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Classic Games (Games) Links

A Look Back at Sonic the Hedgehog 198

Posted by CowboyNeal from the cruising-for-some-rings dept.
SonicHero writes "Part of its Essential 50 series, 1UP has posted a very interesting look back at Sonic the Hedgehog. It discusses how the character came about, how Sega marketed him, and how Sonic ultimately changed the course of the 16-bit platform wars."
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A Look Back at Sonic the Hedgehog More

A Look Back at Sonic the Hedgehog

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  • I tried to take a look back (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:46AM (#9967720)
    But all I saw was a blue blur.

  • let's face it.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prod_Deity ( 686460 ) <satanic.redneck@gmai l . c om> on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:47AM (#9967728)
    A cute little hedgehog is more marketable than a short fat plumber who plays with mushrooms.

  • Sonic CD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Emrikol ( 21551 ) * <emrikol&decarbonated,org> on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:47AM (#9967729) Homepage
    My favorite had to be the Sega CD game...and it had a kickass soundtrack!

  • More info (directory of sites) on Sonic Games (Score:5, Informative)

    by Etcetera ( 14711 ) * on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:47AM (#9967730) Homepage

    Take a look at the Open Directory Project [dmoz.org]'s category on it.

    God, I remember staying up nights back in 91/92 finishing the Sonic games. It's enough to make me want to go plug the console in right now and spend some time with Sonic&Knuckles + Sonic 1. :-\
    • "It's enough to make me want to go plug the console in right now and spend some time with Sonic&Knuckles + Sonic 1. :-\"

      And I'm glad I can still do that. I still own all of my old consoles -- especially all of the Sega ones. I have almost every Sonic game to date that was released in America and a lot of the ones released in Japan. I have about two hundred Sonic comics and no telling how much other merchandise. I grew up with Sonic and I still worship him today. Long live Sega. Long live Sonic.

  • I have the hots for Tails (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay, so he was introduced later, but what more can be said? The game's a classic!

  • What a rip off! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:52AM (#9967757)
    Everyone knows that Sonic was stolen. Shlomo the Hedgehog, know THERE was a 16 bit hero! Y'know... his epic battle with Rabbi Rabotnik, Dradles, his sidekick... Does no one remember?

  • Never my cup of tea. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord Graga ( 696091 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:52AM (#9967763)
    All the times I've played Sonic it's been like... Hold down right and press jump on the right times, correct any silly little errors that I might make, and win the level. It's nothing fancy :P

  • hehe (Score:5, Funny)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:53AM (#9967770) Journal
    and we all had a sister or cousin who thought green hill was hard..

  • Sonic flash game (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:55AM (#9967776)
    You can play a neat spinoff Sonic flash gamehere [ebaumsworld.com].

    • Re:Sonic flash game (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JaxWeb ( 715417 )
      The best sonic fan game I've seen is DIY Sonic [create-games.com]. It's actually more fun to play than the original, although it doesn't seem finished.

      Also worth pointing out is this website [emulationzone.org] which lists some of the level which didn't make it into Sonic 2.

  • A look back... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quill ( 238781 ) <martin.simaltech@com> on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:55AM (#9967781) Homepage
    Anyone else think of this Penny Arcade strip [penny-arcade.com]?

  • On the same topic... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by -kertrats- ( 718219 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:57AM (#9967791) Journal
    On the same topic, Lost Levels had an interesting article awhile back on Sonic X-treme, the would-be flagship game for the Saturn and how it went through development hell and eventually ended up being scrapped. You can read about it here [lostlevels.org]

  • Can anyone else (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:57AM (#9967793)
    still hum the theme to the Green Hill Zone? I swear that little ditty ranks up with the Super Mario theme for cachiness.

    Still, after the Green Hill zone the rest of the game felt a little rushed. Not bad, just not as fully realized as the Green Hill Zone. I remember seeing a magazine article with some of the features that didn't make it into the release cart. And the game just felt a little short (like most early Genesis games). Still an amazing game, and Sonic 2 more than made up for any short commings of the first game :).
    • the first one was the best though. I just didn't like the graphics on the following Genesis versions. They seemed more... er... blocky and interpolated.

      Then came sonic adventures... The game that made we wish I could switch to methamphetamines instead of just coffee... I never could get very far in that, even being a twitch gamer.

    • Re:Can anyone else (Score:2, Informative)

      by TLSPRWR ( 711680 )
      Why hum it when you've learned to play it on guitar?

