Sonic Extreme

Sonic Extreme is a cancelled skateboarding video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series for the original Xbox system.^[1] While the game was never officially released, footage of the game was received very poorly by the video game press.

Background

In early May 2011, footage of the game was uploaded up to YouTube, which was labeled by Game Informer as a "skateboarding spinoff' video game.^[2] Destructoid best summarized the scenario as:

"Boy has money, boy spends money on XBox Dev Kit, boy finds prototype version of a game, boy announces discovery to the internet. The big difference here is that the game in question was never even announced. Just developed and quietly cancelled in the night."^[3]

The video showed footage of two characters, Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog.^[4] The player directed Sonic, on a board, around a skatepark, while performing tricks, with Shadow being controlled by a second player in split screen multiplayer.^[5] Three gameplay modes were present: "Mission," "Battle," and "Race". The "Mission" mode involved collecting keys in order to remove locks.^[3] The "Battle" mode involved picking up weapons, such as rocket launchers or mines, and attacking other characters.^[3] Last was a racing level, in the vein of the boarding segment in Sonic Adventure 2.^[3]

Reception and aftermath

Although the game was never officially released, footage of the game was very poorly received by critics. Many critics supported Sega's decision to cancel the game.^[1][2][5] Game Informer commented that it looked "terrible" and "predictably awful".^[2] Computer and Video Games described it as "basically another utterly rubbish skateboarding spin-off".^[1] Similarly, VG247 called it "compellingly awful".^[4] TeamXbox, while less negative, still noted that the "...gameplay and level design is still pretty basic. Movement and character animations are also fairly glitchy."^[6] The game's existence and cancellation also elicited much commentary on Sega's quality control process, with critics stating they were surprised they cancelled this, but allowed so many other poorly received Sonic games,^[2][7] such as Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)^[1] or Sonic Free Riders.^[8] GamesRadar was also critical of the title, stating that it "prov[es] once again that slapping the word 'extreme' onto any popular franchise, activity or consumer good is a surefire way to guarantee that it will be anything but."^[9]

Vision Scape Interactive would later use the game's engine to create an unlicensed tech deck video game for Xbox and PC called Tech Deck Bare Knuckle Grind, which also went unreleased.^[10]

References

External links

• Unseen64 article/videos