The Official Sonic Thread of Epicness & Failness

[Phantom Duck]

Είχαμε Sega event στο Comic Con του San Diego για την επέτειο 25 χρόνων του σκαντζόχοιρου. Έχουμε πολλά πράματα και θάματα. Περιληπτικά τα σημαντικότερα σε τίτλους.


Sonic Mania. Νέο 2D Sonic 16-bit παιχνίδι.
Άνοιξη 2017 για PS4 / X1 / PC.

Project Sonic. Σαν να λέμε Sonic Generations 2.
Χριστούγεννα 2017 για PS4 / X1 / PC και NX παρακαλώ!!!

Προσθήκη μπυροκοιλιά Sonic και Green Hill Zone στο Sonic Dash
Κυκλοφορεί ήδη λένε, τζάμπα update.

Sonic και στο LEGO Dimensions ¬_¬
Available now για όλες τις πλατφόρμες.

Και για να μην ξεχνιόμαστε, επειδή λίγοι ασχολούνται με αυτό το διαμάντι που είναι ό,τι καλύτερο μας έχει προσφέρει η SEGA τα τελευταία χρόνια:

SONIC BOOM TV SEASON 2 ANNOUNCED

Τελείωσα και το Lost Worlds πάνω στην ώρα απ' ό,τι φαίνεται. Πρέπει κάποια στιγμή να γράψω αναλυτικά πώς μου φάνηκε. Το καινούργιο 16bitο παιχνιδάκι πάντως δεν χορταίνω να το κοιτάω. Μακάρι να κάνουν καλή δουλειά. Να σπάσει και αυτός ο καταραμένος Sonic κύκλος, δεν είναι πράματα αυτά.

[kakashi_gr]

ναι αλλα 15 χρονια πριν το minecraft.
hipster sega
η αποκατασταση του παιχνιδιου σε playable μορφη (αρχικα στον emulator του saturn και μετα στο κανονικο saturn) μπορει να παρει απο μερικους μηνες εως χρονια.
ο τυπος ή οι τυποι που κανουν την αποκατασταση ειπαν πως δεν εχουν αναλυσει πληρως τα αρχεια απο την point of view (η εταιρια που της ειχε ανατεθει απο τη sega η δουλεια του να κανουν να τρεξει το sonic xtreme σε αξιοπρεπη ταχυτητα στο saturn) που ηρθαν στα χερια τους και οτι μπορει να βρουν και αλλα πραγματα που δε περιμενουν.

[thunderjohn]

^^Μοιάζει με πίστα απ'το Minecraft.

[kakashi_gr]

νεα φωτο που δειχνει την προοδο της αποκαταστασης του sonic xtreme.
dat fish-eye lens camera.

[thunderjohn]

Συνέχεια..
Chris Senn did many jobs within the Sonic X-Treme group, he began as the Lead Designer of the game, and ended up working on bits and pieces around the whole game before it got canned. This interview was done via an instant messeging service with Reala, also known as Pachuka.

 

Pachuka: ok, you were the working for STI as the director of the project, correct?

Chris Senn: No. lol ...The project went through a great many people over the course of its 3-year lifespan. At one point, I was coordinating the team, art directing and leading the design. But... that is sort of meaningless unless the rest of the picture is understood.

Pachuka: Who else worked on the project?

Chris Senn: The following Product Development people were involved to varying degrees with Sonic Xtreme along the way: Roger Hector, Michael Kosaka, Dean Lester, Robert Morgan, Manny Granillo, Mike Wallis, Chris Ebert, Don Goddard, Ofer Alon, Mark Kupper, Chris Coffin, Dave Sanner, Richard Wheeler, Jason Kuo, Yasuhara Hirokazu, Jeremy Cantor, Fei Cheng, Craig Stitt, Ross Harris, Andy Probert, Andrew Mundy, Dean Ruggles, Bob Steele, Stieg Hedlund, Tom Tobey, Alan Ackerman, Aoki Kunitake and Howard Drossin. I hope I didn't forget anyone's name. lol

Pachuka: so what did you start as?

Chris Senn: I started as an artist. At that time, Michael Kosaka was the Producer, Designer and Team Leader. Chris Ebert was the programmer, and Jeremy Cantor was in charge of creating the first promotional artwork for the game.

Pachuka: So what art did you work on?

Chris Senn: At this point, it was in the very early stages of getting the project off the ground. Michael was studying the previous Sonic games and creating the design document for the game. I joined because my style of art fit. And I seem to remember making some 2D side-view animations of Sonic at that early stage. My first real artwork consisted of 2 animations demonstrating the game concept. They were flat-shaded and looked like actual games in action. I even made ring-counters that incremented when Sonic picked them up. lol... oh how I put in so much extra effort into things like that (back in the day). These animations were to be used to sell the concept to the executives.

Pachuka: ahhh, so who exactly did you have to sell the idea to, and what did they think of your team's concept?

Chris Senn: I honestly can't recall... maybe Tom Kalinske, Shinobu Toyoda and 2-3 other executives... They voiced some concern about the simplistic graphics in light of games such as Donkey Kong Country (I think that was it) that looked so much more advanced. But what we were attempting was the first 3D Sonic game... and management was deciding whether this game would be for the Genesis - or the Saturn... So we explained that though this was a less flashy demo, it showed the gameplay very clearly. Since we weren't sure about which target system and the resulting capabilities, we took a more conservative approach to the visuals. That and the fact that we were very short on time. Yuji Naka watched the demo animations and shook his head and said, "good luck," I remember... very clearly. If only we'd known how true his forecast was...

Pachuka: Shook his head in a bad way?

Chris Senn: My interpretation was that what we were attempting was, in his opinion, too much for the system's capabilities. We're talking a fully 3D world... way back before decent 3D was an element in games... Man, I can still see that animation in my mind. It would have been so cool!

Pachuka: What was Yuji Naka's attitude towards the project?