      For those interested, there are several Videogame tabulature sites
      VGJam [kontek.net] and Nintendo Tabs [swipnet.se] are some of the better ones I've found. VGJam has a nice selection of Sonic tabs, though.
    • Hum it? HUM IT?

      I have the Sonic 1 music driver in an extracted form, to be placed in my first Genesis demo when I actually get around to writing it. So my demo will have the exact music from the game =P

  • Forgive this somewhat offtopic point, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by u-238 ( 515248 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:57AM (#9967796) Homepage
    Why has the popular percetpion of the "Gamer" been composed of bratty MTV esque focus group, as seen in this 1up sight, and on the G4 TechTV channel?

    For example [doubleclick.net]

  • For the nostalgics among you... (Score:4, Informative)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:02PM (#9967815) Homepage Journal
    I just finished playing Supertux. It brings back all those feelings of the old NES days. Highly recommended!

  • Their marketing worked (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nd ( 20186 ) <nacase AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:06PM (#9967838) Homepage
    .. on me at least.

    As someone who was a SNES owner and longtime Nintendo fan, I remember feeling jealous of the Genesis after reading some gaming magazines which showcased Sonic/Genesis as a faster and cooler system. It is true that at one point the Genesis became the more desirable console to own, largely due to Sonic. The pure speed of Sonic appealed to me as a new angle for side-scrollers.

    What this article didn't touch on was how Nintendo's SNES eventually won in the end (due to its much more extensive 3rd party library and probably a few other things). I did not regret going with the SNES after DKC. Zelda (Link to the Past), Super Metroid, etc.
    • I would say it became the more desirable console because of sports games, but that was just more my own experience and rose-colored memories. I owned a SNES and my neighbor owned a Genesis, ultimately he still liked the side-scrollers while I was liking the newer sports games, we switched consoles and were never happier :)
    • You fell for the "blast processing" bit?

      <Nelson>Ha, Ha!</Nelson>

      Nathan
    • It also had a lot to do with SNES "cleaning up" violent games. You could see blood and exploding skulls on Genesis games, not so on SNES.
      • It also had a lot to do with SNES "cleaning up" violent games. You could see blood and exploding skulls on Genesis games, not so on SNES

        Yeah, and those games were greater because of that.

        Come on, nobody plays mortal kombat today. IT SUCKS. People are still trying to master street fighter 2, the "less violent" one.
    • The main reason the SNES won in the end is that the Sega Megadrive (the real name of the Genesis) was pretty much a failure in Japan. It got some good shooters but it was the Super Famicom (the real name of the SNES) that courted the RPG makers who are the real key to success in the Japanese market. With both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy under their belt, it was inevitable that Nintendo would rule the Japanese market.

      Since the vast majority of good games come from Japan, the third party onslaught of the

    • It is true that at one point the Genesis became the more desirable console to own, largely due to Sonic.

      Huh? The SNES wasn't even out when Sonic came on the scene.

      how Nintendo's SNES eventually won in the end

      Again, what? How did SNES win, exactly? Genesis had a majority of the market for some time, and never really lost much of it. It certainly never had to drop the Genesis, nor did game development slow down, until the Saturn came on the scene.

      So what definines winning to you, exactly?

  • Sonic "changed the course" of the "platform wars"? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:06PM (#9967840)
    The true timeline, sans hyperbole:

    1 - Nintendo Entertainment System is popularized
    2 - Sega Master System fails
    3 - Sega Genesis is a moderate success due to Sonic the Hedgehog (but has no competition for 2 years)
    4 - Super NES is popularized
    5 - Sega Genesis moves to second place
    6 - Sega Genesis fails
    7 - Sega 32X and Sega CD fail (despite Sonic games for each)
    8 - Sega Saturn released to mild popularity
    9 - Nintendo 64 released to mild popularity, Saturn fails
    10 - Sony Playstation popularized, N64 fails

    Sega "fought" in the "platform wars". They never won. Their competitor lost, too.

    • Re:Sonic "changed the course" of the "platform war (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fondue ( 244902 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:28PM (#9967963)
      However you've introduced a healthy dose of Americanocentric (?) historical revisionism.


      "2 - Sega Master System fails" - True, it didn't dent the NES's popularity in the US, but it was by no means a failure. Lots of sales, lots of support.


      "3 - Sega Genesis is a moderate success due to Sonic the Hedgehog (but has no competition for 2 years)" - What rot. The Mega Drive quickly lassoed upwards of 80% of the market and didn't drop below 50% until a significant amount of time after the release of the SNES. That success was not due solely to one game, nor lack of competition. This is where Sega most significantly influenced the course of the 'console wars' - the MD completely wiped Nintendo's incumbent NES monopoly, and indisputably brought forward the development and release of the SNES.


