Edge-online has posted up a very interesting article; The making of Sonic X-treme.
As every good SEGA Nerd should know, Sonic X-treme was an ill-fated original Sonic title developed for the Saturn. It was to be Sonic’s first true transition from 2D to 3D, but the game never really got past its development stages and SEGA pulled the plug back in 1997.
Most of us know that side of the story, but what you might not know about are the internal politics between SEGA America and SEGA Japan, or the issues SEGA had with different engines and the company’s decision to change its mind throughout the game’s development, or how our beloved company wasted resources using multiple teams on multiple versions, at the same time:
“By this time, the team had split into two distinct groups, both working on Sonic X-treme but not on the same version.”
Even if you do know (or think you know) the full story, I would definitely take a look at Edge’s article. It’s pretty damn interesting, plus there’s some screenshots/artwork of early builds of the game.
In the meantime, here’s one of the few gameplay videos that made it onto the Internets.
[Source: Edge-online, via @Shadzter]