Chris Senn: Well, being the programmer of the Sonic games, I think he was hard-pressed to believe that any westerners could do his baby (Sonic) justice. We were enthusiastic and dedicated... but who knows what he was really thinking...

Pachuka: So, what was the plan for the game? Basic storyline?

Chris Senn: Good question. lol Let me put on my thinking cap from 1993-4... As I recall (and I can verify later), Sonic, Eggman (Dr. Robotnik) and his robotic cronies were going to be joined by a new character... Tiara. Michael Kosaka came up with this concept, and I did a bunch of different designs for her until we settled on one we liked. The storyline eludes me now, but Sonic had to - surprise - save the day by defeating Robotnik... I have to say, we went through about six or seven completely different storylines over the course of three years - so you'll have to bear with my confusion... Sorry, I guess that doesn't answer your question

Pachuka: No, it does, I expected the basic plot to be like that. Who did the sprites?

Chris Senn: I did the first "temporary" sprites for the game - working with the first programmer, Chris Ebert, and doing technical tests, while Michael continued designing the game. At this point, it was Michael, Chris, myself and Richard Wheeler who we'd hired as an intern. I created more demonstrations of the concepts - such as the bonus round design of Michael's - and started to do estimates on how long graphics would take. We sat down and created a huge list of everything that we think needed to be done - then tried to allocate time to each task. At this time, I started focusing on creating enemy designs. All in all, I created over 50 enemy designs, which Ross Harris translated beautifully into 3D (Andy Probert did a few, too) much later on. Most were my own designs, while some were reworked versions of Michael's initial sketches. We didn't have any actual production graphics until later. I'm sorry - I'm getting into this story-telling mode... ask me another question... :-B (basically there was quite a bit of pre-production)

Pachuka: ok, can you explain a bit on the actual gameplay?

Chris Senn: The basic gameplay was focusing on Sonic being in 3D for the first time... so running, spindashing, etc. in a 3D world. Collecting rings was still the bread and butter goal while getting through the levels. Everything else stemmed from this classic set up... just variety in the scenery, concepts, special objects per world, etc. This was the gameplay at the beginning, which was enhanced later on long after Michael had left and the 3rd programmer was in charge of the coding... It's important to note how long this project lasted... three years... as you can imagine, a lot happened in that time - many changes for one reason or another. Changes from outside the team, outside the division - outside the country... down to changes within the team... making for a difficult mix to settle down and just get a game done.

Pachuka: I can imagine. So, it started on the 32x attachment for Genesis, correct?

Chris Senn: Ah - something I forgot, which is kind of important... (before we move on to the 32X). The gameplay was further enhanced by the enemies that populated each world. A lot of thought was put into giving the enemies personality, attacks and defenses that really changed how the player needed to navigate/act/react when near them. This branched out to some of the initial basic power-ups, as well, further intertwining more levels of basic gameplay.

Pachuka: So the enemy AI was part of the level structure, used for puzzle solving?

Chris Senn: Something like that, but not so complicated. There wasn't much "puzzle-solving" involved at this point.

Pachuka: Never really is in Sonic games =P

Chris Senn: Well, I felt/feel Sonic I. was the perfect blend of speed and puzzle-solving... great pacing...

Pachuka: ok, so tell me about the first actual build of the game, what platform was it on?

Chris Senn: Hmm. Another good question. lol

Pachuka: you don't remember?

Chris Senn: Yes - just sorting things in my mind... it went through 5 platform changes... so... I'm trying to remember... it might have actually started as an attempt to be for the Genesis... but then the Saturn was the target. And months later, management came in and said, "say, how would you like to make this for a top-secret new system called the 32X? It's got the power of the Saturn but will undersell the competition..." There were a lot of technical tests in the beginning... not to mention the 2-3 platform changes... so there lacked excitement and flashiness for some time. We had tests running on the 32X hardware - considering it was still in development and unstable - making it difficult to work with. We were tasked with: 1) coming up with the next great Sonic game and 2) working on an unfinished/developing new hardware platform.

Pachuka: so was the 32x version put on a development board, or was it dumped into the system from a pc?

Chris Senn: I don't remember, actually, but it makes sense that a combination of the two was used... the dev kit plugged into the PC and into the 32X... Technical questions are best suited towards a programmer, by the way (at least as far as hardware issues)

Pachuka: I'm just trying to establish what prototypes may exsist. I've hunted this game for years =P

Chris Senn: Really? It's funny... I don't know of any prototypes... lol

Pachuka: I know of a few people with saturn builds, that's about it.

Chris Senn: Ah.

Pachuka: so, what were the politics surrounding this project?

Chris Senn: Oh man. Why'd you have to go and ask that? Too many.

Pachuka: the hundred million dollar question

Chris Senn: From the bottom of the pole all the way up. Once they got started, it became a mish-mash clouding perception of just about everything... if you got involved. That, incidentally, is a key reason why Michael Kosaka left. It was just after his one-year review... and he'd had enough of the executive politics. That was a big blow to the team and project... On a similar note - Jeremy Cantor, a good friend who helped get me into STI, took off 6 months after arriving. Imagine me on a tiny 6'x6' desert island saying, "thanks man..." and waving... lol

Pachuka: can you take a look at this url and tell me if it's your work?

httPachuka://www.geocities.com/ssrgau/news-xtreme.htm

Chris Senn: No. I'm trying to remember the bottom storyboards, though... I could be mistaken, but the boards were done by, or at least directed by a guy named Andrew Mundy - a short-term member who joined near the end of the legacy that would become simply "Sonic Xtreme." I created the names, though Most of the names came from conceptual music I created while designing... over 50 songs... Richard Wheeler also came up with names. He and I worked closely to create some very intriguing designs. Which never saw the light of day, of course

Pachuka: Wow, a new name every few minutes. This project had a huge turnover rate.

Chris Senn: You can say that again.

Pachuka: was the music ever released?