      "6 - Sega Genesis fails" - I think you'll find the machine was still healthy up until the point Sega prematurely pulled the plug on all their existing systems to concentrate all resources on the Saturn. Even the Playstation took a little while to inherit all of the 16-bit market.


      Hmm, so every machine that doesn't have at least a 90% stranglehold on the market 'fails'? My advice would be don't get into any arguments with Apple fans.

    • The Sega Genesis didn't fail. It was manufactured and sold until 1997 -- it had a run longer than most consoles. The reason probably had to do a lot with Sonic: The Saturn didn't have a significant Sonic release at all (yes, I know NiGHTS was cool, but Sonic was money in the bank).
    • "10 - Sony Playstation popularized, N64 fails"

      30+ million units sold != failure.
    • And don't forget that the playstation was origionaly a cd add in for the Super NES that nintendo backed out of. Sony the partner in the deal produced the playstation.
      The CD addin was intended to allow the SNES to have the capibility to hold as much game data as the Sega Saturn.
    • I think your timeline is a bit off; if I recall correctly, Sonic The Hedgehog was introduced in 1991, the same time the SNES was released; the system didn't have competition for 2 years, but it didn't gain popularity until Sonic either. That said, I would call the Genesis the 2nd place console(dude to Donkey Kong Country in the end), but it certainly wasn't a failure either.

  • Sonic has gotten pretty tacky .... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:08PM (#9967854)
    As much as I love Sonic, I can't stand what they keep doing to him.

    My gf and I both own Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut and Sonic Heros (game cube games). While the games are both fun, the image that Sonic and friends give off is excessively Tacky. Tacky in a really annoying matter (ie: they have dumb sayings like "Lets Blast off with sonic speed! Alright! OK!")

    And have you seen the sonic cartoon currently playing on The WB ? Those characters are beyond goofy and dumb. When I was a kind (10 years ago?), There used to be a really nice sonic cartoon on Saturday mornings (ABC broadcasted), and it had a much more serious look and feel (animation wise).

    Sega & Sonic Team: Stop screwing up Sonic and licensing it to all the wrong people

    Sunny Dubey

    NO spellcheck of any kind was used, deal with it.

    • You seem to have missed the point that Sonic is a character designed to appeal to kids, a goal which was well-achieved. After all, at the time children absolutely drove the video game market. This is still pretty true today, but far less true now than it was then, as pricy handheld game platforms demonstrate. I have no problem envisioning kids jumping up and shouting "Let's blast off with sonic speed! Alright! OK!" Kids love to repeat all the stupid crap in the pokemon cartoons, too.

    • The show you're probably refering to was entitled "Sonic the Hedgehog" but most people refer to it as SatAM (Saturday Morning Sonic). It was the most serious and darkest of all the Sonic cartoons.

      The first Sonic cartoon was "Adventures of.." which was very Road Runner-esque. Cartoony and set the in desert with a lot of goofy characters.
      Then 'SatAM' came along and revolutionized people's thoughts on Sonic (And Jaleel White [Urkel on Family Matters] did an awesome Sonic voice).
      A few years after it got can
      • Arguably, SatAM was the most serious and well done (Character wise) and had a continual plot.

        Amen. StH/SatAM [satamsonic.com] really stood out as a grittier, more mature series than typical Saturday morning fare. That, the high-tech/sci-fi-ish setting, and the fact that all the good guys were furries (*grin*) made it my personal all-time favorite TV show. Still waiting for that DVD box set some day....

        Sonic X is doing pretty good, but we'll have to wait and see how it finishes out.

        I picked up a pirate DVD of that one,
      • Sonic X is doing pretty good, but we'll have to wait and see how it finishes out.

        The English dub makes me want to hang myself.

  • Sonic Hedgehog Antibody (Score:5, Funny)

    by NefariousOne ( 610392 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:13PM (#9967889)
    "Sonic [Hedgehog] ultimately changed the course of the 16-bit platform wars."

    Not mention eventually inspiring the name for a crucial signaling pathway, one imperative for the normal development and patterning of numerous human organs.

