Afternoon everyone, thought I’d do a quick extra blog as I’ve had some more details in regard to the Wii wheel. Firstly let me just clear up some confusion – the Wii wheel isn’t just available in the UK, its in other SOE territories as well its just that that happened to be the first packshot that was ready to be used – it could easily have been somewhere else, like – Australia.

So yes Kotaku the Wii wheel is coming to Australia, fret not(!) As for extra special goodies – what are you talking about, you had the mighty Sonic Unleashed beach ball not long ago! ;) Ohh okay, lets see what we can do…..

I do have some more details as well which I can reveal, and its good news/bad news. Lets deal with the bad news first – unfortunately I can confirm that the wheel won’t be available in Germany, sorry about that but thats what I’m told.  On the other hand if you’re in France the good news is you’ve got a second possibility open to you.

Thats right, not only is there going to be a special Wii wheel version but an extra special DOUBLE Wii wheel pack! 0_o

I’ll have more details about the situation in Spain and Italy (and hopefully more images) as soon as I can.

I left my Bentley Jones story, some time ago, with me leaning on a countertop desperately trying to keep my eyes focused in one direction after listening through TRANS//LATION as an exclusive before release deal.

I’d also gone around to Lee’s house to discuss his work on Sonic and specifically on Sonic & The Black Knight which he’d just added to his list of worked on games. I asked about his “Fairytales In Trance” remix of Seven Rings in Hand which appears on the Face To Faith vocal tracks album. Lee had teased me earlier in the year by playing a bit of the track over the phone but the connection was so bad I couldn’t tell what it was.

“The Arabian influence combined with the sitars was very fun to do.” Lee said after a moment fiddling with his iPod. ” I wanted to do something far away from TRANS//LATION… It makes it into a somewhat otherworldly track.”

Indeed the track is a very different take on the main theme of the previous Storybook Series title and very different from both the Steve Conte and Crush 40 versions. I wondered as to how much guidance he was given on producing the track.

“Nope, there was no brief – I was given a lot of freedom in the track.” He confirmed, “I played around with some vocal effects, the lyrics are… so abstract. There’s still a distinct LB/BJ sound to it.”

That sound of course seems to be everywhere at the moment as the man known as Lee Brotherton juggles multiple musical careers and multiple projects. How on earth can one man produce so much? He was about to go off to Japan at this time if you recall (”My friends hate me(!)”)

We entered Studio 3 which is Lee’s home studio, now I hate to ruin the illusion that Lee has a vast array of equipment that he calls upon and sits at a massive bank of monitors and switches. Studio 3 is basically the space under the stairs. But a space under the stairs which is a studio environment with lighting, sound system, computer, TV and 360. The 360 I was told was the most important item there.

“I’ve practicing my Unleashed.” Lee grinned, eagerly booting up Chun-Nan and a level I struggle with before proceeded to show off by A-ranking it. I had a go myself and proceeded to die twice before getting a D. A quick hand back to Lee resulted in an S-rank and an even bigger grin.

“Oh I’m not having this…” Sorry, I’ve never claimed to be the best Sonic game player, but the man had already beaten me to completing both Sonic 06 and Unleashed and sheer pride refused to let me quit without some sort of victory. So in pure spite I loaded Windmill Hill and absolutely dismantled Lee’s best time. Don’t mess with the AAUK. Nyah

After the brief gaming session I mentioned the other projects he’d been involved with, specifically that this was this would be the fourth Sonic game, for those that don’t know the list is.

Shadow The Hedgehog: E.G.G.M.A.N. Doc. Robeatnix Mix / Blue Falcon (REMIX Factory)

Sonic 06: “Dreams Of An Absolution” and production on “His World”

Sonic Rivals: With Remix Factory

Sonic & The Black Knight

“And the demos for Sonic Adventure 2.”

“And the demos for…huh?” I sort of did a double take there, its true Lee with REMIX Factory did some demos for Sonic Adventure, but Adventure 2?? To my knowledge no one has ever heard them; I excitedly asked if he still had them. Alas he couldn’t find them, but he’s looking for them and I’ll let you know if we are able to get them up somewhere for you to listen to.

So Lee has done a variety of Sonic tracks, but is there anything specific he’d like to remix? (I spend a few minutes at this point trying to convince him that a Team Chaotix remix is begging to be made but alas ultimately fail.)

“Well I did Open Your Heart which was quite significant to me.” Ah, yes Open Your Heart from the True Blue Album; not the first C40/LB crossover as there was the Dreams Of An Absolution (LB Vs JS) track with the versus being Jun Senoue. A track that irks Lee just a little bit but not for the reasons you might think. “Everyone thinks Jun remixed it!” He chuckled, “his involvement was just the new guitars & solos. Can you make sure everyone know that it WAS actually me who remixed that?” he added with a wink.