Chris Senn: I used music, graphics, text and animations to translate my ideas into something we could later use. Unfortunately, me spending time doing music didn't go over well with some. It could have been my imagination, but I thought it was more of a problem than someone simply not liking the music... but I'll never know, and it doesn't really matter. Suffice to say that the purely conceptual music I created has remained hidden from the public.

Pachuka: Ever consider releasing it to fans?

Chris Senn: Sure, but it would not be "official" by any means... meaning it was never sanctioned by Sega... it was just created by a long-time member of a team that failed to release a Sonic game. lol. How depressing.

Pachuka: I would personally love to have a copy, it's like holding a piece of Atlantis

Chris Senn: Actually, you can hear one of the music pieces now... let me find the link...
httPachuka://www.senntient.com/hear/index.html
(it's the first one called "Egyptian" and the description is the boss level of one of the Red Sands levels... oh man... the memories... SO much material that nobody ever saw... a damn shame, I tell you.)

Pachuka: (side note: my dsl is acting up, so if I vanish, you'll know why)

Chris Senn: Also, the "Space Queens" was the music I created for the PC demo of the game near the end of the project...

Pachuka: this is so beyond cool

Chris Senn: Really? I'm glad you like it... the visions in my mind have survived only in animation demos, paper designs, 3D models... and my imagination... lol, I know exactly what you mean!

Pachuka: would you consider showing some of that material?

Chris Senn: Perhaps.

Pachuka: so you ended up working on the port, correct?

Chris Senn: The PC version?

Pachuka: yes

Chris Senn: Ofer Alon and I split from the rest of the team to do what we thought needed to be done... without the political distractions that were running rampant throughout the company. He and I spent 1 month - he creating more of the game engine, polish and nifty do-dads... while I created 4 different worlds with enemies. Everyone else in the company (literally) was working on a different version of the game... based on a game engine Ofer had created before, but, due to more politics, had been ousted from the "lead" position (Ofer was a genius, but didn't fit in socially - and thus jealousy was a problem, as well as having people properly directed/led by someone who sat for 22 hours a day programming amazing things...)... only to have his editor taken by a technical director who worked with an outside company to create a secret demo to promote themselves... combined with management siding with the TD and opening the flood-gates (I had been very careful to keep the team small and tightly knit) to get everyone in the division to work on the game that was extremely late with a lot of work left to complete it... How's that for a mouthful??? lol It's funny. When management called Ofer and I in to their office to tell Ofer he was basically "out"... they had actually had a security guard posted outside the door "just in case" something happened. Can you believe that? That gives you a small idea of the political quagmire that game was stuck in... I mean, come on... hiring a security guard??? Amazing...

Pachuka: wow

Chris Senn: A high profile project, egos, inexperience... and changes brought on by all levels... it really was the project from Hell.

Pachuka: terrible, so was that it's basic downfall?

Chris Senn: Well, yes. All of those things together made it next to impossible to finish anything. And I include myself in the ego and inexperience category. Though I did not consciously participate in any politics, I was young, very ambitious and was given - and I question the wisdom of that giving - the opportunity to lead the design, to art direct... and still do the graphics... I took on far more than was healthy... and after 2 years I became extremely ill... a nurse told me he thought I had 6 months to live, actually. I lost 25 pounds, was sick all the time, had cramps... and still went in to work... all due to too much stress. I was managing and doing far too much... taking on too many responsibilities, trying to train people, being a perfectionist... and doing actual trench work... Not to mention supporting Ofer, who, through his disconnection with the rest of the team, created a rift that helped break the team in two. He was, however, the one to create an amazing game engine... one that could have been a fantastic Sonic game - with uniqueness never-before seen. Management and other team members had differences with Ofer that I tried to resolve... because I was dedicated to him, and knew that we needed to all stick together... But all that was just too much.

Pachuka: wow. the project that killed someone.... ok, off the politics =) You did the level design?

Chris Senn: Well, no. Though I did quite a few level designs, I don't think any of them were ever finished. They were anywhere from 30-60% done... but lacked the finishing touches to make a level "complete." Richard Wheeler did a tremendous amount of level design... and when the project split... Yasuhara Hirokazu took charge of designing levels. Since he'd completed the Sonic Blast designs, he went in the same style direction of designing new Sonic Xtreme levels. I loved his drawings - great designs. A few months after this was when the sh*t really hit the fan... Nakayama-san visited to check the progress and was outraged to see how much was left to be done. This was the day Ofer and I had planned to show him what the two of us had created on our own...

Pachuka: i guess that day was a bad choice

Chris Senn: We had hoped to show him and get the go ahead to finish... but due to yet more politics, the BMOC of Japan was carted away before we had a chance to show him... he only saw what the "other" group had made (based on a much older game engine with many new project recruits who were just learning the tools and what the game was all about).

Pachuka: so the pc version wasn't finished either?

Chris Senn: Well, we were attempting to Wow the right people in order to get the "go ahead" to finish the game. Actually - now that I think of it - what we were showing was still for the Saturn... the idea to do it for the PC came after the hopes for finishing it for the Saturn tanked. Make sense?

Pachuka: yeah. so was there ever a pc build?

Chris Senn: Yes. But not like you'd hope...

Pachuka: and I suppose you don't have a copy of that either?

Chris Senn: The editor which Ofer had created allowed one to play the level at any time (in between editing it) He and I would be the only ones, I think (unless it's a super old version of the editor, in which case, it would probably be too basic). I'll have to look around to see if I have anything stashed away.

Pachuka: Ok, so pc was canned before it could leave the ground, but it was farther. Was it far anough to have any CG done?

Chris Senn: CG - meaning cinematic sequences? "CG" means computer graphics - so, yes, computer graphics were done... but no cinematics.

