Sonic Extreme

[Detective Shadzter]

If this game really was what eventually became Sonic Riders, just think of the street punk backstory Jet, Wave and Storm could have had.

[Eternal EX]

If this game really was what eventually became Sonic Riders, just think of the street punk backstory Jet, Wave and Storm could have had.

*thinks* Oh gawd nevermind. I'll go back to All stars racing now.

[SchemingMinor]

Of course it does make you wonder.

We know that back in the 90's there were a lot of Sonic games made and then cancelled very early in production, no I don't mean the well known stuff like Sonic Crackers and Sonic Mars. Stuff like the really obscure games like the games that were mentioned by the guy who showed off all the Sonic Spinball concept art and footage.

How many other games are out there which got cancelled or turned into something else.

There was to be a rumored Sonic VR game in the works for the SEGA VR console that never made it to fruition. Only one SEGA VR game has seen light so far, called

[Gamerguy21]

ProtonX has managed to access the Xbox's hard drive from his computer (which possibly means he's one step closer to dumping the game), and found three video clips in the demo:

Alright, I was able access the hard drive from my computer. The game has 3 videos that don't seem to be used yet. One is a "you win", a "you lose" and the clown for Vision Scape Interactive (which seems to be the studio responsible for this demo of a game).

So yeah, it seems like Sega was apparently going to outsource this game to Visionscape Interactive. Judging from their previous history, it probably wouldn't have turned out to be very good at all...

[The-Master-Board]

If this game really was what eventually became Sonic Riders, just think of the street punk backstory Jet, Wave and Storm could have had.

I always thought they did have a very punk feel to them, at least that's how I viewed them. Jet with a mohawk and kinda all arrogant and stuff. I like to view the Babylon Rogues as skater type dudes, makes them feel like more varied personalities in the Sonic universe, plus as a skater myself I can relate to them a little.

Glad this game didn't come out theough. Riders was far superior, plus as skating games go this looks pretty bad, and I wouldn't like to see a skateboarding Sonic game, the airboards in Riders fits ok, this just doesn't, too slow.

[-Mark-]

I dunno, personally I'm not seeing any real similarities between this and Riders other than the fact they're on boards. Riders is a racing game, this looks like one of the generic trick-based Tony Hawk-style skating games with a coat of Sonic paint. Whole lot of difference there, if you ask me.

I don't have much of an opinion on this game, but then the trick-based skating genre does absolutely nothing for me. Yes, I'd have bought it, but still.

Also, yes, it's massively amusing that a second 'extreme' title was cancelled.

[Shaddix Leto Croft]

3 New videos have been posted by the guy on his youtube channel =D

Edited May 1, 2011 by Shaddix Leto Croft

[Badnik Mechanic]

There is just something amazingly crazy about how picking up a grenade prompts the ring pickup sound!

[Badnik Mechanic]

UPDATE:

So the guy had uploaded another video, this time showing off a full race... and something else... something which makes this game appear even more mysterious.

This video shows off a full race as Sonic. Theres no much that we havn't seen before but you get an idea as to how boring the concept really was.

The next video however makes this discovery even more interesting, it's of another unreleased game that was on the same Xbox unit, it shows another game using the same engine and object placement. However, it has a completely different character and the rings have been replaced by records(?) and have new sound effects.

Also the fellow who got the xbox has also found some new information out.

Alright, I was able access the hard drive from my computer. The game has 3 videos that don't seem to be used yet. One is a "you win", a "you lose" and the clown for Vision Scape Interactive (which seems to be the studio responsible for this demo of a game).

I just recently aquired the xbox. I know very little about its history, but from what I have been told it has been sitting in storage since sometime in 2003.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Hogfather

[Detective Shadzter]

OMG, I remember tech decks.

Looks like they still make and sell them.

http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Toys/Action-Figures-and-Playsets/Tech-Deck-Bonus-Pack(0067798)

Also, it appears there was a Game Boy Color game made:

[Badnik Mechanic]

It's slowly looking likely that this was a licensed game and not something Sega were making themselves.

A quick look for VisonScape Interactive shows that their history in the video game world is pittiful to say the least.

They've only ever made and released 2 games, one was Seablade the other was X-Bladez Inline Skater. Their list of cancelled games includes a bunch of skating type games, sounds to me like they might have been approached by Sega at one point to do a Sonic skateboarding title, but given the state of the tech demo, I'm not suprised Sega didn't bother to progress with the project.

The link to their old website is still up, but it now takes you to a company called Heavy Hater who specialise in making content for Playstation Home.

[Gamerguy21]

Also the fellow who got the xbox has also found some new information out.

It's slowly looking likely that this was a licensed game and not something Sega were making themselves.

A quick look for VisonScape Interactive shows that their history in the video game world is pittiful to say the least.

They've only ever made and released 2 games, one was Seablade the other was X-Bladez Inline Skater. Their list of cancelled games includes a bunch of skating type games, sounds to me like they might have been approached by Sega at one point to do a Sonic skateboarding title, but given the state of the tech demo, I'm not suprised Sega didn't bother to progress with the project.

The link to their old website is still up, but it now takes you to a company called Heavy Hater who specialise in making content for Playstation Home.

