SEGA aren’t exactly strangers to wheeling out the Classic Sonic games now. It’s a running joke amongst the fanbase that every Sonic fan owns at least 30 different copies of the original game across just about every gaming platform known to man. Hell – I had Sonic the Hedgehog on my chunky old iPod Classic! But after the rather staggering way SEGA stuffed up Sonic Colours Ultimate last year, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that some people were even more wary of Sonic Origins than they’d usually be. The good news is that this isn’t the mess that Sonic’s Wii outing got turned into. The bad news is that Sonic Origins is still a very flawed package, full of glaring errors and mistakes that are made more aggravating knowing they could’ve been very easily fixed.
Grind Stormer by Toaplan is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up that seems very traditional on the surface, but it hides an extra gameplay style that drastically alters the main mechanics. Join us as we take a look at Grind Stormer for the Mega Drive!
Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off Road is a fixed angle racing game where you can see the entire circuit without scrolling. When it made its way to the Mega Drive in 1992, the game lost the Ivan Stewart endorsement and it’s 3 player multiplayer. But is it still worth playing? Let’s find out together!
In an interview composed with Brad Buxer back in May, Brad Buxer confirms that the majority of the music composed for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was actually done by him and not Michael Jackson.
Buxer confirms that Michael Jackson had signed on to compose music for the soundtrack, but the actual writing duties fell to Buxer as he was Jackson’s main songwriting collaborator at the time. Buxer confirms he wrote 41 audio cues for Sonic 3 and Jackson only had input on one of them. He does not specify which song Jackson had input on and he does not specify which of the 41 audio cues ended up in the final game. We know for a fact that Ice Cap Zone was written by Brad Buxer because the melodies line-up with Buxer’s own song Hard Times that he recorded with the band The Jetzons.
Buxer also confirms that writing for the song Stranger in Moscow also came from the same sessions that produced the 41 audio cues for Sonic 3. Stranger in Moscow is often compared to the Sonic 3 credits theme as the songs share a similar chord progression. As this song was written separately from the Sonic 3 audio cues, it is more likely a coincidence that the songs sound similar.
5 other composers are credited for Sonic 3’s music: Bobby Brooks, Darryl Ross, Geoff Grace, Doug Grigsby III and C. Cirocco Jones. This means it is highly unlikely that all of Buxer’s 41 audio cues were used in the final game. You can watch an isolated segment of Brad Buxer’s May 2022 interview with Abbey Road Institute Paris below:
SEGA have revealed the home video release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will feature a brand new animated short film voiced by Ben Schwartz that will follow the events directly after the movie.
Alongside the reveal of the new animated short film, a whole host of additional content has been revealed. The blu-ray and digital release of the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie will feature deleted scenes, bloopers, behind-the-scenes content and some additional featurettes called Rapid Fire Responses, Robotnik Reimagined, Finding Your Team, A Sibling For Sonic: Tails and The Powerful Puncher: Knuckles.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will release on blu-ray and digital on August 9th 2022.
Remember the Sonic 30th Anniversary Symphony concert that debuted online last year? The concert will be returning as a live event starting in October 2022 at the Brazil Game Show in October.
While the show is promised to be similar in scope to the online version, SEGA have promised some “new surprises” for the live event. This news was revealed in the most recent Sonic Central presentation. Further dates have yet to be announced outside the Brazil Game Show, but they are promised to be “coming soon”.
You can watch the original Sonic 30th Anniversary Symphony concert via the embed below:
In the most recent Sonic Central presentation, SEGA have revealed that Shadow the Hedgehog will make an appearance in the upcoming Netflix show, Sonic Prime. Check it out via the embed below:
Sonic Prime is promised to be “coming soon” to Netflix and will mark the first animated Sonic the Hedgehog show since ended in November 2017.
We’ve got a double dose of Sonic Frontiers gameplay footage to look at today. IGN have uploaded an 8 minute gameplay video full of hands-on impressions from Mitchell Saltzman of IGN who’s been given 4 hours of play time with an early build of the game. You can watch this via the embed below:
IGN share a lot of new information about the game in this hands-on. Sonic and friends are transported to the game’s new location through a wormhole and Sonic quickly gets separated from the crew and has to explore the new world himself. Sonic also earns XP which can be spent on new abilities. Areas in the game are also called Open Zones which seems to suggest that the game isn’t entirely open world – focusing more on larger, self-contained areas.
We also get more in-game footage of Sonic Frontiers in action via the most recent Sonic Central video which you can also see via the embed below:
As you can see, more larger enemies are showcased in this footage, as well as different times of day.
We also get the news that Sonic Frontiers will receive a short animated prequel film called Sonic Frontiers Prologue. Sonic Frontiers Prologue will launch before the game’s release later this year.
Sonic Frontiers will launch on PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC in “Holiday 2022”.
Despite being a very late-era Mega Drive release, Comix Zone also got a port to the PC in November 1995. In our latest YouTube video, we take a look at the PC version of Comix Zone and see how it compares to the Mega Drive original. Click the embed below to watch:
IGN’s Sonic Frontiers coverage continues with an extended look at the game’s combat. Click the embed below to watch 6 minutes of in game Sonic Frontiers combat:
Combat appears to be a lot more involved in Sonic Frontiers when compared to previous Sonic games. Mid air combos look similar to Shadow’s combat in Sonic 06, but Sonic also has use of projectiles and a laser-loop like ability that can disarm or launch certain enemies into the air. Enemies are also more alien when compared to the badniks of previous games, and each enemy takes a considerable amount of hits to defeat. We also see combat with a much larger enemy that has to have its individual appendages destroyed one-by-one.
Sonic Frontiers will launch in Holiday 2022 for Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. The game is being developed in house by Sonic Team.
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