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.
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.
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.
Didn’t they also do Vectorman? I know that it was actually them who made Sonic 2, under the direction of Mr. Yuji “Jerk who ended up in prison” Naka.
This crew was very talented and made a ton of the best Genesis games, helped out on a ton more, and is one of the most underrated developers of the time. So sad they couldn’t continue to put out great stuff on the Saturn and Dreamcast. We lost something really special with them.
I didn't know they worked on Die Hard Arcade and that game is in my top ten. Some of their earlier efforts lacked polish and Sonic Spinball is kinda meh, but Comix Zone looks and plays really nice.
\ "The creative control at STI meant several projects were started but unfinished, the most notable being the infamous Sonic X-treme, a widely-publicised 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game destined for the Sega Saturn.
That's not true though. None of the material made by STI staff made it into the final game except for some background art in a single stage that was contributed by one American member of the team (Craig Stitt). This has been confirmed by STI members who worked on the game (including Craig). Everything else was done by Sonic Team members.
STI staff were extremely incompetent. They regularly had to borrow SoJ staff and when they were officially put in charge of making a Sonic game on their own they couldn't even get a technical prototype running and begged for the game to be moved to PC. The game was cancelled for good reason.
That's not true though. None of the material made by STI staff made it into the final game except for some background art in a single stage that was contributed by one American member of the team (Craig Stitt). This has been confirmed by STI members who worked on the game (including Craig). Everything else was done by Sonic Team members.
STI staff were extremely incompetent. They regularly had to borrow SoJ staff and when they were officially put in charge of making a Sonic game on their own they couldn't even get a technical prototype running and begged for the game to be moved to PC. The game was cancelled for good reason.
Whoops! Sorry for the misinfo on Sonic 2. I would also like to apologize for crediting them as the folks behind VectorMan. That was actually a group known as Blue Sky Software.
In truth, it seems SEGA had a very poor time managing their U.S. staff for game creation. There was a lot of talented artists, animators, and composers that made up a bulk of the workforce on STI, but looking back at their game library it’s notable to see just how many projects were left unreleased. Their actual history is marked by a constant bunch of games that would be pitched, then cancelled. It seems they were the masters of “cool on paper, not in execution”.
I still love two of their games, Comix Zone and Sonic Spinball, which I think show off rather well what their game design style actually was. Their talent was young and hungry, often pushing radical art designs and gritty sound directions, which both games share. They had a talent for making games with satisfying character controllers, solid visual presentation, and grungy soundtracks, but often poor level design and unfair overall gameplay.
This is even evident in Die Hard Arcade, which I’ve played on an actual arcade unit. Some enemies will just… hit you. Even if you’re playing well. Still, the game is probably one of their most fun! In no small part, I’d imagine, thanks to the involvement of Sega AM1 in the project. It even is, unless I’m mistaken, one of the earlier 3D titles to include QTE sequences, adding a cinematic shake up to the best em up gameplay.
As a whole, after educating myself on their output, I don’t think we lost something special with them. Rather, I wish SEGA of America would have sought to acquire smaller developers that made well received, American software. Not to merge them, but rather to keep a more stable group of developers that were ensured to work on SEGA’s consoles.
Actually, I have a question. Given the more positive, though still mixed, reception of their output, was there any reason why Traveller’s Tales was never asked to do a mainline Sonic title on Saturn?
I’d assume it would be a combination of factors, but they were able to weave some magic with Sonic R for the system, being one of the more impressive 3D efforts from outside of Sega AM2 (who were clearly the masters of that console). Really, my theory is that it would’ve been too late in the Saturn’s life by the time they began, as the North American Saturn market collapsed in 1998, with Sonic Team already working on full scale Sonic Adventure development by that time anyway.
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