Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

[Candescence]

Edit: OK, who voted me down for stating facts? I'm not terribly concerned with ratings, but seriously?

I think I have a good idea who it is, but in any case, I up-voted you back to 0.

[PSI Wind]

As long as the game plays the same as the Halloween trailer(or any other later trailer) in the Wii version, I'll be happy as a clam.

[ShadiWulf]

ONM removed the video hahahah they are probably pissed at SEGA.

[NinMicroSega]

Just in case any of you want to make a change in the video game industry, somebody found the email to Pete Rosky, the guy who originally said this:

"I would love to see ToeJam & Earl come back, actually. I think that’s my answer. I mean, it was pretty funky as it was, but just imagine that now. You know, some new music -- some licensed stuff."

He's Majesco's Assistant Product Manager, and his email address is prosky@majescogames.com

Right now, him and Greg Johnson have something in common- Pete Rosky wants to develop a new ToeJam & Earl, and Greg Johnson needs a publisher for a ToeJam & Earl idea he has for the Nintendo DS. It would only make sense to bring the two together. So far, I sent this email (that all of you can use as a basis) to Mr. Rosky:

"My name is ____ ______ and I am a huge fan of the ToeJam & Earl series. I remember reading a comment that you made in a Destructoid interview regarding what classic game series you would like to reboot, and I quote:

"I would love to see ToeJam & Earl come back, actually. I think that’s my answer. I mean, it was pretty funky as it was, but just imagine that now. You know, some new music -- some licensed stuff."

Lately, there has been a lot of news regarding the ToeJam & Earl franchise and how Greg Johnson, the current IP owner, was looking for a publisher to fund development for a DS game. He can be contacted through his company's website at HumaNatureStudios.com.

ToeJam & Earl fans would appreciate it if you responded in some way.

I thank you very much for your time."

Also, to all of you "negative nancies" out there who say "How will this make a change in the video game industry? Just sounds like spam to me."

First of all, think about the situation.

It started out as a worried fan wondering whether or not ToeJam & Earl will be in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. He gets an email from Sumo Digital stating that SEGA tried, but they don't own the rights to the characters. Distraught fans did some snooping to find out who actually owns the series and found out it was Mr. Johnson. From there, people wanted to find his contact information. Thus, the fans found an old article that mentioned how Mr. Johnson started his own video game company called HumaNature Studios. The website to that company had all of his contact information. Fans then started calling and emailing him for his characters' return. He responds through news outlets, video game forums, and blogsites. The rest is history, and you can now see the very informative article regarding ToeJam & Earl's fate over at Joystiq. Had it not been for us fans, we would have never gotten this far.

Also, realize this is how we got games like the new Shantae and A Boy and His Blob.

Edited November 12, 2009 by NinMicroSega

[Barry the Nomad]

All-Star Racing Dev Diaries #1: Introductions

http://blogs.sega.com/sonic/2009/11/12/asrdev1/

Hello and welcome!

I’m Steve Lycett and this is the first part of my development diary as we run through the creation of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.

First a bit about me. What do I do? Who is this person typing these words for you, the reader and why?

Well I’m glad you asked! Officially I’m Executive Producer. Sounds fancy right? Well it’s not all cocktails and parties! As producer I get to do all the jobs that no-one else wants to do… My job is basically ensuring the game gets done on time and to budget. Wait, no come back, I’m not going to show you any gantt charts, excel sheets, year planners or such. If that’s your thing, you’re in the wrong place! I could go into how it’s me that has to feed my very creative and talented team as we work through weekends and long nights, but I’m sure everyone is already bored of those kind of stories.

No the other things I get to do are far more interesting. Like fly to Japan and meet up with all the game directors at SEGA Japan. Ah… now you’re listening 

But let’s start at the beginning shall we? How did this game come about? Whose crazy idea was it in the first place?

So a history lesson. Stop talking at the back!

First let’s set the scene. The game is being made at Sumo Digital. For some reason everyone thinks we’re Japanese. Let’s clear that one up first. We’re actually based in the UK, in a city called Sheffield. Most people outside of the UK know Sheffield from a film called the ‘Full Monty’. If you’ve never heard of that, go look it up. You’re back? We’ll I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know we’ve been making the game fully dressed! Otherwise Sheffield is better known for steel. Oddly enough, across the car park from Sumo HQ is a huge steel works. I probably would be working there if I’d been born 30 years earlier…

Anyway… Sumo Digital probably caught most gamer’s attention when we converted OutRun2 from the Chihiro arcade board to the Xbox. Think about trying to close a suitcase full of holiday clothes and in the hotel before heading home, and you’ve got a good idea of what was involved.

