Rare 1993 Title, Trackballs Can be Yours
From time to time, we check out the wild, weird, and rare Sonic items on the Ebay auction block. The one we found today is a real collector’s item, if you have some technical know-how.
A Melbourne, Australia based seller has for auction an arcade board and control setup for the 1993 SegaSonic the Hedgehog arcade game. If that doesn’t sound familiar, it’s because many, old and young, have never played it, at least not legitimately. The game controlled on trackballs, and included Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Squirrel as playable characters with Sonic and it the 1993 title included voice actors–perish the thought.
The auction includes those trackballs, and the seller says both board and trackballs are in “good condition,” and both have been tested. The seller is asking for $350 Australian dollars for a starting bid, the equivalent of just over $366 in US dollars. The auction ends in just under 6 days’ time.
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Wish this game would be ported to like the PSN store or something.
Allegedly, this was supposed to be part of Sonic Gems Collection, but they couldn’t properly convert the trackball mechanism to a controller.
-T
How hard can that be? They just use the analog stick.
haha, the plot of that game is screaming WHAAAAAA!
I’ve played this game in rom form on my PC and had no problem using the keyboard to control the characters. This game could easily be ported to a console.
I always wanted to play this… so bad… that and the fighting game. I got my wish with emulators, then gems…. I hope they port this to something…
I think the issue with the trackball is the level of control and how you control the game. With the trackball, your movement speed is based on how fast you spin the ball. The longer and faster you spin the ball, the more you’ll move (and faster) in that direction. Part of the appeal behind the game was that control–keep spinning the ball to move around, and then change the spin of the ball to go in another direction.
That’s not to say it couldn’t be done with a thumbstick, but it would likely lose some of its appeal, and the devs probably just felt it wasn’t worth the effort.
3DSware anyone? C’mon Sega you know you want to.
Hey, this is actually would be actually a good 3DSWare idea if not the fact Big N doesn’t sell touch straps anymore.