Something For The Weekend: Sonic After The Sequel Weekend Extravaganza

So the weekend rolls around again and finally (at least if you’re a 9-5 worker in the UK), you can afford to put your feet up, crack open a beverage of choice and enjoy yourself for a couple of days.

After the success we enjoyed last week with the Sonic Generations stream – well, popularity-wise, anyway; gameplay-wise, I wasn’t particularly successful but hey, I’m out of practice and it’s something to work on – we’ve decided another stream might be a good idea for a weekend event again. In lieu of this, and combined with the fact that the creator behind popular fangames Sonic BTS and ATS LakeFeperd has announced a kickstarter for his new, original project named Spark The Electric Jester, we decided a stream of Sonic After The Sequel could be a great idea.

Don’t panic – it’s not tonight, so you have time to plan ahead if you were particularly interested in seeing the game played. We’re going to kick things off tomorrow (Saturday 1st August) at 8pm BST/3pm EST/12pm PST.

The stream will be hosted over at http://twitch.tv/NovaRetro.

Of course, I don’t want to leave you high and dry for your Friday night so have some tunes directly from the game, neatly featured in a soundtrack playlist for your listening pleasure.

Game News, Miscellaneous

LakeFeperd (The Sonic After the Sequel Guy) Puts Up a Kickstarter for Spark the Electric Jester


LakeFeperd, a member of our forums who is probably most well known for his fangames Sonic Before the Sequel and After the Sequel, just put up a Kickstarter for his upcoming game Spark the Electric Jester. He’s asking $7,000 as the base goal for the game, which he calls a mix of Sonic (obviously), Mega Man X and Kirby Super Star.
The main reason for the Kickstarter is to raise funds for the soundtrack and sound design, which is mostly being done by people who worked on his past fangames including Falk Au Yeong, James Landino, Andy Tunstall, Pejman Roozbeh, Michael Staple and newcomer Paul Bethers. The planned release window is Spring 2016 for Windows and Mac, with the game coming to Steam Greenlight. They plan to release a DRM free version as well.
Be sure to take a look at the Kickstarter here. And if you want to try out the game, you can try out the demo.

Miscellaneous

Summer Games Done Quick 2015 Speeds Off Tomorrow With Plenty of Sonic and SEGA

SGDQ2015
Another summer, another Summer Games Done Quick. If you’re not familiar with what the it is: basically it’s an event where a lot of speedrunners do live runs of various games for charity. In this case for Doctors Without Borders. And this year they’ll be streaming some Sonic games on the first day already.
You can expect speedruns of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, the neutral story in Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic’s story in Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut on the first day, with an additional speedrun of Big the Cat’s story if a certain amount of money is donated. On the second day Shenmue II, the Castle of Illusion remake, Toejam & Earl, Streets of Rage 2 and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe will be played. Then we’re getting more Sonic on the fourth day with runs of Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean MachineSonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Advance and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as well as the fantastic Sonic-inspired game Freedom Planet. Finally there’ll be speedruns of Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest and Mega Man: The Wily Wars on the fifth day of the event.
Of course, these are only the SEGA games that’ll be played there. You can find the full schedule with times of when games will be played in your timezone here, along with details on which speedrunners are playing them and estimates of how long it will take to beat the games. Be sure to take a look at the stream and maybe even donate some money. I mean, more Big the Cat speedruns are never a bad thing.
Also, click on the link on the bottom of the site’s home page to get a neat little SEGA easter egg.

Miscellaneous

Something For The Weekend: Drunken Friday Night Streaming Edition

Watch live video from NovaRetro on www.twitch.tv
[Update: Okay, show’s over. If you missed it you can watch the archive of this stream over here. Also it gets NSFW at the end because of Nova being drunk. Dammit Nova. -TimmiT]
WHERE DID THE LAST THREE WEEKS GO?!
Okay, I didn’t do a Something For The Weekend post for them. I kind of felt guilty about just constantly doing music-related posts when this was meant to be a catch-all for ‘fun, weekendy things’ so I held off for a little bit.
However – and it’s a good however – I have actually somehow acquired a half-decent gaming rig and as I showed myself last night, it is completely capable of streaming Sonic Generations while running at 60FPS. So, I had an idea.
Tonight at 8pm BST (12pm PT/3pm ET), I’ll be speeding through some Unleashed Project while slightly under the influence. SUI? Is that a punishable offense? Hopefully not.
You’ll be able to find the stream on my personal channel here, and there may even be a guest appearance.
emot-ssh

