Sonic X-treme - Point of View - Info + help required

We are working on it, we should have some more news next week.

 

This might be the first time ever the POV version of Sonic Xtreme has been displayed running on a Saturn outside of POV or STI.

I do not have a video capture device, so I cannot capture a video of it (yet), but below you can see a picture I took of the POV Xtreme tech demo running on my Cartdev/Mirage.

It clearly shows that, while it was nowhere near a playable game, as a tech demo it definitely shows POV would have been more than capable of producing a reasonable version of Sonic Xtreme for Saturn, if they had enough time...

Enjoy...

Jolly

 

That is just amazing!

 

*jaw drops* wow, is all i can say, wait (isnt cartdev basicly saturn games on carts for easy modifacations and memory?)

 

Can you control Sonic in the tech demo?

 

That's incredible! Amazing work jollyroger =D

 

superb

 

It looks so clean! Bug with Sonic

 

Hah, yeah that's what I was thinking too, it basically looks EXACTLY like Bug! with the textures and characters simply replaced with Sonic Xtreme's.

I agree with you on it looking impressively "clean," those textures and sprites are incredibly high res for the Sega Saturn.

Doesn't really seem that it would've played all that well as a Sonic game, though. The style/layout works well for Bug! Individually, but not so much Sanic.

Still, this was obviously an extremely early test build, so maybe they would've done something a bit more interesting with it if they had spent more time with it. Still very interesting/cool all the same, and it will further add to the now ever growing archived history of Sonic Xtreme.

 

I meant specifically the modern Windows builds. I actually WANT an NV1 system now, lol. Not just for this, because it seems like it was actually a pretty amazing card for back in the day (for what few games it was fully compatible with) upon watching Oddware's video on it finally.

Impressive performance on mentioned games really for the time, and it was ofcourse, historically, Nvidia's first commercially released card. The built in Saturn controller ports were a real cool feature too.

 

speaking of saturn controllers for pc, im getting a converter just to play axsx (and possibly this build whenever it comes out) so i get the feel im playing on a saturn , id probaly turn my settings down in udk to make axsx feel more like it was on the saturn

 

Yes, Sonic can move around in 8 directions and can jump, the level can be explored.

Rings get "collected" as in they disappear, and touching a badnik (which are animated but don't move) makes Sonic emit the fountain of rings.

It's easy to get stuck and to get "outside" of the level, as it is obviously unfinished, but as a tech demo it's not shabby at all...

Jolly

 

Sonic Extreme, cool

 

Does it also basically play like Bug speaking of which, as in Sonic is basically grid locked to the path and such, or is he still fully free moving like in every other version? Also, would you consider an earlier release of this version for, say, maybe emulation at least? Or do you still want to tweak it up a little like with everything else?

Do you have the source code to this version as well? And would it with with any of the level editors, or have one of it's own?

 

Waiting for a Video to see how this level looks like ,Btw is it this level ...

 

Wierd level,is it the 2nd Act of Jadegully ?

 

Sorry, Its not really An Act 2,as it was also just another test level. ( file name JG_007, also confirmed By Senn himself some years back)
That's the layout by Chris Senn I believe. Its also a level we see in STI's later build of the engine. ( which we do not have )
However the level had been leaked in the previous leak by HXC, and can also be viewed in Sanik's Fisheye viewer. ( in case some of you have missed it somewhere, the HXC leak contains levels for the later build of the engine.)