We’ve also worked on Virtua Tennis World Tour for PSP, OutRun2006 for PS2, Xbox and PSP (imagine all your holiday clothes being squeezed into a lunchbox…), Virtua Tennis 3 for Xbox and PSP, and more recently, Sega Superstars Tennis on Xbox360, PS3, PS2, Wii and DS. So we’ve done a few Sega games. Hopefully some you’ve played and enjoyed!

Back to the story then. We’d finished SEGA Superstars Tennis, and we’re at the special moment where for five minutes everyone is relieved that it’s gone out on time, then panics as suddenly we need to find something new to do.

Cue SEGA to the rescue! How would we like to do another SEGA Superstars game? Well very much thankyou! Various idea’s were suggested, how about paintball, what about skating, how about fighting! Eventually we settled on racing!

Why racing? Well why not? It seemed obvious to us, we’d done two versions of OutRun, and since SEGA project wise we’d gone racing game/tennis game/racing game/tennis game/tennis game it was an obvious enough choice that it should be a racing game this time.

So that decided, we had to decide what kind of racing game it was going to be.

Now you’ve probably seen the trailers or early footage, and think ‘well that’s easy, everyone is in a car, on a bike, or in some kind of flying contraption!’ and well, you’d be almost right.

We started off with… Sonic running. Yes running. Not in a car. Not Super Sonic, but Sonic running full pelt around a test track. Next we added Eggman, riding in his Eggpod, but with robotic legs attached. He was running too. Then we added Tails. He was in his Tornado, the red biplane from Sonic 2. Next, we thought ‘It’s a racing game, lets try a car’ and dropped in Amy, in a nice bright pink Amymobile. We didn’t stop there either, next we added Gilius Thunderhead, you know, the Dwarf from Golden Axe. I’m sure you’re wondering what fiendish choice of travel he has, so I’ll tell you. We put him on top of Chicken Leg, the odd looking two legged parrot creature from the same game. Note, don’t all be running to the internet to go ‘OMG GILIUSSSS!!!!!’ as with all the prototype characters, it doesn’t mean they’ll make the final game!

Now I’m sure you’re wondering what on earth this looked like, and I can tell you, it was pretty mad. What was clear though that it wasn’t all that much fun to play. Our main problem was that all the characters were different sizes. Sonic was Sonic sized, but he was really small compared to Eggman and Gilius on their rides. Worse still was Tails’ Tornado – it was huge! The wings made it really wide.

Also the programmers, having spent so much time playing OutRun, had got Amy’s car drifting. This was really satisfying, but how do you get a Hedgehog to drift in a similar manner. Worse still, how do you get dwarf in full battle armour on a parrot faced lizard to drift…

So, as with all prototypes, we’d got things that worked well, and things that didn’t. That’s the point of prototyping after all!

Back to the drawing board then. We decided to keep the cars, review the flyers, but drop people running or riding things. No matter what we’d tried, it didn’t work right. At which point we upset every Sonic fan in the world by doing the unthinkable, we put Sonic in a car…!

Actually, before we take the blame for this, I will refer long time Sonic fans to Sonic Drift, that put Sonic in a car all those years ago on the SEGA Game Gear. Please address all you ‘In a car’ complaints to the guys that did that from now on please! (And the fact that Sonic’s very first appearance was in a car in Rad Mobile! - AAUK)

I digress though. Soon enough, we had all the characters in cars, or bikes, or revised flyers. For the flyers we didn’t want them to have too much of an unfair advantage, so we decided to treat these like hovercraft, they wouldn’t be affected by surfaces that slow the other cars down, but they also wouldn’t have high acceleration. As such Tails’ plane needed a re-design.

Which was around the time we went to SEGA in Japan. You know, to go talk to all the people behind the classic and modern SEGA characters we wanted to include…

But we’ll save that for next time.