If only I had some sort of public forum where I could announce such. Hmmm…

“I would love to do an actual Sonic theme. It’d be great to rework one of the classic themes in some form.” Lee looked out the window for a second before a big grin enveloped his face. “Escape From the City – I’d hoped to possibly do that at some stage. Its an awesome track… I’d do it in a heartbeat!”

And we left the interview there hitting town and doing really cool guy things, like buying Mothers Day cards and decongestants and then hitting a bar for a quiet drink and private chat on important topics like girls, schooling and why balsamic vinegar is really tasty. But you don’t want to know about that..

Thanks to Lee for letting me visit and answering my questions and I’ll bring you any more news on those demos as I get it.

The results are in for the SBK script contest and the winner is Michael Vargas of New Jersey – congratulations to him, he’s won one of only two copies of the SBK Japanese script to leave Japan. (Apparently SOJ are giving away some on Sonic Channel signed by the Japanese voice cast but these won’t leave Japan).

The runners up are being contacted now and are:

Steve Lee
Joe Carter
SupahSonikku

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The response sounded dubious, “Are you sure you don’t want anything – we’ve got cupboards full of medicine upstairs.”

I’d just got off a journey of about two and a half hours taking in a trip through London then up in a rather northerly direction for a work related excursion that despite being about seven months overdue had been thrown together in a short space of time owing to the fact that one of the participants – namely SEGA musician Lee Brotherton, was about to head off to Japan to promote his JPop debut album in his Bentley Jones persona.

Lee gets to grips with an SBK inflatable sword.

I met Lee last year as part of the Summer of Sonic and we had conversed a lot in the run up to it, quickly finding we had an awful lot in common and also thanks to a few bumps in the road found we had very similar work ethics as well. Sadly on the day we never really got to have much of a chat because I was rushed off my feet trying to keep the event flowing nicely and our proposed celebratory drink never materialised. Since then though we’ve been in regular conversation, Lee is a chatterbox (I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that) and our shortest phone call to date has been half an hour long with our longest being well over two hours – and we could’ve gone on longer. Basically we’ve become good friends.

At the time it’d not been announced that a new Sonic track from Lee would be heading our way, of course I knew but couldn’t tell you. (In fact I was the third person in the world to know after Lee himself and Jun Senoue so there you go.) But with the album coming out, Sonic & The Black Knight’s soundtrack to feature him and LB on his way to Japan and with his life about to open a new chapter it seemed like a good idea at the time to finally sort everything out before he possibly became the busiest man in existence. So it’d be a really bad time for the would-be-interviewer to come down with something wouldn’t it?

Typically that’s exactly what happened, as I proceeded to come down with the most awful flu I’ve ever had – we’re talking super-flu here, to the point where I was actually semi-deaf in my left ear and had to lean on something to stand up as my balance was so badly messed up. Naturally I was absolutely petrified I’d give it to him, that’d be typical everything going well then I give him a cold and mess up his ability to sing before the most important trip of his life. In fact had the tickets not been bought I’d've put the whole shebang off so after being picked up at the railway station I gave Lee plenty of warning I might be contagious. Or as I put it “For the love of God don’t get too close!”

I politely refused the medicine offer, as I was already dosed up to the eyeballs on cure-alls and we got down to business – after I had a glass of surprisingly tasty blackcurrant squash so I could actually speak. Before I could however LB snapped his fingers and marched past out of his kitchen into the hall and flicked a switch.
“Best turn the lights on in the studio so it can warm up a bit – it gets a bit cold out there.” I asked if this was the infamous Studio 2, which anyone who has heard Lee’s performance of Umbrella on his website will know about. “No this would be Studio 3.”

After that Lee whipped out his iPod and as the family’s chocolate coloured dutch rabbit made famous through one of his behind the scenes videos lazed in the garden nearby ready to take on any cats that dared enter its territory (”They’re scared. It chases them around!”) we talked about the album.  Lee was even able to show me some variations of the tracks to show how they developed and where applicable quite a few of the Japanese originals. I quickly found the album to have the distinctive “Bentley Jones” style and each track was a fresh and vibrant mix of Japanese and English.

