Episode twenty! The Big 2-0! And… I messed up the audio. Dang.
Like I said in the little intro, I made a *slight* mistake with the recording. The audio is somewhat listenable, but it’s worth it to hear our guest, Jason from Retro Restart, talk about retro games, gaming in general and the Sonic the Hedgehog series.
Here’s what I’ve got for you this week:
- Retro Restart is Jason’s Youtube channel. Along with his friend James, the two of them go back and play any and all sorts of old games. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re into Let’s Plays.
- Sonic The Hedgehog is pretty synonymous with Sega, the same way you might associate Mario with Nintendo and Master Chief with Microsoft (Sony has… Sackboy? Nathan Drake?? This Guy???). But before Sonic became Sega’s go-to mascot, there was another.
- Alex Kidd featured in six arcade and console games between 1986 and 1990, becoming the face of Sega during that time. When the first Sonic game was released in 1991, Kidd soon faded into relative obscurity, occasionally popping up as an unlockable character in other games.
- Doctor Robotnik (or Eggman if you’re nasty) had several names during development before settling on those two for the Japanese and International releases. In another timeline, Sonic would be going up against a Doctor Badwrench, Badvibes, Badyear, or Fatty Lobotnik.
- There have been several Sonic games out over the last 25 years (more than I was willing to count – especially when you have to take ports onto different platforms into account and the mandatory educational games of the 90s, but feel free to have a count yourselves). This has left Sonic with a long list of supporting characters.
- Who can forget memorable characters such as Bean the Dynamite, Fang the Sniper and Tiara Boobowski?
- To be fair, Boobowski never made it into any released games. She was a potential romantic interest for Sonic Sonic X-treme, a cancelled game from the mid-90s.
- Speaking of cancelled Sonic projects, the CEO of Sega recently announced that they are working with Sony Films to develop a live-action/CG hybrid Sonic movie. There’s been no update on this since February, so I’m happy to assume it’s been scrapped.
- Sega currently still deny Michael Jackson involvement with 1994’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack. This video plays several tracks from the games and compares it to some of MJ’s work. The credited composers of the game recently confirmed that He did in fact contribute several songs after playing a demo version.
- Michael Jackson’s shoes on his Bad album cover apparently inspired Sonic’s own shoes. The conspiracy deepens…
That’s all I’ve got for this week. Check out our Twitter and Instagram pages throughout the week, I’m gonna try and keep updating them with extra stuff and a couple of behind-the-scenes photos and videos (like this one!) throughout the week.
Deeby’s pitching next week and I promise the audio will be on point.
The Broken Elevator Podcast 