We’re proud to announce that Mario & Sonic at the
London 2012 Olympic Games will be available to play at the Summer
of Sonic 2011 convention! The third in the record-breaking series,
the partnership between Nintendo and SEGA’s mascots coupled
with the prestige of the Olympic Games continues with more fun and
excitement than ever.
A host of exciting new headline events, including football and
equestrian, will debut on the Wii version – appearing
alongside classic Olympic disciplines such as athletics, aquatics
and table tennis. These new sports are sure to ignite even more
fierce competition between friends and family in both single and
multiplayer modes!
The all new roster of Dream events that are set in popular Mario
and Sonic worlds make for a truly unique sporting experience that
can only be found in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic
Games.
So come along and be sure to give this addictive party game a
play – where better to try it out first than in London, at
the Summer of Sonic convention?
You honestly thought we would host the world’s greatest
Sonic the Hedgehog party and not give you the opportunity to play
the game that everyone is talking about? Of course not! This year,
at the Summer of Sonic 2011, you will be able to play Sonic
Generations – months before it hits the store shelves!
Sonic Generations is the 20th Anniversary game that sees our
beloved blue hero join forces… with himself!
That’s right, you’ll get the chance to play as two
distinctive styles of hedgehog. Get reacquainted with modern Sonic,
and blitz through colourful 3D landscapes at mach speed while the
world warps around you! Or take it back to the old school with
classic Sonic – 2D platforming action just like you remember
it!
Whichever Sonic you pick, the adventure will be filled with
classic badniks, colourful set pieces and recreations of
traditional stages such as Green Hill Zone. As far as Greatest Hits
compilations go, it doesn’t get any better looking – or
come with more attitude – than this!
There will be several gaming pods on the Summer of Sonic show
floor with demonstration copies of Sonic Generations installed.
Make sure you take the time to come down and enjoy the first few
levels of the game in public before anyone else in Europe!
You’ll be the envy of all your friends – all while
you’re making brand new friends at Summer of Sonic!
What more could you want? Funny you should mention that, as we
have a lot more announcements in store yet for you. Just you
wait…
Hopefully you should all be receiving your reservation slips
soon, along with the Terms & Conditions of entrance. The
following is a little guide to what you need to do with your slip
on the day:
First things first, we ask that while you wait to enter the
venue, you queue sensibly and look after your fellow attendees; we
want you all to make it into the venue safe and sound. Be aware
that like in any big city you make sure that you keep all of your
personal items with you, and that you keep an eye on them.
We aim to open as soon as we can at about 9am (be patient if
there is a slight delay!) and upon entry you will need to hand over
your reservation slip in order to get in quickly. Unlike previous
years, we will take your reservation slips, and we ask you
don’t laminate them. Please do not alter the reservation
tickets in any way or your ticket will be invalid regardless of the
code on it.
If you have no ability to print your reservation ticket out,
don’t worry! As long as you have your code either in picture
form on a mobile device such as an iPod/iPhone, or simply written
down , you’ll be able to get you in, but please aware that
it’ll take us a bit longer to get you in.
Once we’ve taken your slip or verified your code,
we’ll give you a wristband so that if you wish to leave the
venue for a bit of fresh air you’ll be able to get back
in.
That’s all there is to it! Once you’ve got your
wristband you’ve got access to the Summer of Sonic
convention! For those of you without reservations, you’ll
have to wait until those with reservations have been allowed entry.
Entry without reservations will also depend on whether or not we
have enough room, but we will do our best to get everyone in. We
would also advise those of you with reservations to aim to arrive
at the venue for 9am and those without reservations to aim to
arrive at 11am; If you have any problems on the day, the door staff
(all wearing clear identification) including Urtheart will be at
the door to help you.
…and exploration…
…and story…
…and physics…
…and… look, can we just stick with speed for now?
Thanks.
As I was saying, it’s all about speed. How quickly you get
from point A to point B, regardless of other objectives, obstacles
or power-ups.
This year we will be having a
speedrun competition involving a mystery game from the Sonic
franchises’ twenty years. We’re not going to tell you
what it is but we are going to tell you what it
isn’t.