  • I know I'm in a minority... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Weirdofreak ( 769987 ) <weirdofreak@gmail.com> on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:14PM (#9967893)
    But I'm not a fan of the early Sonic games. Maybe you don't get the same experience from playing the Mega Collection disk on your 'Cube, but I played each for about ten minutes before getting bored. It's just so repetitive. Run to the right, don't get hurt. That doesn't apply to Sonic 3D, but I don't like that either. The same goes for the early Mario games as well. Super Mario World is often thought to be a simply amazing game, but after a few days with the ROM I got bored.

    It's like that with any 'mindless' game. I don't know why I can't them for long. Maybe I just don't feel like I'm progressing. Maybe I just suck too much and am too lazy to keep playing until I improve. I dunno. There's no doubt they're good games - but they just aren't my style. Everybody else seems to love them, I hate 'em.
    • Kinda the point... nothing really happens,it'sjust flashy graphics. But back in the day it was damn impressive.. Just got to enjoy it and shrug. Enjoy the level design and not what you must do to get through it.

  • you know your a sonic freak when (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nova1313 ( 630547 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:16PM (#9967910)
    all the computers in your house have sonic the hedgehog related hostnames..

    I'm on flicky right now... Mobius is my file server.

  • Morphogenetic Protein (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ann Coulter ( 614889 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:20PM (#9967930)
    Don't forget the inspiration of the name of the morphogenetic protein [davidson.edu].
    • I love that the introduction to the protein said "The purpose of this page is to describe the protein Sonic Hedgehog (shh)."

      It took me until the next protein and its abbreviation was introduced to realize that they weren't, like, telling me a secret. ("It's the Sonic protein! Shhhhhhh!")

  • Thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:31PM (#9967977) Journal
    Right then.. Sonic.. what can we say about it.... hmm.

    Sonic was so reconiseable in the early 90s (my era as a kid) that even my parents reconised him. I didn't have a genesis for quite a while (I had a SNES instead. I got the choice, a SNES or a pony... I picked the SNES and never looked back).

    Everything was perfect in the original 2 sonic games (Sonic1 and 2). They did everything right and it was down right fun. I still look back and remember that video I got with a magazine showing hill top Zone and going "FUCK I WANT IT!". At the time I didn't have a mega drive (genesis) so I waited for the Master system version (took a while but it came).

    So it wasa school day and I remember sitting there itching to get back to my MS, The weather was vile (rain and wind), the shops had a huge queue but my parents agreed to get it for me (I was disabled for some of my life so they never objected to my games playing).

    So off I dashed, home I met and played Sonic 2 I did. Everything felt good and right with the world... Untill I got to that fucking hang glider. Even to this day I don't know how that fucking things works, but it sure drains lives.

    So years later I get a Mega drive to go with my SNES (and like 9 games with it, so lots to play). and I remember thinking I'd just got a few videos, maybe a SNES game and a football or some crap I didn't want (my parents tend to get what I ask rather then general crap, it's easier and cheaper in the long run). So there I was with my Mega drive, playing sonic over and over.. cursing the spikes (why didn't we get the updated version with the fix? :( ). Labrynth still haunts me.. the jaws theme has NOTHING on that thing...

    Sonic 3... well what can I say.... lost it's feel. It was all "COOL KNUCKLES!" and then it became "..just fucking kill him already!" and so on and so forth. The feel of the originals (bright, colourful and damn fun) just seemed lost.

    Apply knuckles and repeat 3 and you get the same. It's not sonic no more... I miss tails being a cute little kid who can't write (they will show the classic sonic on satalite here... Nothing says fun like Sonic telling kids not to be molested).

    Sonic Xtreme gets canceled due to health and polotical issues, we all lose the saturn and in turn lose Sega.

    Dreamcast comes out, everyone adores it, yay for dreamcast (still love mine). Sonic totally rockson it, keeps the original feel but adds in cool new elements (and loads of extra characters no one likes).

    Rinse and repeat for the cube.

    Advance comes ago... takes sonic 3s feel and then adds in attacks (WTF!?). It becomes almost a parody of it's self losing the fast feel more for "pick a path, any path you'll never remember them all because they all look the same".

    Sonic Advance 2 and 3 comes out. I ignore

    Sonic heroes come out.. every character gets majorly nerfed... I buy, find fun but semi regret..

    So yea thats a better idea of sonic. It started out amazingly well, I have OC remixs of Sonic 1 and 2 music on Winamp all the time. I still adore Sonic 2 (and 1) and even set up my Mega drive to play them some times. After that Sonic starts to lose his edge on the market, loads of spin offs take place and it just feels cheap and nasty now.

    Once when you said Sonic you had the picture of a blue hedgehog tapping his foot and waving his finger and then dashing off across the land scape, he WAS the cool guy of the 90s, to me that Sonic still is cool and always will be.

