#Starfall celebration full
#Starfall celebration series

Sonic the Hedgehog became a licensing juggernaut alongside Sega’s critically celebrated games. Following an enthusiastic response from players, licensors, and other business partners, Sonic the Hedgehog was well on its way to becoming the next great phenomenon in the video game industry.īut games were just the start. In 1991, Kalinske and Nilsen began pulling back the curtain. Sega knew it had a hit on its hands, but it needed to reveal Sonic at the right time for maximum effect.

All we had were drawings of Sonic, and it was pretty hard to imagine it could be as fast as he turned out to be and as good as he turned out to be.” “We all knew we needed to have a character for Sega to fight against Nintendo and Mario. “Before Al went to Japan on that trip, we’d only seen drawings,” Kalinske says. “ was what did it for me in terms of going, ‘This is going to be something special for Sega.’ It was amazing.” “They had never heard me rave about a game so much when I got back, and they just wanted to see it,” says Nilsen. When Nilsen told then-president and CEO of Sega of America Tom Kalinske about the demo, he couldn’t stop singing its praises. When Naka told him it was, Nilsen immediately got on board. He asked Naka if it was possible to combine the speed of the wireframe demo with the gorgeous background of the other monitor.

#Starfall celebration series

In awe, Nilsen turned to series co-creator Yuji Naka, who he had just met. Then next to it was the background for Green Hill Zone.” He was speeding through it, and my jaw just dropped.

“I walked up, and here is Sonic going through the loop-de-loop in Green Hill Zone, but it’s just a wireframe. “I got closer, and I was like, ‘Hey! That’s that Sonic guy I saw on a piece of paper way back when,’” Nilsen recalls.

He had no idea what it was at first, but it immediately drew him from across the room. At the same time, the second monitor displayed a beautiful, lush background beyond anything he’d seen in a video game before. On one screen, there was a wireframe environment with something speeding through it. It was the new flagship mascot of Sega’s 16-bit era of console gaming, but nobody on the Sega of America side had seen Sonic in motion to that point.Īs Nilsen entered the office, he spotted two monitors. Months before, Nilsen helped select a rudimentary drawing of a blue hedgehog. Nilsen visited Sega’s research and development team in Tokyo, Japan in the early part of 1990. Sonic Mania proved a successful retro reinvention, but the core development staff at Sonic Team has yet to deliver the final piece of the puzzle: a mainline game restoring the series’ legacy as one of the premier platformers.įormer director of marketing at Sega of America Al Nilsen will never forget the first time he saw Sonic the Hedgehog in action. The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is perhaps nearly as popular now as when it burst onto the scene just over three decades ago, bolstered by blockbuster movies, beloved comics, and promising streaming shows. However, the brand has experienced something of a renaissance in recent years. Even after a quick jump off the starting line, many feared the series was doomed to fall short of its potential forever. However, much like the roller coasters that inspired Sonic’s original gameplay and level design, the subsequent decades included plenty of highs and lows. Shortly after the 1991 launch of the Blue Blur’s debut game on Sega Genesis, his popularity rivaled Nintendo’s behemoth Super Mario franchise.

#Starfall celebration full

This party pack will always contain a type of currency-gold, Service Tokens, or OmniBits-and two random items from a dazzling selection of goods originally offered during Starfall 2015, 20.Ĭheck out the full details on the Wildstar site.In the 1990s, few characters reached the heights of Sonic the Hedgehog. In addition to the myriad bonuses and rewards available to you during Starfall 2018, you’re welcome to help yourself to the Starfall Anniversary Pack available on the In-Game Store exclusively during the month of June. Residential Renovation & Dungeon Chase Rewards Players will also receive a special reward pack delivered to their mailboxes and retrievable every week just by logging in. From June 1st to June 30th, several 'lucrative bonus events on a weekly rotation' will be released for fun and 'out-of-this-world' benefits. Wildstar is celebrating its fourth birthday and pulling out all the stops for the entire month of June during its Starfall Anniversary Celebration.