I'm all but positive it wasn't an official game, as it didn't seem like one and I can't find any information about it anywhere else. But this is a game that I think my dad brought home from somewhere, or maybe got in the mail or something, on a CD-ROM. It ran on Windows 95/98 (though I guess it might have been 3.1 or DOS) and I remember it didn't work very well, like it had game-breaking bugs or crashed a lot or something. The most specific thing I remember is that the first level was called "Robotropolis Zone" and had the music from Flying Battery Zone. The name "Sonic 2000" sticks in my head, but I don't have a lot of confidence in that. All I can find with that title though is this NES bootleg which wouldn't have been it, and this page that mentions a fangame for DOS but doesn't contain any specific details. Again though, it could very easily have been called something else; that's just something I feel like it might have been called. I know Sonic Robo Blast has a level called "Robotopolis Zone", but that wasn't it. EDIT: Oh wow, I just realized I asked about this over a decade ago and got the answer, and completely forgot. And that's not even the first time that's happened to me here. What the hell is wrong with my memory?
I remember the fan game Sonic 2000 from the early 2000s. It had the SatAM theme for the title screen (also had a SwatBot on it as well)and had an industrial first level. That may be it. There was a thread here on Retro a good while back that had a collection of fan games to download. Flash, GamesFactory and possibly others.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030417115512/http://fanmade.emulationzone.org/s2000/s2000.htm Does this look familiar? There's a couple screenshots in the downloads page, and son200.zip is downloadable, but you'll have to run Windows 95 in some form or fashion to get it running.
Maaan, just seeing this image again really takes me back. I definitely remember this page, and I'm sure I played it.
I actually went on a quest to get this game the other month! It totally is a fan-game. It's what got me into fan-gaming.
Yes! Thanks for posting that. That was the first Sonic fan game I ever played. Someone posted a link to it on an old Sonic forum I frequented but the site's name escapes me. I do remember it had a blue and blackish rock background. Was either Sonic something or Mobius something.
I actually happen to have a computer in my basement with Windows 95 on it, so I installed it, and yep, I think that's it! The first level is called "The Future Zone" and has different music, but it said that level is full of bugs and gave me the password ("aaa") for the second one. So I tried it, and sure enough, it's "Robotropolis Zone" and has the Flying Battery music. It also visually resembles what little I remember of the level. I have to wonder though, what was it doing on a CD-ROM? Unless I'm misremembering that part and my dad downloaded it from the Internet, except for some reason I remember the CD being in an orange sleeve of some kind. Oh well. That's almost certainly the game I played—thank you for finding it for me! Oh yes, the SatAM theme! That's the "fastest thing alive" one, right? I definitely remember that. (When I loaded it earlier today, I didn't stay on the title screen long enough to notice.)
Is it possible that it was in a freeware & shareware collection disc? Those used to be pretty common and cheap as CDROMs in the late 90s. A sonic fan game showing up on one would be surprising but not impossible.
This is almost the beginning of my Sonic web browsing. Before I ever started talking crap on forums. I can hear the midis just looking at this pic. Good times. Found it through an Angelfire link page. You know, back when people still cared about personal webpages and you couldn't count on search engines to deliver all the goods. I better stop before I start yelling at clouds.
Man, I remember that picture and that site. Can't recall if I ever played the demo they had, though. Was cool to see the fanbase working on these types of projects even back then, be it for fun or trying to continue the SatAM continuity.
I actually got permission to use their Metal Sonic Sprites for my own first fangame "Metal Sonic Quest" back in the day, and this was actually back in late 1998. So this project goes even further back than the year 2000.