It comes from games like alone in the dark or resident evil. The term refers to independent tank treads, which allows for certain vehicles to perform a zero-point radius turn, which is similar to how characters in those games can spin in place. They split plenty of games on sega channel. Mortal kombat 3 for example. Sonic blast was available on sega channel before it actually released, it was a high profile test drive release.
I would assume that's because of the 4MB ROM limit (without fucking about with bank-switching) that the Mega Drive has. Sonic 3D is 4MB, and you've also got to squeeze in the Sega Channel ROM somewhere, so...
To be fair they could have probably designed the Sega Channel to be able to store and run a 4MB game, but likely chose not to so that you'd have to spend more time on the menus. As far as I'm aware Sega never put advertising on the Sega Channel, but it remained a possibility. Plus if faced more often with a list of games, you might be more tempted to buy full fat cartridges for whatever reason.
I wish they had a password system that saved your score and emeralds for the actual Sonic 3D blast game. I always thought it was annoying that the game had no save function, especially on Saturn which had a memory system built into the console! The Saturn version didn't even have a level select (It had a level skip, but that took forever due to the long loading times and you couldn't use it to skip through the different special stages).
This page page has 3 preview videos , one for the Saturn Version, one for the Mega Drive Version and one for Game Gear ... however the Game Gear and Mega drive videos are corrupted... is there a way to fix these? Edit:Sega Channel December 96 Schedule shows Sonic 3d Blast as a test drive and here some info about the adapter "Adapter Technology 24 Mbits memory upgradable to 32 Mbits for 32X, 64K SRAM backup supported". This explains how "things" were done...
Yeah, my Sega Channel cart didn't work with my 32X at the time. My dad was actually pretty upset that I kept my then-new 32X disconnected so often because I couldn't use Sega Channel if it was hooked up. Kinda funny that, as one of the most loyal customers of Sega at the time, their products were actually at odds with one another. Right, it was basically the same thing as pay-per-view. Simple 1-way communication on a loop.
You guys were so lucky... in my country, we had to dream about it ... even the prices of Sega Products were so prohibitive at the time ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhSLWiphcsA TL;DR He has original synthesizer versions of these songs from Jun and Jun said it's not up to him, it's up to Sega, and that's where we're stopped. THIS MAKES ME SO UPSET SOMEONE CALL
Actually, the Sonic social media team isn't a bad shout for a suggestion of contact, provided it's done sanely (ie not twelve people going RUBY GIEV SONGS PLOX).
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any reason Sega wouldn't want to give the okay for this sort of thing, (unless they want to quickly snap up the casette and iTunes the music at 79p a go, the buggers ) so fingers crossed we get to hear the tracks sooner rather than later. (Worst case scenario, it'll be one of those "Actually we don't know who is allowed to give permission" sort of deals that goes in circles, hopefully not!)
If Jun Senoue is the sole composer, isn't it Sega of Japan's call? I could see the Saturn version being more awkward because of SoE and Richard Jacques.
Based on the fact that he replied to TSSZ on Twitter about it, he knows. (Scroll to top of that thread for context, since the reply is about something else) https://twitter.com/RubyEclipse/status/915282312157261824 That makes it seem like they won't be able to help.
I always do wonder why things like that are so secretive? Do SoJ believe that their brand will be damaged if people see cool concept art and prototype music? If it was a new or currently marketable title, sure, but these are games over 10 years old. I can sort of understand for the Sonic Adventure binders - I mean, as soon as people see what could-have-been (cool designs for unused characters, bosses, areas etc), the outcries begin. Then again, look at what seeing scrapped content for Sonic 2 has given us.
Don't wanna read too far into demo titles, but it's interesting that not only are there separate intended tracks for the Tails and Knuckles stages, but they're for BONUS stages, with special stages having their own intended track. Makes you wonder what the original plans for special stage entry were if Tails and Knuckles were meant to bring you to bonus stages instead. And what would THOSE have looked like? woah my heads spinning
