Sonic the Hedgehog Extreme

Original Release: Unreleased (In development around 2003)
Developer: Vision Scape
Publisher: None
Original Platform: Xbox

Not to be confused with another unreleased Sonic game called Sonic X-Treme. This was intended to be a skateboarding game featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. This was a pitch from a company called VisionScape, who worked on the cinematics for Sonic Heroes. VisionScape had already helped develop a skateboarding game called X-Bladez Inline Skater on the original PlayStation and were eager to create a new one with a license. Alongside Sonic the Hedgehog Extreme, they also built prototypes called Rocket Power: Zero Gravity Zone and Tech Deck: Bare Knuckle Grind.

While the proposal for Rocket Power was for PS2/GameCube/Xbox, it only got a game on GBA, which they only assisted developing for. Tech Deck: Bare Knuckle grind got a very limited PC release – it was sold on four separate discs, each with one level, as a “Digital Playset” that came with two figures. It’s obscure enough that no reviews of the game exist, although you can find copies of the game(s) online.

The Sonic version of the game was the same as their Tech Deck pitch, just with different assets. The main difference is that it uses a hoverboard instead of a skateboard, but it controls exactly like a skateboard. An ex-VisionScape developer claimed that Sega stole their idea for Sonic Riders, but Riders is a very different game that actually utilises the hoverboards in it, so it seems very unlikely.

Sonic the Hedgehog Extreme feels like a naff Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater knock-off, which really is no surprise. The core gameplay is similar in idea, but the execution is very wonky. You can ollie, go up quarter pipes, spin, do some basic tricks and grind for a very, very long time. You’ll also fall over a lot, due to poor collision detection, and often go through the walls. There are rings to collect and you’ll lose them all when you fall over. The demo version has three modes: mission, combat and race.

The mission mode features a couple of missions. The first is a hunt for a chaos emerald. First you need to find a key hidden in a level, which utilises a grind rail loop, then use it to activate a warp panel which takes to you a smaller skating arena that has the emerald. Another has boxes in the level and I think the objective is to destroy them all. The missions in the final version of Tech Deck aren’t very creative: just picking up items, doing combos for X time and destroying objects.

Combat is a Vs mode where you collect items and fire them at other the other player. Items include rockets, mines and grenades (if this were to be made into a full game, I suspect they would be altered into more Sonic-like items). There’s also a spinning melee attack. This mode doesn’t work fully, as you can make each other fall over, but there’s no end goal programmed in the demo.

The final mode is a race. The level for this is surprisingly long, but also very boring. It works best to completely ignore all the skatepark elements like the quarter pipes. A layout like this would be great if the ramps provided extra momentum for a risk-reward mechanic, but just going forward is far better.

From this demo and the final Tech Deck: Bare Knuckle Grind release, I think it’s quite clear why Sega passed on this pitch. I think a skateboarding game for Sonic could have worked well around the time this was in development, but it needed some interesting ideas to make it more than just a Tony Hawk knock off.