J.E.Smith

Well this came out of nowhere. Animation writer Dave Polsky (South Park, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) mentioned in a recent convention panel that he is writing a new Sonic cartoon called "Sonic Boom":

 

http://www.tssznews....c-boom-cartoon/

 

Moments ago at his Trotcon Q&A Panel, Polsky revealed more information about “Sonic Boom” – we’re still waiting to see if our source can elaborate more, but early reports indicate that it is a “Pony-esque reboot of the cartoon series”. What, exactly, that means is currently a mystery – Sonic has had no shortage of cartoons over the years, and each one of them involves completely different settings and supporting characters. Any one of them could be rebooted, and it’s worth mentioning that one of Polsky’s contributions to MLP was, apparently, writing music for an episode, so not even Sonic Underground is out of the question at this time.

Right now, you know about as much as we do. We’ll have more on this as it develops.

 

UPDATE: Our source has offered more information now that the panel is over regarding “Sonic Boom”. All Polsky would say is that it involves Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose, and would lean towards “comedic in style”, making it sound unconnected to any previous Sonic cartoon.

 

 

Hey guys, if you remember about five years ago I made a video using SatAM clips over The Internet is for Porn from Avenue Q. At the time I made the original video, I only had access to low quality TV rips of the episodes. I've wanted to redo the vid with better quality clips, so I've remade the video using DVD rips:

Source: http://www.tssznews....ns-development/

Alleges Union Affiliation Cost Him the Role

An interview published by The Gaming Liberty with former Sonic voice artist Ryan Drummond has received a lot of attention from Sonic fans this weekend, and no wonder: Drummond alleges in the interview he nearly returned to the role in time for Sonic Generations.

The sixteen year veteran of video game VAs was questioned about returning to the Sonic role. It turns out Drummond all but won the job when, in his words, a re-casting was underway to replace Jason Griffith and company during development of Sonic Generations. (Officially, the change-over to Roger Craig Smith et al. occurred in 2010, before Sonic Colors was released.) However, Drummond alleged Sega reneged on the deal when he wouldn’t leave his talent union. We’ve emboldened the most striking remarks below:

There was a glimmer of hope a while back when Generations was being cast. Sega asked me to come to LA and “re-audition” for the role of Sonic because they were doing the same thing to Jason and that cast that they did to us years before. So I went and they were very pleased to have me back and they actually said they were going to have me back and it was going to be this great reunion. Then when the actual offer came to my agent, it was a complete joke. They asked me to leave my union (which is how I make a living), do all kinds of work for no compensation, etc. It was a real slap in the face. I really don’t see it ever happening. Sega is a huge corporation with zillions of dollars and they don’t see any need to change the way they do things. There’s a lot more detail I can’t go into because of legal reasons, but let’s just say that I wish I’d been voicing Sonic all this time, I would return in a heartbeat, but if Sega ever decides to hire me again the devil’s making sno-cones.

That perspective can be corroborated by a member of the community. Scener XD375, who foretold of the casting change two years ago, cites in a post on the SSMB a Sega insider who claimed the American staff were happy to bring Drummond back, only to get caught up in corporate bemoaning about Drummond’s union status, with the mothership in Japan getting involved. Again, the most important information has been emboldened:

Everything Ryan says is true, and SEGA’s douchery and heartlessness extend way beyond even what he said in the interview. Ryan rocked the auditions – he won the role over even Roger.

[....]

SEGA told Ryan they were glad to have him back and that he got the job. Then he was kicked off the role again later on because he wouldn’t quit his union. Ryan’s first new games would have been Sonic Colors and Sonic Free Riders, but even All-Stars Racing was still in development when all of this went down.

[....]

SEGA is paying Roger practically nothing (“coffee and donuts money”) to voice Sonic.

SEGA had meetings about Ryan’s union status. They spent enough money to cover at least sixteen games of Ryan Drummond acting just on airfare, hotels, and food for the executives from Japan to take part in these meetings.

Given Sega’s current financial state, it’s not surprising the company would want to save a buck wherever possible. But the return of Drummond, considered by plenty in the community to be the best and most beloved of all the Sonic VAs to date, could have been a better business decision, and encouraged fans who picked up on Sonic during the Adventure era but were scared away during the Shadow and Sonic 2006 era to give the series a second look. Speaking of sound business decisions, there will now always be the question of whether Sega would have better spent its money actually bringing Drummond’s back versus debating his return, in light of these new details being released.

Personally while it would have been nice to get Drummond back it was better for him financially to turn down the role than quit his union.

One of my favorite games on the Wii is one that I don't hear too many people talk about: Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love. For those of you who haven't heard of it, Sakura Wars is a series of "dating" sim/SRPG games created by Sega that started life on the Saturn in 1996. It became one of Sega's hottest sellers in Japan, spawning four sequels and anime spin-offs. However, despite it's success in Japan, over here we only got one game in the series, the fifth and final game "So Long, My Love". It came out in Japan for the PS2 in 2005, but we didn't get it over here until 2010, during which time it was also ported over to the Wii. It did receive very positive reviews, but I'm not sure how it sold.

The way Sakura Wars works is a bit unusual since we don't have many games of its type over here. While Sakura Wars features SRPG combat, it does not have random battles or leveling up. Instead, you start off each of the games chapters in the “dating” sim style parts where you walk around the city and converse with your teammates in a bunch of dialogue scenes, or sometimes perform little QTE mini-games where you have to push buttons to fill a gauge. At certain points during conversations, you must select one of three dialogue choices for you character to say, which either gets positive or negative reactions from your teammates, which either increase or decrease your team’s trust in you. This affects what their stats will be when you reach the SRPG combat segments at the end of the chapter; lots of positive reactions will increase your team’s stats, but if you get mostly negative responses they’ll receive no stat boosts. (Though the negative responses are sometimes funny)

It's a little more complicated in the fact that if you play it blind, you'll have no clue which responses will get positive or negative reactions, and in some cases none of the choices are correct and you have to let time run out to get the positive reaction. Also, during the parts when you can walk around the city, you are given a time limit. A clock is displayed in the corner of the screen and you lose five minutes for every location visited. While you are free to visit any of the available locations in the city, you do not have enough time to go to all of them within this time limit. Some of the locations are dead ends and will not have any dialogue choices so you could miss out on boosting your team mate's trust.

Getting high trust and reactions is crucial for doing well in the combat segments. Not only does it affect your teammate's stats, but there are also team attacks you can do with two of your party members and obviously how much damage they do depends how high their trust is.

To understand the game further, here’s scans of the manual:

http://smg.photobuck.../Sakura%20Wars/

I guess part of the reason I like Sakura Wars so much is most of its characters and all the interactions you do with them throughout the game, plus the game has plenty of cute bits and funny bits. It also contains plenty of replayability if you get really into it; there’s six different endings (One of which can’t be seen on your first playthrough) and all the different dialogue choices to make. It’s not possible to see everything on the first try, and will take you several playthroughs to see it all.


I'm showing this video because it has one of the weird, funnier bits of dialogue in the game at the 1:56 mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFB8iqz2xuw&feature=player_embedded