Sonic X-treme

Sonic Xtreme

Like many canceled games, there’s always an interesting story behind it. Sonic Xtreme (SX) was no different. Sonic the Hedgehog was always known to show up on each Sega system, because this was Sega’s mascot. Xtreme was a game originally developed for the Genesis and the 32x. However, like many games in the predevelopment stages, the game was shifted to the Sega Saturn, a higher end gaming system. The Saturn was capable of 3D models, so it was the correct decision. With this shift, Sega Technical Institute moved into high gear and began to fully realize the game.

STI was an American development team that was a division of Sega. They were responsible for the core development of the highly praised Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Die Hard Arcade. During this time, Sega of Japan treated STI like the redheaded stepchild. Sega was always in competition with itself, American vs. Japan. And, we all know that when companies have rivalries within, there will always be trouble.

SX used two completely different game engines. One was for the normal game, while the other one was for the boss battle. From answers.com, ((For the boss level engine, several modes such as top-down and side scrolling views were prototyped to create a more interesting view of the boss battle areas while still using the prerendered sonic sprite assets used in the main game engine developed by Ofer. Ofer continued developing the main game editor tools and engine code on the Mac and PC. Development picked up again and it seemed the game's deadline for release would be met after all. From a code standpoint the boss engine and main game were basically 2 games developing at the same time that shared some global memory to remember game state and use a process called executable chaining to switch from the main game to boss levels and back.))

However, Sega of Japan began to interfere with the development and demanding changes after much of the code was completed. The development fell through and Sega canceled the project. With this fallout, (plus the fact many magazines ran articles on the SX too), STI was disbanded.

If SX was in fact released, many people still wonder if the Saturn had a chance. However, as I look at the video of this canceled project, it does remind me of Sonic Adventure.

Please go here for more info http://www.sonicxtreme.tk/

Videos

Sonic Xtreme

Comment: The video above is short, but it does show Sonic's new spike spin attack. I'm sure this video was taped when in the later development process of the game.

Sonic Xtreme Crystal Frost : This video shows a stage in all its glory. I believe this might be an early version from the one we see in the other video.

Sonic Xtreme Red Sands : More video of the game.