Sonic X-treme Point of View Build for Sega Saturn

Borman · Jun 3, 2015

This is the never before seen engine build of Sonic Xtreme by Point of View. Other than one single picture by JR, this build was essentially unknown until this release.

Little is known about this build of Sonic X-treme outside of a FAQ put together by Chris Senn which mentions POV a few times.

Here are some Quotes taken from Chris Senn's FAQ in regards to POV and Sonic X-treme.

Q: Why didn't more people learn Ofer's editor?
A: By the end of the project, many had learned the fundamentals of the editors most basic functions. But, while the editor was being developed, only Richard Wheeler and myself really learned the editor backwards and forwards (myself moreso since I worked so closely with Ofer). The editor was changing all the time, with new features and functionality, new ways of doing things, etc. so it was difficult to teach it for awhile. Right about the time when POV got involved was when a great many more people got involved to use it. This was also the time when Ofer and I worked privately to continue development on our own, and his old editor was used by the POV group (which included most of the art staff at STI). The biggest innovation of the newer editor introduced dynamically animating paths (you only see a tiny bit of this in the PC videos). Meanwhile, POV could not replicate the fish-eye lens of the older version. Ofer and I worked with his new editor until the PC division declined funding our game. At that point, there was no point for anyone to learn it... and Project Condor worked away to cancellation as well.

Q: Why were there so many different groups of people making one game?
A: There were a lot of people who contributed to the game. However, many factors were responsible for a large amount of change to the project throughout its development. Technology changes, target platform changes, lead programmer changes, and our team leader leaving combined with mounting pressure and attention from Sega (both in the US and in Japan) caused quite a bit of shuffle and change amongst the structure of the team and its members.

Prior to POV involvement, there was (more or less) a single team with sub-teams working on different parts of the game (I.e. main game team, boss team, glue-screen team, etc.). However, once POV got involved and Ofer Alon was ousted as Lead Programmer, Ofer and Senn continued development for the Saturn on their own and POV continued development using most of STI's personnel. Eventually, Alon and Senn dedicated themselves to the PC version while Project Condor was formed to create a Saturn version.

Q: Was the company named 'POV' involved in development?
A: Somewhere between six and eight months prior to the project's cancellation, management had investigated outside options to help insure completion of the game and chose a company called 'POV'. The effort was led by the Technical Director Robert Morgan, one of the original founders of POV, without the knowledge of Ofer Alon (or Christian Senn). When ready, management brought both Ofer and Senn into an office and unveiled their new plan to finish the game. The plan included removing Ofer as technical lead of the project and shifting technical control over to Robert Morgan, who would lead POV. Management presented POV's early efforts on-screen which included primitive graphic displays but did not include gameplay. In stark contrast was Ofer's editor and engine with real-time world construction, moving sprites (Sonic, rings, enemies) with behavior, triggers and physics - with direct playability from the player. It astounded both Ofer and Senn that management would decide to move forward with this POV technology. Management explained that the plan was to use POV's technology to simply port Ofer's PC development to the Saturn.
Click to expand...

Gameplay Footage by Borman
Andrew75 Release Trailer on Hardware

Mega
Hugefiles
Mediafire

The original Sonic X-treme team:
They slaved away many years of their lives working on Sonic X-treme, and without them none of this would have existed at all.

JollyRoger:
Porting Sonic X-treme Pre-Alpha over to Modern Windows + Open GL.

Andrew75:
Game File data Organization.
DEF file research, editing, and experimentation to help Tweak physics, and other aspects to make the game feel a little more playable.

Borman:
Additional support.

Tichua:
Original Sonic X-treme assets contribution.

Thank you to the community at Assembler forum and the Sonic Retro forum for the support.

Sonic X-treme Point of View Build for Sega Saturn

Borman Digital Games Curator

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Sonic X-treme Point of View Build for Sega Saturn

Borman Digital Games Curator

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