Pachuka: How much of the actual levels were built, like BGs textures, ect

Chris Senn: I spent 1 month creating the layout, textures and a few simple enemies for 4 worlds. Game time was about 5-8 minutes per world - and I'd say they were 80% fully textured - meaning that all of the general textures that set the mood, lighting, color schemes, etc. were in place with some details - but the last 20% would have required a great deal of detailed polish (to really make it look finished). The worlds were passable, but definitely not what I would have submitted as "finished." I did what I could in the time that was available.

Pachuka: and what about sound effects and BGM?

Chris Senn: None. I had already created a ton of conceptual music that would have fit as placeholders, but there was no structure for music yet (at least as far as I remember). Although the World Editor was quite robust in many ways, I was unable to create and display the enemies as I'd designed them, and as Ross Harris had so excellently created in 3D. The 3D world was populated by great smooth path terrains and moving blocks/doors/etc. - but the enemies were flat sprites. Surprisingly, they didn't look bad in the 3D environment... but we just needed more time to put everything together. Unfortunately, there just wasn't time... the hour had passed, and although Ofer and I had created some great looking graphics and levels, they were too little, too late. (I wanted to add that to my previous answer)

Pachuka: so no sound effects were made?

Chris Senn: Good question, and my memory says "no." I don't recall having sounds in the game. Of course, I'm getting older, and maybe I was just def at the time. lol

Pachuka: heheh. so was the camera fixed?

Chris Senn: Good question. This opens up an important point about Xtreme's design. Whereas my design attempted to focus on interesting storyline, characters, enemies, bosses with gameplay enhancements... Ofer's vision for the design called for something new - some new element that would set this game apart from all others. He came up with a unique viewing mechanism that would solve some of the gameplay issues we were experiencing with a fixed camera following Sonic. This came to be known as the "Fish-Eye Lens" of Sonic Xtreme. Not only was this visually interesting and different, it provided some solutions that allowed the player to see in directions beyond the screen - around shallow corners above, below and to the sides of Sonic that would normally be invisible to the player. Though the camera was fixed, there was some rubber-banding (trailing of Sonic) - and the Fish-Eye Lens really made play much easier. Another important gameplay element that Ofer was responsible for was the rotation of the world in real-time. Imagine you're looking through a long, square tunnel. Imagine Sonic in front of you, on the floor. Imagine Sonic running on a floor plate that would force the square tunnel to rotate 90 degrees in a clockwise (or counter-clockwise) direction. This was a very fun element that opened up huge new possibilities to level design. Up could become down when playing... The left side top could become the right side bottom in a split second... Remember in Sonic 3 towards the end where Sonic ran upside down? This was 10 times better! The worlds were constructed with a combination of "Lego-like" blocks and fluid paths... so there were tremendous gameplay opportunities. Man - remembering this stuff just makes it that much more painful... so much potential... and to have it canned. Such a shame.

Pachuka: did this work in the editor you have?

Chris Senn: Yes, it worked in the World Editor. (even if I manage to find the editor, I cannot give that. It would be Ofer's choice since he made it)

Pachuka: =((

Chris Senn: (sorry... that one is out of my control. I am willing to share things *I* made... but not what someone else made...)

Pachuka: ouch =(

Chris Senn: (I know - you were hoping for a complete pot of gold... but at least you're getting some nice shillings ;) )

Pachuka: k, have you heard of a project called "Sonic S"?

Chris Senn: Sonic Sh!t$? Hmm. Yes, that is the game in which he searches desperately for the Chaos Prunes. lol... no.

Pachuka: I've heard Sonic Xtreme refered to as "Sonic S"

Chris Senn: Oh man... you should ask me "So, were there any other names for Sonic Xtreme along the way?" lol, and can I guess what you're going to copy and paste next?

Pachuka: save me the trouble =P

Chris Senn: k - give me a sec to remember. "Blue Streak" : This was proposed as a possible tie-in for the racing car "Blue Streak." I was violently against that at the time (though now it sounds fine). I responded to that suggestion with, "that sounds like something a smurf leaves in a diaper."

Pachuka: hahahahahahahahahaha

Chris Senn: "SuperSonic" : This was a name that seemed cool. Some team members liked it, management wasn't too hot on it, though. "SonicBOOM" : This one was based on one of Sonic's new special moves. Course, if I was me back then (and more objective), I'd argue the point that this name could be Smurfy, too "Sonic RingWorlds". This was based on one of the storylines (that would have been very cool). Rick Wheeler had a heavy hand in this storyline (and was my assistant). He and I tape recorded hours of idea sessions in my office... ah... those were the days.

Pachuka: LAst question: will you pleeeeeeeease scan me some of that stuff???

Chris Senn: Scan? For life forms? Sure...

Pachuka: well, thanks for playing 20 (thousand) questions with me

Chris Senn: No problemo. Chill out. Di©kwad.

Pachuka: thanks!!!!!

Chris Senn: No problem. I hope the community enjoys it ;)

Pachuka: they will. it might soften the blow of me not landing a prototype again =P

Chris Senn:

[thunderjohn]

Building hype

 

On September 10th, 2005, I [Rlan] received a suspicious e-mail from an oddly titled Yahoo e-mail account:

Hello,

I'm a former employee at SEGA that left in the middle
of the Saturns life. I was recently doing some spring
cleaning and came across a version of Sonic X-treme. I
had all but forgotten about this game so I did a
Google search on it and found your site.

I was thinking of selling it on Ebay since I'm sure
that it's super, super rare. Do you know of any other
working CD-R's that were ever sold? Is ebay the right
place to put it up? Any help you can offer to sell it?
When you receive an e-mail like this out of the blue, you tend to be pretty suspicious. I e-mailed him back asking for proof of this prototype he got his hands on, images, scans, anything to show it existed.