First track Final Night would end up hitting number 5 on the Japanese top 10 with very minor promotion, whilst the bouncing Depend On You (Depend On Me) is a dance ballad with a thumping backing track and a story about getting independence from a rather one-sided relationship. Second single perhaps? Certainly its the highlight of the album for me personally and it’d do wonders on the chart in the west. There are other tracks on there that make this a really unique album of covers and cross-genre mixes; Dramatic (track six for those of you not familiar with reading Japanese) for instance, originally performed by Momoe Yamaguchi is actually the theme of an anime series “Honey & Clover”.

There’s even an interlude – I can’t even recall the last album that had an interlude – where Bentley Jones’ English “voice” is confronted by a disjointed and broken-up version of his Japanese “voice” and an understanding is attempted to be struck between the two. Of course what the Japanese voice is saying in response is exactly what the English voice is saying, ending with “Can you TRANS//LATE?” It then breaks into a funky electro track which took me by surprise somewhat and that I described at the time as very Jean Michel Jarre. I think with that comment Lee thought I didn’t like it but that wasn’t the case at all.

Then there’s White Love which practically needs a whole blog in itself to discuss its origins and styles properly – “We discussed Christmas and the label jokingly said I should do a festive house track, I know they were only joking but I kind of saw that as a bit of a challenge.” Bentley says with a grin, as the track plays with bells, brass and beats blazing in the background. “So I did it.”

There is no Dreams Of An Absolution, sad I know – but when you think about it probably for the best as everyone already knows and has that song that would want it.  So all those who were at Summer of Sonic 2008 and heard BJ perform the “Ballad Version” which was going to be on the album… you got another exclusive at the event and never even knew it.

Will it appear again? Will there be a Western release? Lee is more cagey here: ” Certain tracks might reappear on a future English project… but we’ll see.”

…I’ve taught the toaster to feel love! I’ve had a word with Digital Spy and the contest is now open to everyone; yes even you there looking at this over the shoulder of someone at their desk.  Apparently it was just a mistake as their normal T&Cs specified UK only, so no harm done.

Edit:

Following some people’s problems getting submitting their entries on Digital Spy due to the reCaptcha app in operation I’ve spoken to James from the site. We think this is because you might be being redirected to the digitalspy.com site based on your IP address (where the recaptcha stuff isn’t working as it’s not needed on the US at the moment).  To get around this, you should visit the .co.uk version of the site, either by choosing the UK edition (clicking the flag, and then selecting UK edition) or try changing your url to .co.uk.

DS have suggested we extend the deadline by a couple of days too in order to counter this, so you’ve now got 5 DAYS to get your entries in

We’ve teamed up with our friends at Digital Spy, the entertainment and media news website to bring you an exciting competition!

You may remember a while back that I teased the opportunity to win a hyper-rare Sonic & The Black Knight Japanese game script signed by game producer Tetsu Katano. Only two of these babies exist and I own one of them, (my precioussssssssss), and now you have the opportunity to do just that and give the second one a home.

Edit: Its currently open to UK residents only atm but I’m seeing if we can change that.

All you need to do to be in with a shout of winning is to answer a very simple question over at Digital Spy’s competition page.   The contest ends in 4 days though so you’ll have to be quick!

Win At http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/win/563/

You can all stop fretting guys, I’ve managed to get in contact with Mega777 – the artist “done wrong” by thanks to what I shall now term Antoniogate. Anyway I’m pleased to report I’ve spoken to her and i’ll be sending off a copy of the game to her tomorrow along with some SEGA goodies and one of my rare (and these actually belong to me not SEGA) Sonic & The Secret Rings art prints signed by Ogawa-san. 

She’s offered to send me some of her other Sonic art from the past so I’ll do a little display on the blog as well somewhere down the line. And I’m also pleased to inform you that Francesca (Mega777) since departing the community has followed her talent for art and now works on animated series and movies doing storyboards and things like that. 

A happy ending!

- ArchangelUK -

I must say I’ve done pretty well for guest blogs and interviews for Sonic & The Black Knight.

We’ve had a fan Q&A series with the delightful Tommy Tallarico, a revealing guest blog from the Sonic Team member and producer of the game Tetsu Katano, a behind the scenes at Bentley Jones’s house – which still needs to be written but I’m so busy at the moment! (Come back Martin, all is forgiven!)

And now Mr Jacques has kindly consented to take some time out of very busy schedule to grace us with a few words on his time working on SBK.

Richard Jacques On Working On SBK

It was a pleasure to be invited to work on Sonic and the Black Knight by my good friend and fellow composer Jun Senoue. I have known Jun for many years now, and having previously worked on various Sonic games such as Sonic R (Saturn / PC), Sonic 3D (Saturn / PC) and Sonic Chronicles (DS), he told me about the project last summer, and informed me that he was putting together various composers to contribute to the project, including myself.