But Yeah it is the same level used in POV's build. ( wouldn't it be something if the POV build turned out to be the later STI build, One can dream right?)
Anyhow, I would Assume if this level can be loaded than perhaps some of the later level's could also be loaded. ( as the HXC .def and the Pov .def file is identical in name and content.
Except the dates are off! 06-26-96 vs 06-27-96, and the addition of these textures

// BtnBitMap078,
// BtnBitMap078,
// BtnBitMap078,
// SYSTEM:MVDlg:Select01,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select02,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select03,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select04,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select05,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select06,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select07,
// SYSTEM\MVDlg\Select08,
// SYSTEM:MVDlg:ExCrsr01,

So yes, in my mind there may be a chance ( although I know that it couldn't be the case) that the POV engine we have may in fact be an STI engine that POV had. And perhaps we misunderstood that from the start. Or.... perhaps its A version of the STI engine that POV was cleaning up and porting from PC to saturn.
But yeah I havnt been able to look at source code myself so this would need to be investigated, or explained further by JR. Maybe I'm just crazy, and over thinking things.
The way I understand it is that the code is all POV's code, However I'm guessing it was done in such a way, so that the custom POV engine can read the original STI files without modifications to the data files.

There is also something similar between in the POV and STI version folders: The folder structure and contents are nearly identical to the contents of the HXC leak within the 1_T folder.

( Lets see if some of the other new levels work with the POV build, shall we ?)

 

Even if we don't see anything of Sonic Xtreme again (which is highly unlikely considering the number of different restoration or remake projects in various stages of development right now), the efforts of Chris Senn, HXC, andrew75 and jollyroger have collectively disproven perhaps the biggest single historical inacurracy that remains about this game - nobody involved was able to produce more than a few basic, virtually unplayable tech demos.

The reality is that we have a wealth of assets and resources able to be combined without the original team's strict deadlines into a whole easily capable of living up to nearly twenty years of hype, speculation and perhaps the ultimate "what if?" type scenario. Honestly, I'm in absolutely no doubt that with such talents on board, a completed Sonic Xtreme would certainly live up to any official contemporary Sonic Team product.

Indeed, on a personal level at least, I'd be inclined to say that I'm more enthusiastic to see what can be done with all this potential rather than whatever Sega is doing with their mascot these days. The best possible outcome would be for the powers that be to make note of the momentum behind Xtreme and pick this up for an unprecedented Saturn/PC one-off release, taking advantage of the community's support.

For starters, the publicity is already in full swing, and with the inevitable success of this venture, it could be just what is needed to convince management to open the floodgates, allowing further similar long-lost titles to finally surface. While far less well known to the average retro enthusiast, finished games such as Dee Dee Planet, Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 and even something from the 32-bit prototype version of Shenmue could see the light of day next...

At the very least, this deserves to get Sega's acknowledgement, approval and financial backing. As a brilliant, unique way of celebrating the Saturn's 20th anniversary, it would certainly put Sega in a positive light after the company's recent troubles. After spending so long buried as a victim of its own ambition, the Saturn could still yet receive the killer app it always deserved. My sincerest thanks and congratulations go out to everyone involved!

 

Ok, there is definitely a fair amount of confusion here.

The engine represented in the picture I posted yesterday has NOTHING to do with STI's own engine whatsoever, not a single line of code, zero, nada, niet.

The code is based entirely on POV's own multi-platform game engine/SDK, which they used to create other commercial games for Saturn and different platforms.

The engine is also NOT done in a way that it can read the original STI files. POV created a set of tools that read data in the STI's engine format, convert them into POV's own engine format and output binary archive data, also using a POV proprietary format.

Running other levels on this engine is therefore not as straightforward as running them STI's engine, which was designed to run them. Having said that, we do have several different versions of the data conversion tools, so it's conceivable that we can try converting and running different levels. So far I have never compiled/used the data conversion tools, the demo runs a level (JG_07) that was already prepared for running in the engine.

I hope this clarifies something. This engine has likely never been displayed in public before, and once again, it has nothing to do with STI's.

Jolly

 

Thanks for the info, at least it clarifies a lot of question running in my head right now.....

Sadly, even with these info, I'm still kinda convinced that Sonic X-treme's potential final build just end up like a slightly improved Bug! Seeing that engine run Sonic X-Treme even convinced me more.....

To the point that I hope there an alternate reality somewhere where Sonic X-Treme exists as a retail game, but it's just a faster version of Bug! Sadly in real life due to politics in Sega at the time, it's just about impossible to happen. It's sad that internal politics has put Sega comatose in the late nineties....