Later that day, he e-mailed me back claiming that if he sent me any details, it would be all over the internet in a flash, and would lower the value of the disc. He did however, send me a photo of a System Disc and a blank Saturn CD-R:



I e-mailed the owner back, trying to suss out any more details on the disc. I told him that yes, trying to put this on Ebay would almost definitely get the auction taken down, a private auction would be the way to go. I tried to also get him to have a look at the files on the disc, see if there were any CPK files [Certain Saturn games use CPK compressed videos]. Lastly, I mentioned that the best I could probably due is to get a team set up to discuss what to possibly do with this prototype.

He replied that he's "not worried about it not being legit" and that he'd "made a quicktime movie of myself playing it from boot up to end. It's a very small demo, not an actual level. It was made to show the press what Sonic would look like in 3D. He basically runs back and forth on a green field." Point out that this is from the demo he has.

I originally tried to get this movie of him playing, and also mentioned that he should try and contact IceKnight from Sonic Database as he has more experience with dealing with prototypes.

He once again declined to send me the video. Citing the deal with the kid playing his Father's Xbox 360 months before release being a major reason why he's being so secretive. He didn't want this to blow up in his face. He also mentioned that he personally destroyed every other copy of this disc [though this may have been a ploy to raise the price. It cannot be proven].

He also sent an image that he would use if he put up the prototype on Ebay:



Again, very skeptical about the image. The image is from the beginning of the level, but also looks almost exactly like one of the prototype images seen here.

Citing the similarities to him, he said he might try and make another image with a different position and note. He also said to send any details I wished to a 'team' like I had suggested earlier. I sent all the e-mails to Simon Wai, IceKnight and Hivebrain.

The next morning, I had received another e-mail. Finally, he had decided to release a video, but with a lot of obnoxious text running all over it. No doubt about it, this was the real deal! It had him booting up the SEGA Saturn, and playing through a little bit of a level, jumping around, collecting rings, and watching the score counter increase. The background music was Collision Chaos Good Future, and looked very VERY early.

I asked what he was hoping for this priceless item, suggesting incredibly low prices in comparison to what he wanted at a minimum: $1,000 US.

On the 13th of September, Simon, Iceknight, Hivebrain and I talked about what we could possibly do with it. It was then that LostLevels maintainer TheRedEye, knowing much more about selling prototypes than any of us, had also been talking to the myserious seller, and convinced the seller to allow him to become the middle man in a sale over at the ASSEMbler games forums. TheRedEye had also been sent this image, the actual image of the prototype, made on a SEGA Mega-CD CD-R:



The bidding started, with the price rapidly going up. At it's peak, it reached $2,500 US. The Sonic secrets community, headed by Local H, had decided to rally up enough money in order for the community itself to buy it.

Nearing its goal, an unknown person calling himself "Ratman221" came out with a bid for $3,000, and said he would take donations from the Sonic community to cover costs, and make copies of the game for those who donate. The community hailed the saviour for his generous deed, or so they thought!

Nobody knew who Ratman was. He had given out AIM names, but both ended up being false. It was getting suspicious, and the auction ended just before the Tokyo Game Show, a day later.

Local H started to try and rally up funds again in case Ratman was a fraud, however, the community was not able to achieve more than the $2,500 US bid done anonymously. They had raised $2,365, only $135 short of the collector's bid

Once the auction had ended, Ratman came out and said he was nothing but a phony, trying to rattle cages in the Sonic community as payback for an unknown "crime". The community was devistated.

TheRedEye however, has mentioned that the anonymous buyer has good capturing equiptment, and will be releasing a video. Currently, there have been screen captures made, but no video.

[The End...?]

For more infomation, check the Sonic Hacking Information Treasury for more details.

Interviews

Mike Wallis was the producer of Sonic X-Treme before the plug was pulled. The interview was set up by Ryan Bloom aka. Blaze Hedgehog, and was done over the phone by Reala, also known as Packuka, and then transcripted by Blaze.

 

Pachuka: Do you remember who was on your team for that project?

Mr. Wallis: Uhm, yeah I think on that one website, uh it had basically everybody who was on the team. So it was a pretty accurate list. You know which one I'm referring to, right?

Pachuka: Uh, not a clue, actually. (laughs)

Mr. Wallis: It was the one... well, I'll have to find you a link and send it to you, because yeah off the top of my head I don't remember everybody who was on the team, but when I looked at that website that talked about Sonic Xtreme, it was accurate. Actually, lemme see... I know Chris Senn was the Lead Designer, I was the Producer, Rick Wheeler was the designer, Ofar Alon.. he was the lead programmer, Chris Coffin was a programmer... Jason Kuo was the designer, Fai Chang, the artist... Andrew Probert was an artist.... Howard Drossin was the music guy, and those are the only people I can remember. But yeah, that's probably the core team. There were additional support people as well.

Pachuka: And this was through STI, correct?

Mr. Wallis: Yeah.

Pachuka: Did you work on any other games at STI?

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, I was the Associate Producer on Comix Zone, that was my first game at Sega, and then I was the Producer of The Ooze...

Pachuka: I remember that one!

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, that was a good game. (clears throat) And after that I did.. uh, after that STI was pretty much dissolved... we became Sega of America, when Sega of America became SegaSoft. So, you know alot of the history behind Sega?

Pachuka: Quite a bit of it, yeah.

Mr. Wallis: Okay, good. So you know what I'm talking about then. So yeah, STI became Sega of America, and when that happened I worked on Decathaletes for the Saturn, NBA Action '98 for Saturn and PC, Sonic 3D Blast for the Genesis and Saturn, Sega Rally.. I did about six or eight games for Sega.

Pachuka: Did you happen to work on Chaotix at all?

Mr. Wallis: No, actually, that was done through Sega of America when STI was still there.

Pachuka: Ah, okay. Let's see here, we've got some questions that random people sent in.. I'm trying to put them in some sort of order.. (Both laugh) So they make sense, otherwise I'm just jumping around... Uhm... ah, here we go. How long was the development cycle of Sonic Xtreme from like, the time they brought you onto the project to the time they actually canned it?