You see, standard fayre would be to slap on Green Hill Zone and
just test you on that, or maybe Splash Hill Zone as that is so
recent. But, that’d be just too predicatable as far as
we’re concerned.
So to confirm it will not be Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic
& Knuckles or Sonic 4 Episode 1. Neither is it
anything new or yet to be announced before you get excitable.
Now, it could be that it is Metal City from Sonic
Riders.
It could be Dragon Road (Day) from Sonic Unleashed.
It may very well be Speed Highway in Sonic Adventure.
Or perhaps Crisis City from SONIC The Hedgehog.
Then again it could be none of these…
A rather nifty prize awaits you if you clock the fastest time on
the day, we’ll tell you when we open the show on June
25th.
Well, after I’d publically done this, because it was all
set in stone, we had a call with SEGA where they promptly told us
they’d gone and changed their minds.
…
Now I was a mite ticked off about this, especially as I’d
been helping to design them and we’d been discussing some
verrry snazzy things indeed. They’d also decided
they weren’t going to do multiple t-shirt designs anymore
either but just one. Oh, and they were rather likely to just give
them to you guys.
Cue eyebrow-raising; they were only doing one t-shirt design
and now they weren’t going to sell them either?
Errr, okay.
Then SEGA said what they were actually going to
try to do and that was when we got rather
excited as it was indeed rather special.
So basically ignore everything I said in that post the other
day, consider it Sonic 06′d – it never
happened! As for what SEGA will actually bring on the day for
you, how much it’ll be for and what else might come with
it… er… I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Besides two can play that game *cracks knuckles* lets see if we
can try for one more AAUK miracle, eh?
Nigel Dobbyn has offerred his Facebook followers a preview of
the coloured up preview of his and Tracy Yardley awesome
collaborative effort along with some other details. Prints will be
12 x 16 inches.
Answering a question from STC-O’s Stiv on the yellow
background colour, Dobbyn replied:
“There were so many colours going on in the characters, it
was hard finding a base colour against which they’d all show
up. They all stood out nicely against this. Will have to see what
Tracy thinks!”
Guys, a plea from us: if you have questions regarding
the early bird entry
registration PLEASE
READ THE FAQ. That’s why it’s there, we’re
still dealing with questions regarding “where is my
slip” and “what if I didn’t register in
time” some of which are actually coming in on the FAQ
itself.
Please read it first, because somewhere Picard
is triple-facepalming.
In much better news you may or may not have noticed the Event section got an
update with various things including the confirmation that
Never Mind The Buzzbombers would be returning for a final
showdown between Team Dreadknux and Team T-Bird.
I can also confirm that no, there will be no goody bags this
year. There will be a couple of little bits for you which we will
confirm at a later date but no goody bags exactly. This comes
following feedback from SOS 2010 where you guys said to us
you’d actually prefer some more limited edition merchandise
on sale at the event over smaller freebies.
So on that basis, guess what I can confirm?
We have teamed up with SEGA to make you some kick-ass limited
edition Summer Of Sonic branded items for sale at the event!
I can’t tell you exactly what at this moment as
we’
re still confirming all the details but certainly multiple-items
(I think its fair to say you can expect limited-run SOS branded
t-shirts for instance) exuding Sonicness and the sort of coolness
that can only come from something born in the nineties.
SEGA will be there with the goods in hand (and seven rings as
well I guess)Â and you’ll be able to find them over
as part of Wentos’ Trading Station.
 Apparently business was so good for the salesman over
the past two years he’s upgrading into full on store
there!
We’re talking with SEGA daily to try and pack as much into
this event as possible and nail down all manner of surprises, so
keep checking in on the website!
We’re getting lots of questions about this,
and despite us responding to people subsequent comments are burying
our answers on the Facebook so I’m putting
together a quick post to address things using our clarifications
elsewhere.
Q: I registered on the site in time but have not
received an email yet?
First off, check your spam folder, there’s
always the chance it’s gone into there. If
you find it in there, stick the address it came from on the safe
list.
Q: I hear other people have received their reservation
slip?
No slips should have been sent out yet. Emails were sent which
some people have taken to be
“tickets†which is in itself wrong,
your proof of entry will be handed over on the door remember.