Game News

3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Detailed

Ready to blast through Chemical Plant Zone once more, but now in stereoscopic 3D? SEGA hopes you are with M2‘s latest GigaDrive-enhanced Sonic game: 3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2.
Chances are, if you played Sonic 2 at any point in the last 20 or so years, you already have a good idea of what you’re getting into: 11 zones, seven Chaos Emeralds, two playable characters, and one spike pit of death. But like Sonic 1‘s GigaDrive release, Sonic 2 comes with its own set of enhancements, such as filters to make the game look like it’s running on an old CRT TV, audio modifications to make it sound like it’s on the MegaDrive 1 or MegaDrive 2, and of course the fan-favorite addition of save states.
Because, you know, Metropolis, Wing Fortress and Death Egg usually sends people to the Internet to angrily complain about how cheap the game is.
But maybe this isn’t the case this time. M2 realizes some people have trauma over Death Egg Zone or may find classic Sonic games hard, and have made a new gameplay mode for the game called Ring Keep. Players begin a level with 10 rings free of charge. If you take a hit, you only lose half of your rings instead of all of them.
3D Sonic The Hedgehog 2 also features local co-op play in Sonic 2‘s multiplayer mode. The mode models the original multiplayer, so only three zones and the special stages are available. Two 3DS’ and two copies of the game are required to play, naturally.
It’s a shame SEGA is leaving Sonic 1 and 2 (2013) to rot on mobile, as both are very much the definitive versions of the games, but are more than happy to release a rom in an emulator shell. It’s an old song and dance often griped about, but SEGA of Japan is known for being ignorant of common sense. If president of SEGA Games Co. Haruki Satomi’s words of SEGA wanting to earn back the trust of gamers is true and not just crocodile tears, this may be one place to start.
The game hits the Japanese eShop Jul. 22.

Miscellaneous

Iwata Links: Smiles and Tears Edition

WeWillNeverKnowTheMeaningOfTheBananas

“On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.” – Satoru Iwata, GDC 2005

Yes, we know, this has almost nothing to do with Sonic. But Satoru Iwata was one of the most influential people in the game industry, and I don’t think there’s any executive that you could find more lovable than him. And because of how much we admire him and the games that he made possible, it would feel wrong not to honour him somehow. So instead of your irregular Monday Links, we bring you these stories about him. Directly to you.
Iwata Links

  • A ton of heartfelt tributes that were made to Iwata [NeoGAF]
  • This series of incredibly interesting and entertaining interviews with the people who work at Nintendo is just one of many reasons why we loved him so much. [Iwata Asks]
  • This special Game Center CX episode in which Arino chats with Iwata and plays Balloon Fight with him is a must watch [Game Center CX]
  • A lengthy discussion between Itoi, Iwata and Miyamoto about the cancellation of Earthbound 64 [Yomuka!]
  • Hirokazu Tanaka, the original composer for Balloon Fight, made a remix of the game’s theme as a tribute [Tanaka’s Soundcloud]
  • All of the skits the Jim Henson Company made for Nintendo’s Digital Event from last E3 [Eurogamer]
  • Instead of firing his staff when things got rough for the company last year, Iwata cut his own pay in half [Polygon]
  • The last time Iwata did programming work was on Super Smash Bros. Melee, which he worked for three weeks on to make sure that it’d be released on time [Nintendo Life]
  • That time when Iwata and Reggie fought for real but then suddenly stopped and decided to fight in Smash Bros. instead [Eurogamer]
  • And last but not least, Iwata’s memorable “Heart of the Gamer” keynote from GDC 2005 [CARSLOCK]

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Podcasts

SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show: Interview with Aaron Webber, Sonic the Hedgehog PR & Social Media Manager


He’s back! After leaving SEGA of America in 2014, Aaron Webber has returned as the PR & Social Media Manager for the Sonic the Hedgehog brand. Since returning, Aaron has been making waves on the Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, catching both fan and media attention with his sly wit and deep knowledge of the franchise.
Aaron was kind enough to sit down with us over at the virtual SEGAbits recording studio for his first interview since returning to SEGA to talk about his new role, SEGA’s move to LA, his approach to interacting with fans, Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, his favorite Sonic games, and answers to some burning canon questions!
[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

Game News

Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom Stealth Released

SonicDash2We only just got an official worldwide release to Sonic Runners, and SEGA and Hardlight Studios aren’t wasting any time on the next free-to-play entry.
Sonic Dash 2: Sonic Boom was spotted yesterday on the Google Play Store. As the name suggests, Sonic Dash 2 uses the Sonic Boom variants of all the characters and Sticks. The game also offers new tilt mechanics for the energy rope segments, and includes a three-character team gameplay mode that requires you to switch between characters to adapt to the track based on the situation presented.
Currently, it looks like not many (if any) devices are able to download the game, but if for some reason you’re one of the 100 million downloaders of Sonic Dash, and if you’re itching for even more endless runners/Sonic Runners has disappointed you, SEGA has you covered.
Of course, it should go without saying that an iOS version will be released, but hasn’t been spotted on the App Store at the moment.
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[Source: GameMob]