Mr. Wallis: With Sonic Xtreme, it was strange.. because at the time, Sega was looking to do a new system.. so Sonic Xtreme actually first started out as a 32X Game. And then, you know when that system came out and sort of tanked they switched it to... there was an intern system before the Saturn, it was Nvidia technology based... now, alot of people don't know this because it was just on the drawing board. But Sega had a partnership with Nvidia technologies for their very first RIVA, TNT Card.. Sega was going to make a cartridge based machine to compete with the N64 rather than a CD-ROM based machine. So we had some early techology and Xtreme basically went on THAT platform, it was going to be a launch title. And then Sega of America said "No, We're going to do a Saturn." Well, actually Sega of Japan came over and said "We're not doing that machine, we're doing the Saturn". It was weird because SOA would do their own thing and SOJ would do their own thing and then eventually SOJ would come in and say "No we're gonna do this" so Sega wasted alot of money and alot of resources on hardware development and software development for machines that eventually would never see the light of day.

Pachuka: Yeah.

Mr. Wallis: So, I mean, Xtreme was going on when I got there in November of '94. Although it wasn't called Xtreme at the time, it was just supposed to be "another Sonic game". But you know, it just kept going and going and going and eventually they just finally said, "we're going to do Xtreme on the Saturn", or "We're gonna do a Sonic game for the Saturn. We'll call it Xtreme" But I guess by the time they canceled it in I guess March-ish of '97 maybe... is that right? .... what do your notes say on when Xtreme was canceled? It was probably earlier than that, it was probably October of '96.

Pachuka: Yeah, there's no real specific date of when it was canned because that's the main reason everybody was curious it was just canned and there's all these rumours...

Mr. Wallis: You know, it was sometime in late summer, so I think it was September of '96 when Bernie Stolar had come on to Sega as the CEO around July of '96. He came over from Sony. And he said, "Look you guys. I want you to get a core team together," he told Roger Hector who was at the time the head of STI, and he said "I want you to get a core group together and we're gonna lock them together, away from everybody, and we'll feed them, we'll bring in cotts and matresses and they can sleep there, and I don't want them to have any outside contact and get them whatever support they'll need. I want just this core team to do Sonic Xtreme." 'cause we needed it to be out there in time for Christmas of '96. So we took the core group -- oh, Ross Hariss is another, he was one of the animators... so we took the core group and they basically locked us (chuckles) into the first floor in.. oh God, what was the address? ...of Sega at the time.

Pachuka: Lemme look it up here... (both laugh) I don't have the specific address, but it was Redwood City, right?

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, there were two buildings. One was 255 and one was 275, I think they locked us into the first floor of the 255 building, which was the old STI area and you know, they'd bring in breakfast, lunch and dinner and people would basically work like, 15-16 hour days. And it kind of sucked, because Bernie Stolar made us alot of promises that he couldn't deliver on. He was brand-new and he said, "Look, what do you guys need to do this by Christmas?" and we said "Well, we need the NiGHTS engine, because we can't develop the technology, it would take too long." ... so he said, "Alright! You got it." So, you know, they shipped us a NiGHTS editor, a level-based editor and our designers where familiarizing thereselves with that, and after about two-weeks, Yuji Naka who was the designer of NiGHTS, and one of the original SonicTeam, had said "No". There was a big rivalry between SOJ and SOA and Yuji Naka hated SOA..

Pachuka: Yeah, I had a feeling.

Mr. Wallis: So he said he came to Yuri Maguire (sp?) who was the head of Sega, SOJ at the time, and he said "Look. I don't want these guys to have the NiGHTS engine. I do not want them to have the NiGHTS technology. If you give it to them, I quit." and so Yuri Maguire came back to Bernie Stolar and said, "I'm not giving you anything. You're gonna have to do it without it." So.. Bernie had to come to us "Sorry guys, you're gonna have to do it without the NiGHTS Technology." So at the time, Ofar Alon was developing this game; he was developing Xtreme on the PC... with the intent of porting it to the Saturn. He wrote these great development tools and everything, and it looked great on the PC. But the problem was so processor intensive that when it went to the Saturn, it was running at like, 2 frames a second. So independantly of that, Chris Coffin, who was the lead programmer for the Boss Levels -- you know, the boss levels were supposed to be like, these Arenas...

Pachuka: Yeah, I've seen Pictures of them.

Mr. Wallis: Yeah. And that was the one we showed at E3 and everything that people could play... so Chris was developing this Technology, and I think Yuri Maguire had come out to Sega at the time, sometime during the summer and he saw both, he saw the one running on the PC and then he saw the boss level one and he said, "Oh I like this one much better." (Chris Coffin's Boss level techology) and he said, "I want you to make the whole game like this, using this techology."

Pachuka: And that was the fish-eye type camera, right?

Mr. Wallis: No, the fisheye camera was the main-game thing, but we still had to implement that. I mean, the idea was to still implement that type of idea in the main game, but just using the boss-level techology. And Chris, he was like at the time 25, he was this hot-shot programmer, great guy.. and he litterally moved into Sega. He moved out of his appartment, moved all of his stuff into a storeroom at Sega, and he moved his bed there, and he slept there. And he'd work... he was like a human Dynamo, is what he was. It was basically all hinges on him because Ofar got very pissed off and he said "I'm off the team" because, you know. Yuri Maguire.. Ofar had this huge ego as well and Yuri Maguire said "I don't like this, I want you to use the boss level techology" and Ofar got really pissed off and he quit Sega and he left. So it was all basically hinging on Chris. Chris, for about 7 or 8 weeks worked about.. I'd say, 20 hours a day. And there was a shower there and everything... the guy was insane. And he basically worked himself into the ground.. and then he caught walking pnemonia sometime in late August, and he basically came to me and said "Mike, I can't do this anymore.", he was so sick and he really was. I mean, the guy looked like a Ghost. So I said, "Alright. That's it. We're not gonna do it. We're not gonna get it done, the project's over." and I went to Bernie Stolar and I said, "We can't do it. You know it was all hinging on Chris? And the guy has basically worked himself into the ground. He can't do it, it's over. We're not gonna make Christmas." and Bernie said, "Well, you know, we've been working on these backup plans." Which turned out to actually be Sonic 3D Blast. So he said "I want you to be the producer of 3D Blast, and we'll go ahead and scrap Xtreme." So that was basically the long and short of the whole thing.

