Fan made

Interview: Gistix, team lead on fan made Sonic ’06 Unity

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What do you say when the words “fan-made Sonic 2006 PC port” jump at you? What sort of images, reactions, and most importantly, questions, pop into your head when this prospect meets your mind? Is it perplexing? Audacious? Blasphemous? These were of course all reactions I saw when news broke of a demo for a full fan-made recreation of the ill-fated and infamous Sonic 06 in Unity. However, much against others’ reactions, mine was of…curiosity.

Rather than stick with a few fleeting moments of “hey that’s a thing”, the very idea stuck to me so hard that it gave me a jolt of energy. Not because I like Sonic 06, god no, but because I am a huge lover of weird games and weird ports. And to me, a Unity port of this maligned title was far too weird to pass up. So, faced with a lack of information, and a thirst to spread the good will of odd, ambitious projects, I went straight to the source. Ladies and gentlemen and others, I present to you, hopefully everything you’d want to know about the ins and outs of the Sonic 2006 PC port, from the mouth of its current leader, Gistix!

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SEGA Channel Retro: Sonic 06 Unity Demo Today

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Sonic 06 has gone down as one of the blue hedgehog’s more divisive adventures. But like it or not some dedicated fans have gone through the trouble to recreate the game in the Unity engine. I’ll be checking it out on today’s shorter stream.

You can now watch our live streams on YouTube or Twitch!

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SEGA News Bits: Sonic 2006 being remade for PC by fans with Unity, demo first impressions

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Sonic 2006 is being remade in Unity by a small team headed by Gistix. A demo, playable on PC, has just released showcasing their progress in the form of the game’s original demo. We downloaded it and now talk about it in the first SEGA News Bits of 2017! Download the Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) Unity demo for yourself here.

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us, give us a sub. If you are already subscribed you can always like the video.

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SEGA Channel Retro Stream Highlights: A Brief History on David Gonterman

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Thanks to Sonic Retro‘s David the Lurker, who is so steeped in Sonic the Hedgehog lore that he is writing Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3 and named the island seen in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, we present to you a highlight from a SEGA Channel Retro stream in which David the Lurker regaled the listeners with a brief history on David Gonterman.

Who is David Gonterman? Why he is only the most famous Sonic the Hedgehog fan fiction writer of the mid to late 1990s. He has written several crossover stories involving Sonic, Power Rangers, Doctor Who and Sailor Moon, and has injected himself into the action. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Watch the video above to learn more of this strange period in Sonic history.

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Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3 Delayed Until Early 2017

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Big the Cat’s starring debut is going to be taking a bit longer to fish out. In an announcement released by Tails’ Channel, Big’s debut game has been delayed from it’s initial December release date.

For those not aware of the game, Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3 re-tells the story of Sonic Adventure 2. This time from the perspective of that fat cat based on his numerous cameos in the game. Further details were released through the panel hosted at the 2016 Sonic & SEGA Fan Jam. You can catch up on the going’s on for Big’s big debut by watching the panel here, starting at 46:00. The game’s developed by members of the Sonic community in order to raise efforts for Child’s Play.

We at SEGAbits share involvement in the project and are just as passionate for Big the Cat as everyone else is working on it. You can expect to keep an eye on us or the other teams involved with the game’s development when the game finally releases in early 2017.

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Hardcore Gaming 101 Sega Arcade Classics Vol. 2 and Fan Jam books available now

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If you haven’t checked out the excellent book SEGA Arcade Classics Vol. 1 by Hardcore Gaming 101, you really should fix that. The book is an excellent guide to SEGA’s arcade history, spotlighting not just games but their many sequels, revisions and home console counterparts. While volume 1 covered the early days, there was so much more to be covered. Thankfully HG101’s Kurt Kalata is giving us another volume with SEGA Arcade Classics Vol. 2, which is now available to purchase just in time for the holiday season! Per the description, covered games include golden era arcade classics like Pengo, Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, and Flicky; racing titles, ranging from classics like Monaco GP and Turbo, up through Hang-On and Rad Mobile; beat-em-ups like My Hero and Arabian Fight; SEGA’s super scalers Subroc 3-D and Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom; overlooked classics like Spatter, Ninja Princess, Bonanza Bros., and Aurail; and the long forgotten Sonic the Hedgehog arcade game.