    Now he's "just another platformer" blending in with all the others. His design has changed (you probably won't notice much, but the spikes are very different now), his character has become "lets do whats right!" rather then "Meh, it's fun lets annoy him some more and laugh" (Heroes even says Sonic is no longer a danger to robotnik and more of a "friendly rival" ffs!).

    I'd point out all the flaws with the other characters (Shadow, Rouge, big etc.) but yanno, it's not worth it.

    To me Son

  • For me Sega has always been brilliant (Score:5, Informative)

    by mingrassia ( 49175 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:47PM (#9968068)
    This may be a bit off topic, but here I go ...

    Reading articles like this really upset me. Sega is (or was) a brilliant company. For years I was amazed by the risks that Sega would take to release some really brilliant games. While everyone else (i.e. Sony and Nintendo) were releasing the same old first-person shooters and guaranteed sellers, Sega was taking real risks with trying new types of games. Some of my favorite Dreamcast examples are ...

    1. Samba De Amigo [ign.com]
    2. Jet Grind Radio [ign.com]
    3. Seaman [ign.com]
    4. Typing of the Dead [ign.com]
    5. Space Channel 5 [ign.com]
    6. Chu Chu Rocket [ign.com]
    7. Ooga Booga [ign.com]
    I'm sure there are some I'm forgeting.

    The Sega Dreamcast was an absolutely great console. The games for it were bizarre, but brilliant and amazingly fun. Their biggest mistake(s) was not basing it on DVD and of course their partnering with MS. The death of the Dreamcast marked a severe turning point in my thinking. It was when Sega announced the death of the Dreamcast that I truly became a hater of MS and it marked the end of me being an enthusiastic gamer. Forget the XBox and the PS2, when I want to play some fun games I still turn on my Dreamcast

    As a side note I would have loved to be in the room during the meeting when the idea for Samba De Amigo was pitched ... "A monkey with maracas and dancing?"
    • As a side note I would have loved to be in the room during the meeting when the idea for Samba De Amigo was pitched ... "A monkey with maracas and dancing?"

      I've always thought the same with Chu Chu Rocket and Space Channel 5:

      "So there are these mice, except they're space mice, and they need to get to a rocket ship, and there are these space cats that chase them."

      or

      "It's a rhythm action game. But it's different because its set in the future and everyone wears 70s clothes. And aliens are invading and

    • I thought "Crazy Taxi" fit the bill too. Damn, that's still one of my most favorite games ever.
    • was bad marketing and too many hardcore games. It's all well and good to have lots of innovative and cool titles, but you need a healthy dose or solid and simple platformers and RPGs to draw the general masses in. The sports games where top, but that wasn't enough.

      And dear God, did the marketing suck. I mean, whose idea was it to spend your whole comercial time showing off how cool Sonic and crew were instead of showing off the (at the time) mind blowing graphics? When the DC came out nothing was even c

  • Great game (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @12:56PM (#9968136)
    When I was a kid, I spent many hours paying sonic 2. Now I can play it through emulations on my computer or xbox. It's the perfect example how a good game doesn't depend on great graphics or an internet connection, but just a good idea.

  • Irony.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NivenHuH ( 579871 ) * on Saturday August 14, 2004 @01:40PM (#9968650) Homepage
    Does anybody else find it ironic that Sonic is now on the GameCube and GBA?

    • Re:Irony.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lightspawn ( 155347 )
      Does anybody else find it ironic that Sonic is now on the GameCube and GBA?

      No. Remember the Dreamcast let you play Mario games on Sega hardware before Sonic games were available for Nintendo platforms.

      And if you really want to be confused:
      Somari [fateback.com]
      • Hmm... what about the SNES port of Sonic the Hedgehog? I'm not entirely sure of its origins... but I've been seeing it on emulation sites for years.
    • > Does anybody else find it ironic that Sonic is now on the GameCube and GBA?

      Yes, like three years ago. What, you just noticed it?

  • Hyper Sonic (Score:2, Informative)

    by DarkGamer20X6 ( 695175 )
    How fitting that this article should come out, as I've been on in constant euphoria playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the past week.

    It's as I was telling a friend a couple days ago: I loved it when video game companies could increase their already vice-like grip on the market by taking a tried, tested, and true concept and adding a "Super" in front of it.