Pachuka: Ah, so you where the one who finally pulled the plug on the whole thing?

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, you know. I had to. I had no engineers to do it and I couldn't get ... SOJ was not being cooperative, and I had a great relationship with SOJ. But you know, there were just so many internal political workings going on between the two companies... I really should right a book on it (chuckles) .. because it'd be quite an amazing read.

Pachuka: Yeah, I'm not if the other gentlemen told you but I currently work for Sega, that's partially why I understand this alot more.

Mr. Wallis: So what do you do for Sega?

Pachuka: I'm a Q&A Jocky, I basically test games.

Mr. Wallis: Okay, cool.

Pachuka: There's a gentleman there his name is (Cut), he runs the equipment lab, I forget what his name is, but apparently he and another gentleman still have a copy of the game floatin' around.

Mr. Wallis: There are some, yeah, I think that I actually have a copy.. I know Chris Coffin has some, you know, before he left.. he made dupes of his build, and stuff. So there are some copies floating out there.

Pachuka: How many builds where there before the project was canceled?

Mr. Wallis: Well, we did like, weekly builds.. so there were probably quite a few. But uhm, most of them were destroyed. We didn't keep a lot of them.

Pachuka: Yeah, I had a feeling. I had heard that the most the project had gotten to in a playable Saturn format was about one level.

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, we had one playable level, the Green Valley.. I don't know, I can't remember the name, but it was you know, green fields where Sonic runs over hills, picks up Rings, there were actually some enemies.. there wasn't alot of animated flora and fauna, but there was some. But there wasn't a whole lot of gameplay in there. The boss levels were much farther along, because that was the technology that Chris had built first, and I think we had a Metal Sonic level in there... a Fang the Weasle level in there, I think we had two bosses in there working, they had AI and everything.

Pachuka: Cool. There have been other sources that have just like, dropped little hints and such, somebody came along and they dumped all the sprites from the game and we have sprites from it. It looks like the game itself, like the levels were all 3D based but the actual characters were sprites.

Mr. Wallis: That's correct. Except for the boss levels. The bosses were all 3D. But all the characters in the game were Sprites. Sonic was a sprite, and all the objects and everything were sprites.

Pachuka: I finally found the rest of my notes here, uhm.. let's see...

Mr. Wallis: Uh yeah. I saw Jason Kuo at E3, and he still works at Sega...

Pachuka: Who was that?

Mr. Wallis: Jason Kuo. He was the designer for the boss-levels. And I think he's a localization producer right now, he works with Keith Palmer. He's been at Sega quite awhile. I think that he's the only one left from that original group, because everybody else is pretty much gone.

Pachuka: Yeah, let's see. I've got a listing of different names here, this article here.. this comes from different articles that I've clipped out of different magazines... the four known zones are "Jade Gully", "Crystal Frost" "Red Sands" and "Galaxy Fortress"... and those are all --
(It cuts here? Silence for two seconds...)

Mr. Wallis: Hard for me to remember, I actually have most of my notes and design docs actually boxed up somewhere, but that sounds right.

Pachuka: And let's see... could you also explain a little bit about this character I came across, her name is Tiara, I believe?

Mr. Wallis: They, like, Chris Senn wanted to give Sonic this love interest, or a means to.. I guess.. she sort of would have fit in, like, maybe Robotnik would have captured her and then you know, Sonic would rescue her and you know, she's this good lookin' character, and you know there'd be this sort of... love tension possibility between the two of them, so that was one of the new characters that Chris had designed.

Pachuka: Also this article here, which while talking to you I realize is completely incorrect, this one claims that a month before the game's release, Sega of Japan pulled the plug on it.

Mr. Wallis: No, no... not at all.

Pachuka: I'll have to send them an email and correct them.

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, Sega of Japan was actually not involved with Xtreme at all, other than saying that they would initially provide the NiGHTS engine, and then pulling it from us. Other than that, they were not really involved, because I think they were part of the backup plan with Sonic 3D Blast, and Travellers Tales did the game and SOJ did the Bonus Levels.

Pachuka: Here's the most-asked question... do you have a copy of it?

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, I do somewhere. Yeah. Somewhere in my "Sega Archives"

Pachuka: And then there's the secondary question, which you probably can guess... it's "Are you willing to donate it"?

Mr. Wallis: Uhm... you know, I've... I probably wouldn't. Because of Sentimental reasons. Not for anything else. But uh... I would have to find it first. (Both laugh) That would be the hard thing.

Pachuka: Yeah, I figured. This is insane at Sega right now... it's like, (cut)

Mr. Wallis: Actually, Chris Senn, after the Xtreme project stopped... Chris Senn and Ofar Alon actually worked on the PC Version, between the two of them. Because Chris was an Artist, and also an Audio Guy and a designer, so he's a pretty talented guy so basically it was a two-man team they did something like three or four different levels with enemies and stuff still using the fisheye view, running it on the PC and they tried to pitch it to Sega Entertainment, which is the PC group.. and they tried to get the PC group to pick it up. But at the time, Greg Swoarez (sp?) he was running the PC group at the time and was "Nonono, I'm not gonna spend money on this" .. all they basically were content with doing was ports. So he was like, "I don't wanna... I can't fund this at all." But yeah, the PC game was actually pretty far along ... and I unfortunately don't have a copy of that, but it was pretty far along. They had several different levels playable.

Pachuka: I'll have to contact him next.