Also available is The Hardcore Gaming 101 and Sonic & Sega Fan Jam 2016 Fanbook, which was produced in conjunction with SEGAbits (hey, that’s us!) for the Sonic & Sega Fan Jam 2016 event in Savannah, Georgia of which we are a sponsor. The book features a sampling of HG101 articles highlighting a range of SEGA games, including Streets of Rage, Sakura Wars, ToeJam & Earl, NiGHTS, Puyo Puyo, and Virtua Fighter. Also included are reviews of two games: Segata Sanshiro Shinken Yuugi, the Saturn minigame collection starring SEGA’s ultra manly spokesman, and Segagaga, the Dreamcast simulation game where you attempt to run SEGA as a company to save the realm of video gaming! Also included are reviews of three lesser known Master System games: Ghost House, Maze Hunter 3D, and Kenseiden. The Fan Jam book is available in two flavors: the standard edition with a Master System-inspired cover and a variant cover featuring Sonic and several SEGA all-stars.

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[UPDATED] SEGA Genesis homebrew game Coffee Crisis hits Kickstarter

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Are you looking to support interesting indie SEGA Genesis titles and want to see more games for the platform be developed? The team at Mega Cat Studios has now launched their kickstarter page for a brand new title called Coffee Crisis. Pledges start at $25 dollars giving you a PC download code and all the way up to a grand. M$ad Cat Studios has set their fundraising goal at $10,000, which at the time of writing this they are almost at 50% of their goal. So how much for the limited edition boxed SEGA Genesis version of Coffee Crisis? You will be dropping $55 buckaroos, with a ‘estimated ship date’ of December 2016.

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Sonic Hacking Contest 2016 Goes Live

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The 2016 Sonic Hacking Contest site is live, with 54 different hacks and mods to download and play! It is a yearly contest where members of Sonic Retro and Sonic Stuff Research Group show off their mods and ROM hacks. No account is required to play or download any of the hacks. Voting on entries requires a Sonic Retro or Sonic Stuff Research Group account to vote on the community trophies. You can also check the schedule for near-round the clock streams from folks like SomeCallMeJohnny, MegaGWolf, RedHotSonic and many more!

Downloading hacks are open until Sunday the 13th. Some mods you’ll encounter include ROM hacks of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Pocket Adventure as well as mods for PC versions of the original Sonic Adventure DX release, Sonic Generations and Sonic Lost World. Check them out today!

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Vixen 357 English fan translation released

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vixen 357 english fan translation

Strategy game enthusiasts should rejoice – a Vixen 357 English fan translation was released earlier this month. You can download the latest patch for the game over at Romhacking.net.

Vixen 357 was released for the Japanese Sega Mega Drive in 1992. This strategy game features grid-based battlefields where you fight with in or out of giant mechs. You gradually build an army of the giant robots which are key to decimating your opponents. Losing a crew member in battle faces a harsh punishment, as they remain dead for the rest of the game unless you reload your save.

Anime-inspired still cutscenes such as the ones seen in Phantasy Star IV tell the story in between battles.

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Vixen 357 was developed by Masaya, the same company behind Sega classics like the original Assault Suit Leynos and Langrisser games, among many others. Now you can patch the original game and try it out in your favorite emulator or load it on your flash carts and see what we missed out on.

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English Sega Saturn Policenauts fan translation released

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An English Sega Saturn Policenauts fan translation has been released today, which is certainly not the October surprise you were expecting to be excited about.

Policenauts is a graphic adventure game that follows in the footsteps of Konami’s Sega CD cult classic Snatcher. Several years ago, an English translation patch was released for the PlayStation version of the game. Which was nice, but what most of us wanted was for the Sega Saturn release of the game to get the same treatment.