I already made a post about this a few posts above yours:

ProtonX has managed to access the Xbox's hard drive from his computer (which possibly means he's one step closer to dumping the game), and found three video clips in the demo:

So yeah, it seems like Sega was apparently going to outsource this game to Visionscape Interactive. Judging from their previous history, it probably wouldn't have turned out to be very good at all...

I hate being ignored. >_<

[Detective Shadzter]

Just found a page on IGN about the Tech Deck Bare Knuckle Grind Xbox game, which has it down as a cancelled game by Visionscape Interactive, as mentioned by ProtonX. The page says it was an Xbox exclusive.

http://uk.xbox.ign.com/objects/664/664351.html

[goku262002]

This was menctioned on Retro:

Xbox Debug Dev System Kit Console 360 Green Halo - RARE

These devkits are floating around Ebay. some contain the Extreme demo.

[Eternal EX]

Soooo basically Extreme turned into Riders. Gotcha! Well that's how it seems after looking at those boring vids.

[Gamerguy21]

A funny thing (that I didn't notice until watching the footage a bit more last night) to fuel all these "Sonic Extreme=Sonic Riders" claims: Despite this often being called a "skateboarding" game, and despite all the wheel sound effects, Sonic is actually riding a hoverboard in this demo:

So perhaps after Sega stopped Visionscape from making a Sonic hoverboarding game, they decided to take matters into their own hands and make Sonic Riders a few years later.

[jumbomax]

This look's great too bad I can't play it though! But ooooooooh well.

[Sonowske]

Maybe this could've helped in making the Riders series a success...maybe not. They don't say fourth time's the charm.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Sonowske

[goku262002]

From SonikkuForever at Retro:

I was so curious about this game that I e-mailed VisionScape (now called Heavy Water Studios), last night, and asked for some information on it. This morning, an email from the CEO of the company was in my inbox. This is what the studio has to say:

So, it was pitched as an unique game, Sega ignored it, and then used the concept for Sonic Riders. And there you have it.

See? Emailing does work sometimes.

[Kjeldo]

I found the eBay auction of this XBox which ProtonX won;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&rt=nc&nma=true&item=130505762733&si=DI%252FeU8DNFO8lNAOt4JSOk0QbK60%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEDWX%3AIT#ht_500wt_1156

The screenshots show that Sonic Extreme was on there, with "SONIC_DEMO_GAME" as display name.

I contacted the seller to ask if he knew anything about the game, this is what he replied;

It's some sort of Tony Hawk Pro Skater type of clone, but with Sonic being the one skateboarding instead; you can do tricks and collect rings, etc. It's definitely an early beta, there are a few other demos on the HD that are all the exact same skateboarding game clone, but one with clowns, one with sonic, one with rocket power characters, etc.

[HunterTSF]

So, VisionScape was team behind Sonic Extreme, eh? Out of all of the companies that had worked on a Sonic title in the past, I would have least expected their involvement on this game out of anybody! I didn't think that they did anything with the series beyond Sonic Heroes' cinematics and promotional images.

As interesting as the concept for the game may be, I suppose that it's a good thing that they didn't go through with it. They haven't really seen that much success as a competent video game developer, looking at their history.

...and e-mailing actually works, you say? I wonder if they have any more concept renders of the Sonic Heroes cast lying around? They only had ten listed on their site before they wiped that section with the new redesign...

Edited May 3, 2011 by HunterTSF

[Badnik Mechanic]

Golly. I think the most amazing part of that story is that they took all their deb kits to a re-cycling plant without disabling them first.

LOL someone ask them where this plant is located!

The whole story though, it's quite amazing and epically lucky that it was ever found. Just look at the events...

* the build must be from 2003-2004

* years later the dev consoles are marked to be destroyed.

* someone finds it and takes it... Then puts it up for sale.

* the buyer realises that the Sonic game on it is unknown and asks about it.

* the buyer makes videos of it.

* the company who made the game is willing to talk about it!

All what's leftcis for it to be dumped online. But so far it's amazing that it was ever found at all!

[goku262002]

Users on Retro are getting some ideas up to recreate this game using the released tech deck version for fun. If your interested and want to help, feel free to head over to Retro's topic.

Edited May 3, 2011 by goku262002

[jennytablina]

Golly. I think the most amazing part of that story is that they took all their deb kits to a re-cycling plant without disabling them first.

LOL someone ask them where this plant is located!

The whole story though, it's quite amazing and epically lucky that it was ever found. Just look at the events...

I dunno, yes its lucky, but the prototype sales world is a shady world indeed (mostly because in some cases, some prototypes are not exactly "legal" to pass around till a certain amount of time) Sonic Prototypes have a habit of falling onto the internet somehow, considering Crackers and Sonic 2 beta were one of the earliest protos to appear on the 'net. Though it's always surprising to see a new title suddenly pop out of the woodwork from seemingly nowhere considering this wasn't even really announced.

I think at this point the only proto or beta I would be surprised to see are Nintendo or Rare ones, which are rare as hens teeth generally!

[Doctor Sοnic]

Its always interesting to see videos of an unreleased game. Even though it wouldn't have been one of the greatest games, I'm sure it would have been at least a certain amount of fun to play.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Doctor Sοnic