
One of the most recognisable characters in the world of video gaming, Sega mascot Sonic the Hedgehog has starred in multiple games, spawned countless items of merchandise and even achieved success on the big screen – but now, he's facing his sternest challenge of all: conquering Amstrad platforms.
A team of coders known as Condense have been working on a fan-made game for the Amstrad GX4000 and Plus systems called Sonic GX since 2019 (thanks, Indie Retro News), and have recently shown off just how far the project has come in that time.
Of particular note in this new update is the fact that the team has created a 'Special Stage' for the game, which mimics the ring-collecting tunnel sequence in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (although in this version, it's a flat road).
Sonix GX is certainly shaping up nicely; the visuals and sound remind us a lot of the Game Gear / Master System Sonic titles, which would make sense given that the GX4000 and Plus are (relatively) compatible in terms of spec to Sega's 8-bit system.
This also feels like closing the circle to some degree, as Amstrad famously released the Mega PC in the early '90s, a computer which came with a built-in Mega Drive. The system was heavily promoted using Sonic – so you could argue that he's finally come home to Amstrad in the most impressive way possible.
[source cpcwiki.eu, via indieretronews.com]
Comments 3
That special stage is really impressive. It's good to see the GX4000 being stretched a bit, so many Amstrad games from that era were just lazy Speccy ports rather than taking advantage of the hardware.
That dual-function PC is cool. Too bad a version never came the US. (I know with PAL consoles, that might have been difficult). But Amstrad did sell its PC1512 units in the US. So the market connections existed. (My first PC-compatible machine was a PC1512DD. It was always fun finding games with the Amstrad graphics package).
@mike_intv The problem was actually with the PC side, it was painfully out of date when it came out in 1993. A 386 machine was slow as hell compared to the 486's and early Pentiums. The chip was soldered to the Motherboard thus making it nearly impossible to upgrade.
Also, the Teradrive was much more impressive seeing that both sides of the computer (Mega Drive and IBM) could communicate with the other. I think some where used as developer kits, IIRC.
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