Sonic X-treme Textures and Defs

@Tweaker-

Well the thing about Ofer came from Chris himself. Several times, videos were leaked that Ofer didn't want leaked (not the level vids, the system videos that showed off some neat level design concepts). I don't know if Ofer was aware that they were leaked, but I guess it's possible. At any rate, people have different way of taking things and of course have different levels and concepts of emotions. Some people might not be upset by a bunch of retarded kids emailing hate mail out the wazoo (I'd probably just change emails and ignore them). On the other hand, Ofer was a primary part of a huge project- creating the first true 3D Sonic game. He created the engine, and a lot of other valuable aspects about it. An amazing feat for any developer. A lot of heart went into it, you might understand what it's like with hacks like your awesome Sonic Megamix. If I did something like your work, I'd be proud of it, happy with myself for what I did, and angry if people randomly flamed me over it for no reason (or for choosing not to release it). I'd also get angry if someone betrayed me and leaked it without permission. When you create something that's like art, it sort of becomes an important part of you. Hard for people to understand who have not really put their heart into something of their own. Ofer's creation was Sonic Xtreme.

My point is that although a bunch of retarded kids might not seem like a big deal, you have to factor in a few things-

1- Ofer went through a lot with Sonic Xtreme. He put hard work into something only to have it canned by SEGA. Kind of like losing an old friend
2- opening up old wounds probably brought back a lot of old emotions, both good and bad
3- sometimes a little thing can set off a huge chain reaction of emotions, especially those bottled up for years

Or then again, maybe I'm just blowing this out of proportion. But people have been known to become emotionally attached to their work. At any rate, we probably won't ever know the full extent of what happened with Ofer. We just know that he was planning on sharing some awesome aspects of the game, had and was thinking about releasing his engine, and then cut off all ties when some idiots decided to flame him.

And there's now a topic on Senntient about this leaking of new content. I expect we'll see Chris Senn's response before too long, whenever he sees it-

http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=910

 

Which is exactly what I was implying in my post. He may likely not be very thrilled this was released and is now pretty much accessible to everyone, especially with some of the posts in that topic.

I know Chris is a cool dude. I've spoken with him before during SAGE, but someone can only remain so cool when a trust is broken. Pretty much everyone's on pins to see what happens now.

 

It seems to me as though they didn't really know what they wanted this game to look like in motion, and didn't really have a clear idea of what they were trying to make.

I'd also like to ask a quick question: How do we know this isn't a hoax?

 

If its a hoax, it's a damn good one, because they've accurately recreated the levels compared to what we've seen in videos.

The amount of work that would have had to go into this would... well, rival the real sonic xtreme.

 

So is the level or any of its textures in this video contained in here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftNgzZ3Ovig


Besides the boss stages, which are confirmed to have been on the Saturn, is it safe to say that any fish lens levels that we've ever seen screens or video of(like the above Jade Gully) were in the PC version of the game?

 

Thats because the original is running off the real game engine and the other is a viewer made by Sanik, you are comparing apples to bananas im afraid. Also, im sure the act 1 / jade objects are there as placeholders, but it's still interesting.

 

If you want more information and resources about X-Treme, check out Chris Senn's website here. If the information there is combined with the textures and defs we have now, we should be able to get a fairly good idea of what the game would have looked like. And if we add the leaked test field to that, we have almost all the resources one would need to get started on an accurate recreation.

 

It's too bad, then, that Sonic Xtreme didn't actually end up looking that good in the end. A lot of what is in these data files shows a very ugly, easily dated, blocky game. The art direction is kind of haphazard and all over the place. There are color palettes used in some of these levels that are outright ugly. Videos show controls and physics and animation that just look plain sloppy.

Maybe there could have been a good game in there eventually, and maybe, judging by these data files compared to early footage of Sonic Xtreme, they were just finally starting to understand how the game should play...

But there's still nothing I've seen about Sonic Xtreme that would indicate that it was actually a good game (at this point in development). It's interesting to look at because it was trying a lot of radically different ideas, but it's nothing more than that. You see the sentiment a lot around websites that discuss content deleted from games, and I definitely see it deeply rooted in Sonic Retro - the concept that just because the content was removed, that makes it awesome.

It's "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome. People see something that they aren't allowed to have, so they immediately start thinking its awesome and they want it even more. Even if, when they finally get what they want, they find it wasn't actually that cool. They still want it, simply because they can't have it.

If it hurts Ofer so much that he put so much time and effort in to the game and had it ignored, I am sorry about that. But there comes a moment where you have to take a step back and look at a project not as "your baby", but for what it really is. While I'm sure it was a lot of work to get Xtreme to what we see here today, it still had quite a ways to go before it was up to standard.

 

It was shitcanned very early in development. Something isn't the finished product until it's a finished product.

Like I said before, if it ran on the Bug! Engine, it would have played well. (Can someone confirm this?)

 

I just noticed something on Chris's site: this was taken with sanik's 3.1 viewer!

It seems pretty clear Chris had this same package we do when he made these images

 

I wouldn't buy this game for its graphical pallet. Considering Sonic Xtreme was early development and looks about the same, I'm safe to say it would've been a great game for 1997.

 

I don't know about X-treme, but I played Bug!, and it was a pretty bad game IMO.

 

Err. I know that is a viewer but a new one could be made later to mimick the original game =P.

 

I'm no programmer, but I don't think it'd be much harder to exaggerate the fisheye effect, since it's pretty much just widening depth of field more and more.

 

So, let's get a team together and repair this.

 

Also worth noting: Chris' release of the Jade Gully textures have a similar modification date. I'm positive that either Chris himself or someone he trusted leaked this.

 

You misunderstand me, I think. Yes, Mario 64 also looks dated today, but keep in mind that Sonic Xtreme would have come out after Mario 64. Even at the time, it was going to look dated. You look at Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot and then look at what Sonic Xtreme was going to be.



And that's if it would have made it out in 1997. Assuming Chris and Ofer had kept going with the PC version... that's 1998, the same year the Dreamcast hit Japan. Sonic Adventure, man. And you had these two guys building a Sonic game out of cubes and a weird camera filter.

And then there's simply the fact that the art direction for the game is all over the place. There's very much a "throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks" vibe to the levels. As ugly as Mario 64 is today, at least it still has cohesive art direction. I don't get that feeling from Xtreme at all.

This is definitely something I said multiple times in my post - that yes, I get that this was an unfinished game. But just because the train isn't at the destination doesn't mean you can't feel it going off the tracks.

 

Everything you've said so far is definitely agreeable, but I love the uniqueness of it all. I think that would've sold to most Sonic fans, and all the screen shots and stuff as a kid sold me. If someone could make these crap levels (completely untouched) playable, I'd play the shit out of them.

 

To clarify a number of things.

The textures modified later I can't really explain, but it's possible they were recreated from screenshots in order to make certain levels look better in screenshots.
This is not a hoax, it's been in some people's hands for a number of years, but with trust that it was not released due to Chris's/Ofer's wishes. It seems someone has not complied with these. I do not know who that was.
Ofer did not, Granville, plan to release his engine, he planned to allow discussion, there was zero implied release ever, he was far to worried about copyright messups for that to ever happen, as that is his primary reason not allowing release. He would release everything if he got an official confirm from sega that he could, me and senn had this conversation.

Xtreme did not run on the bug engine.

Please don't say things if you don't know what you are talking about!

 

This looks so damn familiar. Like the section in Sonic Adventure in the temple when the water raises based on hitting switches.