Huge multiverse-spanning crossovers seem to be the big theme this summer with DC’s recently concluded Convergence and Marvel’s current event Secret Wars. However, one event you may be missing is Archie Comics’ Mega Man/Sonic: World’s Unite, featuring characters from Mega Man and Sonic, along with Mega Man X, Sonic Boom, and the game libraries of both Sega and Capcom. The sequel to 2013’s World’s Collide, Worlds Unite doesn’t stop with our blue heroes, but instead brings in characters from Street Fighter, Nights: Into Dreams, Breath of Fire III, Alex Kidd, and more to give comic fans the greatest crossover videogame they’ll never play. Check after the jump the see the issue order. With two issues left to go, including next week’s Sonic the Hedgehog 275, you’ll want to catch up on the action.
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We’re four generations deep into reasonably realistic 3D graphics based on nothing more than colored triangles, but if you go back to the first fully 3D console graphics the picture isn’t so pretty. And yet we loved these games all the same. Was it am amazing as we thought, or were we just kidding ourselves? Vinnk and Sean try to take off their rose-colored glasses and give a serious look to the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Sega Saturn. What game franchises were born in that generation? Which ones met their untimely end?

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/91

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Sonic and Knuckles was the last good Sonic game for the Sega Genesis, and it was released at the height of the 16-bit era. It was basically an expansion pack for Sonic 3, although it could be played by itself. Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles were originally intended to be one game (as a matter of fact, if you do the level select code in Sonic 3, you can hear music from the stages in Sonic and Knuckles, and McDonalds featured a promo based on Sonic 3 that mentioned the Flying Battery Zone, a level which wasn’t seen in the game). However, time constrains reared their ugly head, and Sonic 3 was cut down to 6 zones. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as we got 2 awesome Sonic games in the same year, and S&K utilized a pretty cool feature.
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The Powetcast returns! Our ‘holiday schedule’ will release new episodes every other week, so look for the next show on December 20 and then January 3rd 2013.

This week we take a ride for a Jeep Creep in Halo 4, go racing with Sonic and the Sega All Stars, and relive the glory days of ECW.

In news we discuss the return of the elders to X-Men, another Wonder Woman reboot, Pacific Rim, and Young Justice returns… as a video game.

We also talk about Phil Bond being on Reddit.

Listen live on this page, or subscribe via RSS or iTunes.
Direct Link:Powetcast 146: Mass Transit

Continue on for related links, show notes, and the exit music. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Today, we celebrate Memorial Day. A day where we commemorate the sacrifices our brave soldiers have made for this country. However, we, as nerds, must also commemorate something else: games that have been canceled and left on the cutting room floor. Bow your heads in silence before reading this article.
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Gamasutra reports that Hirokazu Yasuhara has joined Nintendo, working at the Nintendo Of America headquarters in Redmond, WA. He joins as a designer with NST, who are credited with creating the Mario VS Donkey Kong series.

Why is this news? Yasuhara is credited as a co-creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, working with Yuji Naka at Sonic Team and at Sega through 1997. During that time, Sega produced games that challenged and overtook Nintendo in many regards. He also worked with Namco-Bandai on Pac-Man Party on Wii and 3DS. With his new position at NST he will inevitably work with Mario. Hirokazu Yasuhara will become the first game designer to be credited on games featuring the three biggest names in video games: Sonic, Pac-Man, and Mario.

If this is not an impressive enough feat, he also has level design credits with Naughty Dog working on the Jak & Daxter series on PS2 and all three Uncharted games on PS3.

Game Developer magazine published a great interview with Yasuhara in 2008 you can read here.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is an actual Sonic game on the Super Nintendo. “But Sonic is a Sega game!” Yes I know. So how is this possible? Did Tengen get another Sega license? Did Sega know that they were going to fail as a console manufacturer and decided to test the waters as a third party developer years early? Is this the second coming of Color Dreams? Nope. This Super Nintendo game is a product of the wonderful world of foreign bootlegging! A Peruvian-based organization known as Twin Eagles Group hacked a Super Nintendo game called Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos, stripped out all the good stuff, and replaced the main character with Sonic. Basically, you run through each stage repeatedly freeing Mario from cages. While it’s fun for all of 3 minutes, the charm of having a Sonic game on the SNES wore off and players would realize how shitty this game was compared to the Sega titles. It wouldn’t be until Sonic Adventure 2 hit GameCube that gamers would get an actual Sonic game on a Nintendo system. As bad as this game was however, it was nowhere near as bad as the NES Sonic the Hedgehog.

In a word, no, but don’t worry: we’ll totally qualify that position. Nintendo’s financial troubles in 2011, and initially slow sales of the 3DS, followed by its steep price cut have renewed perennial calls for the company to forego the hardware market and release its titles on other platforms. SeanOrange and Vinnk discuss whether or not such a move would be vialbe for Nintendo, and if the company is leaving a lot of money on the table by not embracing the iOS market.

(Listen to the episode after the jump.)

[Listen to the episode after the jump…!]