Sonic X-treme - cancelled Saturn game now playable on PC

[VR46]

Not a big Sonic fan myself but got to admire some peoples dedication to bring this to the masses.

Sonic X-treme should have been Sonic the Hedgehog's 3D debut on the Saturn, except it was cancelled in 1997. Diehard fans haven't given up on the game, though, and someone recently ported Sonic X-Treme onto modern PCs. The dream of Sonic X-treme will never die, it seems!

The news was announced on the Sonic Retro forums to much joy and celebration.

Links

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/02/24/cancelled-sonic-game-brought-back-life-18-years

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=34038&st=0

[Neon Ignition]

On it like a car bonnet. God, it's like finding the lost ark

[Asura]

Errmmm - All those download links are to dodgy download sites, to get a file that is only 1.9mb in size.

Is this some phishing scam or something?

EDIT: Even opening the ZIP file just to see what's in it (after a scan) shows the executable is called "Sonic Boom.EXE". Really don't want to be the first person to run any of this!

[Yakumo]

It's not a scam. It was being handled at Assemblergames.com. I was even involved with this since I provided the Saturn debug system needed to work on the code. A Saturn release maybe coming too.

[Wools]

I love the enthusiasm and determination of the modding and hacking community.

Never thought this would see the light of day!

[VR46]

Not read all the threads/posts how was the original code for the game come by?

[Wools]

An old developer on the game leaked it I believe?

[wakka]

Didn't someone from Assembler buy it for a load of dough a while back? I've got vague memories of a guy saying he bought it because he'd promised his little brother back in 96 that he would buy him the game when it eventually came out, or something.

[Yakumo]

That was a different build. This build had to be completely reworked to get it in to a running state. There's also Saturn code which while running slow does work. Fingers crossed that the Saturn code is fixed soon. Couldn't care less about running this on a PC. Running it on the Saturn is where the nostalgia is.

[Dogg Thang]

This video is notable for its "insane" use of inverted commas.

[S3M]

That was a different build. This build had to be completely reworked to get it in to a running state. There's also Saturn code which while running slow does work. Fingers crossed that the Saturn code is fixed soon. Couldn't care less about running this on a PC. Running it on the Saturn is where the nostalgia is.

Which means you have a very unfinished build of the game and aren't really playing Sonic X-treme just a fan made remade.

Only really interested in this if you can get hold of the last Sega bulid of the game so you have the version before it was cancelled. Looking at the demo it looks like a pre-alpha build and that's not really a good starting point. If you're going to invest in these type of things you really need to have last build.

[Asura]

Looking at the demo it looks like a pre-alpha build

I thought that was as far as this version got, though?

Wasn't there a second version that also got pretty much nowhere, aside from being in the NiGHTS engine?

This is interesting, but it's pretty much what I expected (good and bad, mainly bad). It's essentially Sonic running around in an engine that feels like a slightly less restrictive version of Bug Too!.

[Wools]

Only really interested in this if you can get hold of the last Sega bulid of the game so you have the version before it was cancelled. Looking at the demo it looks like a pre-alpha build and that's not really a good starting point. If you're going to invest in these type of things you really need to have last build.

Not always though, the last build may have been borked and considering it was canceled, there's a good chance the final few versions won't work.

This could be the most stable and complete build in existence. Who was the developer, it wasn't Sega internal or Sonic Team was it?

[Asura]

Who was the developer, it wasn't Sega internal or Sonic Team was it?

It wasn't Sonic Team - that was part of the problem. Yuji Naka apparently threw a wobbler when he found out about it.

Then, later, they would make Sonic 06.

[S3M]

Wasn't there a second version that also got pretty much nowhere, aside from being in the NiGHTS engine?

It wasn't Sonic Team - that was part of the problem. Yuji Naka apparently threw a wobbler when he found out about it.

Sonic is playable in Christmas Nights and that what your thinking of but I think that was a test to see how he was in 3D.

Yuji Naka ended up getting a couple of Sonic project canned he didn't like, which made him part of the problem at Sega, I also read he hated Sonic Fighters.

Not always though, the last build may have been borked and considering it was canceled, there's a good chance the final few versions won't work.

Doubt that would be the case very much, if you ever get a borked build the first think you do is rebuild it and fix the issue that borked it. Rebuilds normally only take a few hours, there is a slight case that they may have heavily changed the game at a certain point if that's the case you'll never play the game Sega intended as they didn't know themselves.