Q: Why have no slips been sent out yet?
Apologies for the delay in getting your reservations to you guys
– as previously mentioned, the process is taking
us a little longer than other years, but if you were able to
reserve a place rest assured you most definitely have it!
Ultimately apart from stare at it longingly, what exactly would
you do with your reservation slip at the moment? Plenty of
time left, don’t panic peeps!
Q:Why have you not announced much so
far? We’d love to announce
everything we planned ahead of time, but our hands are tied for the
most part. Schedules are often not known until nearer the event and
we’re obviously obliged in some instance have to
go through a lot of discussion and organisation with SEGA.
If you’ve decided not to come because not
much has been announced it’s a shame that your
basis on going is purely on what we aim to give you on the day
rather than meeting friends and socialising –
which is what the Summer of Sonic truly is all about.
Besides, it’s Sonic’s 20th
birthday. Do you honestly think we’re not trying
to sort out… you know…
something important? Big things don’t happen
overnight.
Q: I missed registration but really want to
come!?
As we have said before there’s nothing
stopping you coming along later in the day. You may have to wait a
little while but it’s not the end of the world.
We’ll be looking to get in non-registration people from 10am
at the very earliest. You may have to queue up to wait for a space
in the Centre but there is nothing to stop you visiting later.
Also: Can I please ask you don’t harrass SOS
community moderators/staff please to see if you can somehow get
around the system. It’s not particularly fair on
us if you start throwing hypothetical situations/real life
events/physical items at us for reasons as to why you should
somehow get a reservation slip still.
Q: What would Hitler say about all this?
He’d probably say this.
**Caution, contains Adult Language.**
Let me tell you a story, you guys think we plan things a few
months in advance. Well I officially began plans for Summer Of
Sonic 2011 on August 8th, you may recognise that as the day after
SOS 2010.
Though I didn’t tell the other staff for a few months,
myself and Tracy Yardley! were having a bit of a chat. You see
Tracy sent a load of artworks over for 2010 for you guys to
purchase from the store and he thought SOS was great, so we looked
to get him over this year.
I though had another idea, why not get Archie and Fleetway
together? Their Sonic teams were rather contrasting, and with
Archie’s team having all kinds of multi-verse alternate
shenanigans wouldn’t it make sense that eventually the two
would collide? Sooo, I proposed the prospect of a limited print to
Tracy featuring both the Archie and Fleetway teams.
Tracy loved the idea and I then e-introduced him to Nigel, the
result you can (partly) see below – a Yardley/Dobbyn collab
featuring every Sonic comic fan’s dream Fleetway Vs
Archie!
This limited edition print will be on sale at SOS and I’m
sure will be in red hot demand. I know I want one!
We’ll show you the final result when its coloured and will
of course give full details on pricing/numbers when we get it from
messers Yardley and Dobbyn.
More surprises that both will and will not involve your wallet
to come.
Making it a hat-trick of appearances from 2009 to this year,
we’re pleased to confirm that Sonic The Comic artist Nigel
Dobbyn will again be returning to Summer Of Sonic rounding off our
guests from the world of art for this year.
Nigel has been very popular with
Sonic fanartists, using his wealth of knowledge to give critiques ,
tips and lessons on drawing style and drawing awesome things for
folks as well.
He will be joining Nigel
Kitching – the first time the pair have been at SOS
together since 2009 – Ian Flynn and
Tracy
Yardley on a special on-stage Sonic Comics panel where they
will take your questions on Sonic as a comic character. Comparing
both the Archie and Fleetway styles of publication.
What differences between the setups of Fleetway and Archie
– what was the mindset, how have characters differed? What
are their opinions on the brand now and how would they have tackled
older games in Archie’s case and newer games in for
Fleetway?
You ask it – they’ll answer it.
It’s the principle writers with the most well known
artists of each brand in the ultimate in Sonic comic panel
discussions for Sonic’s 20th birthday.
Nigel has been very popular with
Sonic fanartists, using his wealth of knowledge to give critiques ,
tips and lessons on drawing style and drawing awesome things for
folks as well.