Mr. Wallis: Yeah, Chris Senn might actually be able to give you a much better idea of the idea of the progress of the PC game. You know, I might actually have his card here.... ..... ....Why don't you go ahead and ask the next question and I'll -- oh! Here it is.

Pachuka: What's his name again?

Mr. Wallis: It's Chris Senn, and his email is... (cut) so he could probably fill you in a lot more on the progress of the PC side.

Pachuka: And another question someone asked, which you probably answered was what were the problems between SOA and SOJ, So I don't think I need to go through that... oh! The moves. The moves in the game. I have a listing here of the moves, see if you can remember them and what they did... the "SpinBash" a quick forward attack, modified from the Spindash.

Mr. Wallis: Ah, I dunno. Because we never actually got far enough along
to do any sort of tuning on the moves other than just graphical.

Pachuka: So there wasn't any collision or anything on them?

Mr. Wallis: No, no. There might have been some basic collision, but you know, there really was no differentiation at the time between that and the Spindash. So yeah, I don't really remember much about the moves, although the moves that were listed on the website were correct. Those were the moves we were planning to put in.

Pachuka: Oh! It's not my website, it's actually the other guy's.

Mr. Wallis: Blaze.. Hedgehog.

Pachuka: Uh, do you know (Cut) .. he was working Q&A at the time?

Mr. Wallis: The name is vaguely familiar, yeah.

Pachuka: Yeah, he took over the department now. I was talking with him and he said he had seen it before it got unplugged and I'm not exactly sure about his answer on this, but he said it was eventually turned into Sonic Xtreme, which I highly doubted...

Mr. Wallis: Uh, which one?

Pachuka: He said, oh! I'm sorry. Sonic Adventure.

Mr. Wallis: Oh. Well, you know I don't know about that. Because Sonic Adventure was as far as I know.. a fully... that's for Dreamcast, right? I think Sonic Adventure was a fully SOJ development. So I don't believe they'd have utilized any sort of technology from Xtreme.

Pachuka: Yeah. It's kind of hard with these questions because a lot of people don't know the difference between STI and Sonicteam.

Mr. Wallis: Right. I don't think they would have wanted to use anything from SOA.

Pachuka: Alrighty... and I guess that's all the questions we've got right now. One last quick question, I dunno if you'd know or not, but did you ever hear of a project called "Sonic Crackers" while you where working there, that was turned into Chaotix?

Mr. Wallis: Uhm.. I did not, no. That doesn't ring a bell.

Pachuka: Alrighty. And that would be it.

Mr. Wallis: Okay, cool. If there's anything else you think of later, feel free to ask me. The reason I wanted to do it over the phone is because the questions Blaze originally asked me I would have to ask follow up questions to, so it was just better doing it over the phone.

Pachuka: Yeah, I'm much more experienced with like, journalism type stuff, so I think that's one of the reasons he picked me. Alright! Thank you very much Mr. Wallis!

Mr. Wallis: Take it easy.

Pachuka: You too.
(Hangup)

[Deus]

Πολύ ενδιαφέρον και θα το παρακολουθώ, αλλά δεν νομίζω να είναι playable όσο υλικό και να αποκαταστήσουν από την έκδοση που έχουν. Αν δεν κάνω λάθος το παιχνίδι είχε πολύ δρόμο ακόμα για να είναι έτοιμο, που την βρήκαν την final build αυτοί οι τυπάδες; Μακάρι να έχω άδικο πάντως, θα είμαι από τους πρώτους που θα τρέξουν να το κατεβάσουν αν διατεθεί στο κοινό.

[kakashi_gr]

Watch: Sonic X-treme running on Sega Saturn emulator
Watershed moment in Sonic games research as previously undiscovered build of lost classic emerges.

http://powerupgaming.co.uk/articles/334-watch-sonic-x-treme-running-on-sega

Due to the origin of this build and convoluted nature of its files, the video is limited and glitchy; the sorting through of the material is expected to take a number of months to complete. What it is, however, is an exciting new discovery regarding one of retro gaming's biggest mysteries. Sega fans will be eager for the release of more assets in the weeks ahead.

εχει πολυ δρομο ακομα, αλλα η αρχη εγινε.

UPDATE: νεο video απο το testing

[kakashi_gr]

πιθανο megaton.

Sonic Xtreme Final Build Unearthed?

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2014/11/04/sonic-xtreme-final-build-unearthed/115532/

20 years after being originally announced for the Sega Saturn, the lost legend of Sonic X-treme could finally be unearthed.
Sonic X-treme was supposedly going to the first “next-gen” Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Saturn and the first in full 3D, but due to repeated delays and rebuilds, the game was ultimately canceled. However, some retro fans seem to have gotten their hands on numerous engine builds, including the coveted final build which was originally thought to be lost to the ether.
Reports are cycling in that members of Sonic Retro and Assembler got their hands on the extremely rare source code for the supposed final build of Sonic X-treme, with the binary being developed and released for testing as we speak.

αν ισχυει αυτο θα μπορεσω επιτελους να παιξω ενα απο τα 3 μεγαλυτερα holy grails μου.
τα αλλα 2 ειναι το saturn shenmue και το saturn virtua fighter 3.
υπομονη αλλα 20 χρονια για αυτα

[Enpsty]

Sonic the Hedgehog' Movie in the Works at Sony

Και όχι μία ταινία, αλλά πολλές. Θα είναι συνδυασμός CG με (κρατηθείτε)...live action!
Sonic 2006 σε ταινία δλδ;

[Altair]

Φαίνεται σαν ένα ωραίο κλασσικό platformer με ήρωα τον Σόνικ,τίποτα ιδιαίτερο,αλλά φαίνεται καλό,μακάρι να αξίζει.

[thunderjohn]

Τι να πει κανεις...

[Enpsty]

Νέο βίντεο του Sonic Boom

Τα σχόλια δικά σας...

[kakashi_gr]

νεα κομμενη πιστα απο το sonic 2

[kakashi_gr]

το cartoon