[Badnik Zero]

It's kind of interesting that it was Amy's buggy that made them decide on the change to cars. Even Eggman was in some kind of chicken-walker machine. As much as I love Sonic R, this was the right choice (R was way unbalanced). Now all I need to hear from Sumo is whether or not there will be a story mode, a la Olympic Winter Games.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Stretchy Werewolf

[Barry the Nomad]

I have doubts about a story mode, but have hopes for a history section. Kiddies gotta know the history of Shenmue!

[psikeout]

I'm not bugged by Sonic or Amy being in a car. I'm bugged by Sonic being in a blue car and Amy being in a pink car.

I don't choose to drive in a flesh-colored car. I choose a car that I like the color of. Heck, if they wanted something that was blatantly iconic of Sonic, why didn't they just make his car look reminiscent of one of his shoes in some way, even? It's so boring to go, "Oh, he's blue, so he should drive something blue." Same goes for Amy.

Still, I hope this game's fun. Don't see why they couldn't take the Diddy Kong Racing route with the airplanes, though.

[Barry the Nomad]

But the cars are the characters by extension, so it makes sense for a blue hedgehog to have a blue car with spikes. What if the car were red? Then in co-op you see a red vehicle in the distance, must be player 3 as Knuckles. Oh wait, it was player 2 as Sonic driving a red car. Maybe it would work better as yellow... oh wait, some might confuse it with Tails or Aiai.

[psikeout]

Sure, it sounds that way, but I don't recall ever confusing anyone's vehicle in DkR, and that was well before the days of hi-def. As if these characters don't have big enough heads to spot poking out the top of those glorified go-karts, anyway.

[Agent York]

OMG GILIUSSSS!!!!! (he may not be in, but I come from the stance I thought all the non-clone characters from Superstars Tennis were going to be in this)

Very interesting read, and I continue to be impressed with the order at which the company works and communicates with it's fandom. Honestly a breath of fresh air in my opinion with some light and fun tones with them, and very informative.

Of course now I want to see this version of Sonic racing Tails in the Tornado and Eggman Chicken Walkers and Gilius riding dragon chickens in 3D...

[Detective Shadzter]

SEGA of America have posted about this diary too but included some new pics and concept art -

EDITED LINK(sorry guys lol!):

http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2009/11/12/sonic-sega-all-stars-racing-dev-diary-concept/#more-3202

[Sega DogTagz]

I want to see the dev who thought the game would work with something as large as the Tornado. Awesome as that would have been, no one would have been able to pass the thing.

[NinMicroSega]

I'm not bugged by Sonic or Amy being in a car. I'm bugged by Sonic being in a blue car and Amy being in a pink car.

I don't choose to drive in a flesh-colored car. I choose a car that I like the color of. Heck, if they wanted something that was blatantly iconic of Sonic, why didn't they just make his car look reminiscent of one of his shoes in some way, even? It's so boring to go, "Oh, he's blue, so he should drive something blue." Same goes for Amy.

You mean, like this?:

[speedfreak]

You mean, like this?:

Looks like Metal Sonic is checking Amy out.

[Agent York]

Looks like Metal Sonic is checking Amy out.

It looks like Metal Sonic, Fang, AND Robotnik are all checking Amy out.

And Tails is checking Sonic out... o:

[speedfreak]

Amy's car reminds me of the Taxi from Roger Rabbit in that Sonic Drift art.

As far as Sonic's car color, I don't really mind that it's blue, but I do admit he stands out more in a red car. He looked better on the original red Tornado as opposed to the blue Tornado 2 also.

[psikeout]

It looks like Metal Sonic, Fang, AND Robotnik are all checking Amy out.

And Tails is checking Sonic out... o:

And Knuckles is checking YOU out. OMY.

As far as Sonic's car color, I don't really mind that it's blue, but I do admit he stands out more in a red car. He looked better on the original red Tornado as opposed to the blue Tornado 2 also.

Yeah, I think it's a lot more striking. I thought it was little blasé when they went and made the new Tornado be Sonic- & Tails-colored (even though it was still a very nice looking color scheme on the plane itself). I guess I strongly associate Sonic with red things. He just looks good in red!

But yes, I can understand the logic of color-coding the characters' things when there are so many characters onscreen, but... it makes things a little boring when you look at them by themselves. Every time I saw Sonic's default board in Riders, I even thought, "Man, that looks more like something Tails would ride." My mind immediately shot to the red board Sonic used in the Sonic Advance 1 special stages.

[Indigo Rush]

I'll never look at that artwork the same way again. Thanks guys.

