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III. Ethiopia

From Sonic Retro

Revision as of 10:40, 16 December 2004 by Ss is testing (talk | contribs)

Ethiopia -- The Sonic secrets community gains stature

With the discovery of the Beta ROM, questions flare. Since levels like Hidden Palace Zone were highly advertised, but never found, Sonic fans had questions about how the level looked. I hope to have more info at some time from André here. Meanwhile, with the realization that the Mario hacking scene was incredibly advanced, yet the Sonic hacking scene was nowhere, a kid by the name of Andrew Wolan started a site dedicated to unearthing information in the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Namely, Sonic and Knuckles.

Overall happenings and history

With this, André launched the Secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1998. The Sonic Secrets scene officially had a home, therefore a new branch of the Sonic community was born. Pretty soon Sonic Pandemonium, a site owned by Sonique Hedgehog, jumped into the scene as well. It could easily be argued that the scene started there as well. Once again, I will search out these people for more info...

On the other side, Andrew Wolan launched Andy’s Sonic Hacking Station. It became a moderate success. It was then that Andy met André. After awhile the two sites fused together into one. These two sites together were called the SSRG.

Secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog

Secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog had everything from what was in Andre’s beta to theories about the beta and hoaxes (though the latter was actually taken from Sonic Pandemonium). Sonique didn’t like what was happening with André and his site and they never really hit it off too well...

Andy’s Sonic Hacking Station

The only early site still out there. You can find it on Google by looking up Andy Wolan. It had a moderate amount of Sonic hacking information. Mainly Sonic and Knuckles info. After awhile, small amounts of Sonic secret info started showing up.

The handshake

In about 1998, SoSth and ASHS shook hands and created SSRG, a site owned by Andy. They decided to take sites based on secrets and offer them to become a member of this “elite” group of people. It was invite only, no hiring allowed. This method worked very well and assured picking out the riffraff. While it didn’t start out too hot, it started picking up in early 1999. One of the first sites accepted was Area 51...

Area 51

...which was owned by Jan Abaza. Area 51 was a site that had been out there long before SoSth, but never really got the recognition it deserved. It had all the weird Sonic screen shots that never made it into the games, thus it was locked away from the public (get it? Area 51 = confidential?). The site was quickly invited on, followed by others such as the Fan Games Archive (a site by Ryan Langley [AKA Rlan]), Tom’s Hacking Station, Underground Zone and Organized Chaos)