Remembering Sega STI

[goldman2786]

Do any of you remember the games by STI?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Technical_Institute
They included classics like Comix zone, Die hard Arcade, and Kid Chameleon, along with helping with most Sonic games on the genesis. They were a western group hired by Sega. A very 1980s vision of the whole America-Japan co-employment.

What I think is interesting, is how eventually the Japanese and American side would repeatedly argue and accuse each other of messing with their seperate projects. STI dissolved most likely due to the saturn being smothered in its crib in the west, and Sonic X-treme being cancelled.

Still, I think it's really interesting that Sega was one of the first game companies to really have multiple countries work together in development. Kind of ahead of its time IMO.

 

[Waffles]

That's super interesting, dude.

I didn't know that!

I have always loved Comix Zone, despite it's... challenging difficulty.

 

[Gorse]

STI!? Eeeeyuck, haven't you people had your shots!? I knew I should never have gone to Las Veg- Ohhh, the Sega Technical Institute...!

Aside from the Genesis Sonics – of which I consider 2 the weakest effort, though it's still certainly an excellent game – I always thought Kid Chameleon was really impressive. I don't know if you'd ever seen a map of how that game lays out its levels, but it is effing INSANE, especially for a 33-year-old side-scrolling platformer! No game to my knowledge has ever let you "warp" around the totality of the world like that, and it really nails the atmosphere of being trapped in a VRscape. Excellent gameplay and visuals, too – Kid C. is a really Genesis classic in every sense of the word, and I have a lot of affection for it. I also liked the adaptation of it in Sonic the Comic.

Now, on the other hand, The Ooze is the opposite of a classic: it's a big pile of fetid goo, aimlessly wandering through samey labyrinths of electric mazes and ceaseless tedium. This game used to clog up Sonic collections something fierce, and, while it has an interesting Katamari Damacy-like "expansion" system, it's really slow and miserable. It almost seems like the kind of generic, featureless game you'd see a character in a TV show playing. Maybe the central concept could be cleaned up into something fun, but the game as-is was rather poo.

I ain't never played Comix Zone – I'm not a beat 'em 'up guy – but I really like the concept and it's definitely on my list. The Genesis Sonic Spinball, while not a bad game, is really very dull and probably has no appeal to anyone who didn't grow up with it. (And I did!)

I spent hours upon hours of

my adolescence poring over Sonic X-Treme dev material – this was years ago when it wasn't all that easy to find – and, while I can't imagine the game would have been fantastic from the pre-release footage they showed, I like some of the development concepts a lot, like this isometric landscape. That's something a team of dedicated hackers should consider adapting for SAGE.

 

[Sayo]

Generally speaking these games are now remembered as the fodder that Sega likes to put in their Mega Drive collections that are mostly just above average.