After Jun sent me some details of the game design and some screenshots of the artwork, I already had a clear vision in my mind

about what I was going to write. It’s fantastic to see Sonic’s latest adventure featuring such well known characters from folk lore and legend that provide a rich tapestry of settings for the new Sonic story to unfold. My first task was to score the opening sequence for the game, which features some amazing visuals. This dramatic scene uses a largely orchestral sound palette to reflect the grandiose nature of the story, and introduces the theme of the Black Knight.

In fact there are lots of great themes and melodies in the whole soundtrack, written by many of the different composers, so we all shared ideas between each other. Having scored more of the cinematics, including working with Jun’s songs, I moved onto the in game music, where I contributed some original tracks and worked with some orchestration for the song “Fight The Knight”.

I worked within an orchestral setting but also worked in electronic elements to represent the speed and action of the gameplay. After having sign off on the tracks from Jun and the development team, I mixed the final tracks and submitted them for implementation into the game. It was a great project to work on and also to work with my fellow composers Lennie Moore, Tommy Tallarico and Howard Drossin, as well as Jun Senoue and the staff at Sonic Team.

Richard Jacques, Composer.

It’s the weekend. Huzzah! Naturally that means that news happens and I have to quickly blog it… ssh, don’t tell Martin I’m blogging on a Saturday, he’ll get all upset. Our secret okay?

*Hides under a camouflage net and continues*

My personal RSS has cunningly updated with news that Bentley Jones’ new website has gone live – but what he also confirms is that the track that will be appearing on a certain SBK related disc is a remix of “Seven Rings In Hand”.

Now I’ll be honest here, 7RiH isn’t exactly my favourite Sonic song but I can tell you having heard the BJ version, which is very different, I now dislike the original even more – because the BJ version is that awesome and left me going “why couldn’t it have been like that originally!”

Incidentally, its actually even more Arabic than the previous one and even includes the use of  sitars. Can you say Arabic Dance/Trance?

Hi guys, I’ve lots of little updates for you regarding SBK art, Game Gears and everything.

Unfortunately I was out all day yesterday around Lee Brotherton/Bentley Jones’ house getting an exclusive play of his new album (which I’ll be writing a preview for on here) and getting the lowdown on his new SBK related track.

…and watching him showing off  the fact he’s awesome on Chun-Nan (I promptly destroyed his best time on Windmill Hill in retaliation).

Anyway, this combined with the fact I’m currently at home with yellow and black tape sealing off the flat, due to my present health as a walking flu factory. (When people who are already ill are worried about being near you, I guess you can consider that bad.) All meant I kind of missed the DLC news which ties in nicely with yesterday baring in mind the level concerned.

Yes, so if you own Sonic Unleashed on 360 I’d advise you to stick your disc in and boot up as a patch has gone online that tweaks a few things here and there.  It has also paved the way for some DLC – downloadable content  – now available on the Marketplace.

The Chun-Nan level pack contains both day and night levels and are a mixture of  hard modes and brand new levels to enjoy! Its pretty cheap too at 250 points.

Oh, if only I had some sort of… ‘appropriate’ hardware that could be used for a tie-in competition(!)*Ahem*

In response to other comments/news posts:

• SONIC & THE BLACK KNIGHT IS OUT IN EUROPE TOMORROW! WOO!
• Euro SBK winners should have had items sent out today, I threatened to set my lurgy on the people responsible if they did not. If anyone can help out with locating Mega777 please let me know.
• The Sonic World Adventure website, i.e. the Japanese Sonic Unleashed page has added a gallery section where you can listen to various tracks off of the soundtrack, i.e. Planetary Pieces and features Endless Possibility, My Dear Friend, The World Adventure and the Werehog Fighting Theme which if you’re G off SEGA Nerds is “urrgh” and if you’re me is the best thing ever.  There’s about 12 tracks in all so a good selection!
• The Planetary Pieces competition is still open (Europeans and Australians only) check out the previous blog for a chance to win this treble-disc collection of loveliness.
• *Insert coughing fit here*
• The recent “Comeback Kid” Sonic Facebook poll has been closed, there won’t be another one up until JimmyC (who’s doing super work behind the scenes by the way and deserves a cookie…. Chocolate?) has adjusted Sonic’s page to fit the new Facebook layout.  I’ll be dishing out goody packs then.
• I think I’ve started a massive demand for Japanese Game Gears… if anyone has a stash I think you may have some interested parties.
• No, this does not mean we are do a Game Gear 2, return to hardware market, insert usual rumour here, etc.
• Yes that Jonathan Ross.