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Sonic X-treme (prototype; 1996-07-18)

From Sonic Retro

SonicX-treme Saturn Title.png
Sonic X-treme (prototype; 1996-07-18)
Prerelease of: Sonic X-treme
System: Sega Saturn
Build date: 1996-07-18
Source: CD-R disc

The 1996-07-18 build of Sonic X-treme is a prototype build of the cancelled Sega Saturn game, Sonic X-treme. It was built on the 18th July, 1996.

Overview

The 718 build is a simple demo set in "Jade Gully", where players can control Sonic, running and jumping through a small section of 3D world collecting Rings. Sonic can move in all directions, jump, Spin Dash and interact with blue diamond objects which will launch him into the air. The level geometry is simple (though some parts of the ground move, and water textures are animated), and very little of it is drawn at any one time, meaning there is obvious pop-in when Sonic attempts to move around the world.

The score continuously rises and the timer counts down from 5 minutes (and resets when it gets to 0:00). Sonic is stated to have 21 lives, but there are no means of gaining or losing any. The initial section has some static Flicky birds and some moving plant life, and there is a simple cloud layer rendered above the stage. While the stage is filled with hills and valleys, Sonic's movement is not affected by them - his vertical position will be adjusted, but climbing up or decending down a hill has no effect on his speed.

There are no sound effects, but music plays, borrowed from the US Good Future version of Quartz Quadrant from Sonic the Hedgehog CD. Pausing the game and pressing C will cause a Game Over screen to appear, again borrowing its jingle from Sonic CD.

History

On September 13, 2005, an anonymous Sega employee put a proof-of-concept beta of Sonic X-Treme up for auction on ASSEMbler Games, using TheRedEye as a middleman and auctioneer. TheRedEye posted a notification thread about it on SWS2B. The seller wanted a four-figure sum for it, which immediately put almost every member of the Sonic community out of the running, at least on their own. TheRedEye then posted in the ASSEMbler's auction thread stating that an anonymous collector had bid $2,500. Because it was unlikely that it would be dumped and redistributed if a collector bought it, some of the members of ASSEMbler's decided to start a group bid. Among the Sonic sceners that contributed were LocalH and rika_chou. The community had raised $1,700 before Ratman221 threw a huge monkey wrench into the plan.

Ratman showed up on the 14th with a promise that he would buy the prototype at any cost. He initially bid $3,000 and said that he would raise any higher bids. Some community members were suspicious of this guy, since he gave two phoney AIM screen names and had never been heard of before. However, donations to the pot stopped completely, as everybody thought he was legitimate. After the debacle over the AIM names, LocalH went back and forth between SWS2B, ASSEMblers, and Sonic Classic relaying additional contributions that were made. This brought the group total to $2,365, only $135 short of the collector's bid.

The next day, after the auction ended, Ratman revealed that his bid was a diversion meant specifically to keep the Sonic community from getting the beta[1], and said that he was hired by the winning collector (according to him, hl7_18) to keep everybody else out[2]. He also claimed that the entire auction was a show, and that TheRedEye knew of this from the start. All claims about TheRedEye's involvement in a fake auction are almost certainly false due to his reliability, and hl7_18 adamantly denies both being the buyer and having anything to do with Ratman. Ratman later claimed that he was Perfect Chaos[3].

On September 27, Ratman again posted at ASSEMbler's. He first withdrew the Perfect Chaos claim, then said that he threw off the auction "... for revenge against certain members of the Sonic Community."[4] More information can be found in his Scener page.

The collector is reported to have good video equipment, and has promised that he will make a high-quality video of the game in action as soon as he receives it. As of the week beginning on the 9th April 2006, these promises are yet to be fulfilled. Response to the video is mixed - while some are optimistic, others are skeptical of what can possibly be gained from a video and others still have become cynical of the immense amount of time that has elapsed without a release.

A second auction was later attempted by ASSEMbler, but interest was low. It was pulled soon after it was brought to the attention of Chris Senn.

Release

On July 16th, 2007 Assembler decided to release it and a torrent was posted on his message board.

Screenshots

Physical scans

External links

References

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Sonic X-treme
SonicX-treme Saturn Title.png

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