    "Hey kids, Sonic is pretty fuh, huh?"
    "Sure, I guess...it's a little old now."
    "Oh, really? Uh,...well...did I mention Sonic...uh,...can be Super Sonic,
    • Damn straight; it was a gimmick, and there's no denying that, but Super Sonic(and then Hyper Sonic) allowed you to go even faster, reach higher, and otherwise go insane, and that's always a blast. I can't think of another console final boss battle that was that fun.
  • 12 month ago when I read my embryology book, I read about sonic hedgehog proteins, a protein that controls development of left and right. It is rather funny that scientist name a protein after a character in a computergame.

    Have anybody similar stories.

    Best regards
    Rune
  • SEGA did a great mistake back then: they bet everything on a 2d horse (the Genesis/Megadrive), whereas the competition was moving to 3d (mode 7/super fx chip for SNES). Commodore also made the same mistake with the Amiga. The Sonic property was not enough to save them. They repeated the same mistake with Saturn, which was very difficult to program 3d graphics with (in constract with PS which was very easy).

    And this was from a company that made its fame on 3d games! Space Harrier, Outrun, Afterburner, Power

    • Um, no... (Score:5, Informative)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @06:05PM (#9970475)
      3D graphics where nowhere around the time the genesis was created. At most they where a clever idea done in a few games. Space Harrier, Outrun and Afterburnner wheren't really 3D and wheren't anything new technology wise by the time they where out. 2D was still where it was at. If you where talking about Saturn, then you're kind of right.

      From what I understand, Sega didn't expect the PSX to be as powerful as it was. They where still shooting for a $200-$250 dollar console. When the saw what Sony was doing, they panicked, and instead of redeigning their console, dropped another main processor in it to make up the difference. Problem is this was a hack, and a bad one. There was a ton of bugs in Saturn hardware, it was more expensive to produce, and the main processors where a bitch to program for (only one could access memory at a time, and you needed to do some complex tricks to use both because of it. This lead to a lot of programmers only using 1/2 the Saturn's power). Virtual Fighter 2 may have been amazing, but it was also hand coded in Assembly by Sega's best programmers. Third party venders couldn't really be expected to do that.

      It didn't help that Sega of America treated their 3rd party venders like shit. Look up the crap they pulled on Working Designs some time (long story short, Working Designs wanted to sell Sega memory cards to thier users so they's stop bitching about losing saves due to bad memory cards. Sega basically said no/fuck off, and no one's sure why). Oh, and sega kept other 3D fighters out of the US market to decrease compitition with their own games. For a company that relied so much on third party developers in the Genesis days, who knows what the hell they where thinking. One thing's certain, Bernie Stolar will forever be hated by all true Sega fans. After running the company into the ground in the Saturn days he ejected with a nice fat Golden Parachute.

      • Many things you said are wrong; most probably the moderators were misinformed.

        3D graphics where nowhere around the time the genesis was created.

        Of course 3d graphics existed back then. They even existed much earlier than that. First of all, the 3d graphics algorithms are 30 years old, at least; secondly, there existed many expensive workstations that could do 3d.

        At most they where a clever idea done in a few games.

        It was not just a clever idea, it was THE idea. SEGA did the most spectacular coin

        • For all intents and purposes 3D == polygons. The Saturn could do excellant sprite based 3D. What people wanted (and what the playstation was designed for) was polygonal 3D. What made polygonal 3D so important was you could do cool, cutting edge graphics without the need for tons and tons of expensive RAM. Imagine trying to do Doom3 with nothing but sprites and scaling.

          And I mean exactly what I said. It's a historical fact that the Saturn was originally going to be a uniprocessor system. Sega tacked on th

          • For all intents and purposes 3D == polygons. The Saturn could do excellant sprite based 3D.

            No, not at all. If SEGA sprite-based games were not 3d games, no one would have played them. Imagine a 2d AfterBurner, Space Harrier or Outrun and you will see what I mean: complete boredom. It was the 3d part of these games that made it cool; it just happened that they used sprite scaling to implement it.

            What people wanted (and what the playstation was designed for) was polygonal 3D. What made polygonal 3D so

  • It's also changed the course of fan art. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by solios ( 53048 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @04:49PM (#9970017) Homepage
    There is so MUCH Sonic fan art on deviant art [deviantart.com] that it practically deserves its own category.

    Since the only Nintendo fan art I've seen on DA is fetish pr0n, I guess that attests to the popularity of the Sonic series.

    Me, I was more of a Mario fan.
  • Until I read Campbell-Kelly's history of the software industry, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog [dannyreviews.com], I'd never heard of Sonic the Hedgehog. But then I was never much of a gamer.

    Danny.

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