The Japanese Sega Saturn port of Policenauts contains all of the same content as the other editions of the game, but with a number of improvements. Most notably, the anime cutscenes run at 24 frames-per-second, while it’s PlayStation counterpart chugs along at just 15. In addition, it features more dialogue and scenes, less censorship, bonus videos after the game is completed, and an alternative credits sequence. It also features light gun support if you still have a handy Virtua Gun and old CRT TV to play it on.

The translation team has already made the game region free with the patch, so all you need to do is patch your game and load it up. You’ll be good to go and finally be able to experience this lost Hideo Kojima classic.

Head on over to Policenauts.net to download the patch and instructions.

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Henshin Engine passes Dreamcast release stretch goal on Kickstarter

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Henshin Engine is a game based on a web comic that is set to release in early 2017 to PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 and PC CD-Rom/Steam. The game features 2D action platforming and was programmed from the ground up for classic systems. With 6 days remaining in their Kickstarter campaign, Henshin Engine is $8,000 past their $16,400 goal, meaning they’ve started to chip away at their stretch goals. Of interest to SEGA fans is the promise of a Dreamcast post, set to release in late 2017, should the campaign pass $22,400. Given they are $2,000 past this goal, a Dreamcast version seems assured, though the developer has yet to release an update sharing this news.

When we have more details, we’ll be sure to share it! In the meantime, if you missed the news, last week the Henshin Engine team announced a character crossover collaboration with the Strike Harbinger team. Meaning Strike Harbinger, a game inspired by classic SEGA franchises, will see an appearance on the SEGA Dreamcast by way of this crossover collaboration.

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Ken Horowitz’s SoA history book Playing at the Next Level ships October 30th

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Playing at the Next Level ships October 30th

Those who remember our interview with Ken Horowitz from back in February 2016 might recall he has an upcoming book called Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games. We now know the book covering the development of numerous Sega of America games will be shipping on October 30th and you can pre-order a physical edition at Amazon.

The book will focus on the actual games Sega of America produced from 1986 to 2001, along with a behind the scenes look at the development process. Horowitz sources the many interviews he’s done over the years along with numerous new ones. Playing at the Next Level will cover roughly 40 games with up to half a dozen developers being sourced for information on the creation of each game in question. Unlike Blake J. Harris‘ Console Wars, the book features developers much more so than executives and marketing personnel.

Ken Horowitz founded the popular fan site Sega-16 in 2004, where he has interviewed, researched and written about Sega’s history ever since.

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Indie Dreamcast game Xenocider reveals ultra limited edition versions

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XenociderLimitedEditiongThe indie Dreamcast game Xenocider opened pre-orders awhile back but now, like most indie Dreamcast games, it will allow you to pre-order various versions including:

According to the developers blog, the limited edition of these games, the two big ones being the PAL edition and the Steelbook edition will be limited print run to only 50 copies. Only 100 copies if you combined them. That is almost nothing. So if you are interested in the indie Dreamcast game Xenocider and want a ultra rare limited edition, you might want to go for the PAL or Steelbook editions.

The indie Dreamcast game Xenocider is set to release during June 2017, no exact date has been given and considering how indie development scene goes, don’t be surprised if the game is delayed. This is notable for being one of the first indie Dreamcast games to use full 3D graphics and is heavily inspired by rail shooters such as Space Harrier. You can check out their new demo for the game, for free, right here. The team has also been rather open on receiving feedback during development, that is always a positive move.

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SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive Japanese game ‘Dahna: Megami Tanjou’ gets English fan translation

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All the way back in the year 1991 a small developer known as Information Global Service released a action-platformer game for the SEGA Mega Drive known as Dahna: Megami Tanjou. Sadly the game never made it out of Japan, now a fan has went and translated Dahna: Megami Tanjou to English. While its nice to play the game with English text, I don’t find it a big deal considering Dahna: Megami Tanjou didn’t have much text to begin with and was fully playable in Japanese. It’s still nice of course.

Download English Patch Here

(You will need a Japanese Rom & LunarIPS)

Above you can watch 28 minutes of Dahna: Megami Tanjou gameplay and see if its for you. RetroCollects describes it as a hybrid mix between Castlevania, Rastan and Golden Axe; if those games are up your alley you should give it a go.

[Via: RetroCollect]

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