[Phos]

I'd like to mention how much I prefer Tails's jet propelled Lotus 7 thing versus his funky looking unplane, though I do like Amy's car. As for Sonic's car, they made it look like that because of how narcissistic he is, but if they wanted to make the rear end look like Sonic's head, they could have done it in a more subtle way, the current ones kind of just jut out the back, I don't think it looks very good. Winglets, vented rear wheel arches, a combination of both, all sorts of things, rather than just having a random spike jutting out of the top of the car.

Edit: Just randomly noticed something. In this screenshot, Knuckles's mouth is off center. I like it.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Phos

[Marcello]

I'm not bugged by Sonic or Amy being in a car. I'm bugged by Sonic being in a blue car and Amy being in a pink car.

I don't choose to drive in a flesh-colored car. I choose a car that I like the color of. Heck, if they wanted something that was blatantly iconic of Sonic, why didn't they just make his car look reminiscent of one of his shoes in some way, even? It's so boring to go, "Oh, he's blue, so he should drive something blue." Same goes for Amy.

Still, I hope this game's fun. Don't see why they couldn't take the Diddy Kong Racing route with the airplanes, though.

Actually its Fur colored. There flesh is peach

[The-Master-Board]

Oh how I miss Nack

I don't wanna be "that" guy, but to me what they had originaly intended for this game sounds waaaay better than what they ended up with. For one: Sonic on foot! Two: Eggman wasn't in some monster truck, he was in an eggwalker which would be reminiscent of SA2 (though why they didn't just have him flying in the eggmobile is beyond me. Also his all star attack could've been to drop the checkered wrecking ball and start swingin'!!)

Then there's Tails' tornado..it was originally going to be..well, orginal. Instead we ended up with some stupid yellow mutated looking thing that barely resembles a biplane at all.

Stupid Amy and her stupid car turning it all around There's another point, when they reached the stage they were like "Oh hey Amy can't run fast or isn't associated with a vehicle we can make go fast - we better put her in a car" when they got to that point why didn't they just stop putting in Sonic characters?? It would've stopped a helluva lot of bitching about there "BeIng 2 ManE Sonix charCters" in the game. Sonic and Shadow - cuz they run fast, and Eggman and Tails cuz they can move fast in mechs they made, that would've been enough and they still could've kept the unique style of having every character ride or compete in the race in their own series suitable form of racing, could've kept that cool sounding Golden axe ride too. On top of that I can only assume there would be less bitching about it being a Mario kart clone, as racers would seem varied instead of all being in some slightly differing car.

But that's just me. I can except that this is the route they took, however less cool it may seem. I know it's a spin off, a non-canon to the Sonic series affair, so I can take it as lighthearted and not give much of an arse about it. As long as it has alot of classic Sonic nostalgia I'll be happy!

Edited November 13, 2009 by The-Master-Board

[Barry the Nomad]

Sonic really should be walking on his hands.

[Marcello]

The whole "Why isn't Sonic on foot?!?!!11ONE!!!" thing is starting to get annoying -__-. I don't see whats so bad about it. Anyhow if he wasn't in a car he could get run over xD. But seeing as he could drift in Unleashed I don't see the problem there. By Gillious and co. I do, though.

[Barry the Nomad]

I still say it really all comes down to size. Imagine the problems a tiny hedgehog would bring to a packed race track. (1) you could hardly see him when driving a massive Eggmobile, (2) He could squeeze by larger pile ups with ease, (3) he would have to have a jump ability (trust me, players would complain if he couldn't jump), (4) he would open the door to other on foot characters that would bring up the problem of them having the same speed as Sonic.

Why did Sonic have a tennis racquet in Superstars Tennis? He could have just thrown it to the ground and spin dashed the opponent. Or how about Sonic Riders? He could have just ran through the course! Or how about any snowboarding level, he could just run through the snow! How about about the intro to SA2, he could have just ran through the city! Or how about Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games? He could say "screw it" to every competition and run to the finish line! Or all the times he stood and talked to Princess Sally? He could run and talk to her! Or how about any moment he was standing still? He could have been RUNNING! Running forever at any moment until the end of time because he's Sonic and Sonic runs because he's fast because he's Sonic and Sonic runs in all the games forever and ever and shuhrg;aher;t;.....

Edited November 13, 2009 by Doctor Eggman