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April 20th, 2014 
Carl Williams 
Knuckles Chaotix brought a secondary character to the forefront. Knuckles was one of the few secondary characters from a game to get their own game. Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel was another appearing on Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Sega saw something in the little red echidna, enough to warrant at least one outing of his own. Too bad it was on the ill-fated Sega 32X platform and not the much better received Sega Saturn. Especially considering the Saturn launched not long after the Sega 32X.
Familiar territory explored
Setup much like the Sonic games, Knuckles Chaotix is a 2D side scrolling action game with colorful levels. The big fat mustached balding mad scientist in a contraption trying to take over is here too. You could almost do a color swap of Knuckles to the trademark Sonic blue and it would barely be noticeable. It would simply seem that Sonic got some new powers.
Knuckles Chaotix limited by the platform
That is not a bad thing. Being like Sonic was okay, what hurt Knuckles Chaotix the most is the platform it was released on. The Sega 32X was never a powerhouse in sales. It took down some great games such as this maiden outing of Sonic’s sometimes rival. Why Sega did not release Knuckles Chaotix on the Saturn is beyond incomprehensible. The Saturn never got a full blown official Sonic game (3D Blast was WAY removed). Chaotix could have flourished on that system, possibly being responsible for a new series for Sega.
Released once, never again
Knuckles Chaotix, or just Chaotix, is only available on the Sega 32X. It has not seen re-release other than a short run on Gametap in 2007. This is one of the problems that hindsight shows us. We were probably too close to the situation to see it at the time. Sega’s lack of flow, lack of support of franchises hurt. Forgetting games that got them to where they were at the time all hurt worse. The 32X, a sad follow up to the Sega Genesis, ultimately left a bad taste in the mouths of gamers.
Had Sega been able to include 32X support in the Saturn would they have faired better in the 32-bit war? That would have left them supporting more than one platform again. Multi-platform is something it appeared they wanted to get away from with the Saturn. Still, probably would have been too much for them at the time. I cannot help but wonder had they done that, what games we might have seen released.
For more Sonic games, check out our coverage. Want a physical copy? Check out Amazon or eBay to score a deal.
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I was and am the one to always buy into a new tech and that was no different when I bought my 32x…. By this time my “OG” genesis and Sega CD along with the 32X my system was starting to look like a transformer of some sort!
Looking back at those days when things were so straight forward and bit more put together. Hard to imagine if back then they had to attempt on relying on some sort of patch in order for things to run properly. So many broken games would have been released.
Yeah, look at the true shame that bf4 is:
An alpha game sold at full price, that keep getting beta patches.
There should be some laws protecting gamers from this kind of BS. When we buy a retail game, we should be able to hibernate in some kind of basement, without internet, and play the game from A to Z.
The same about multiplayer. If studios have the intention to shut down servers one day, they should allow gamers to create their own server, or play on a lan.I just read Nintendo just announced they will shut down servers of the previous super Mario kart game on the Wii, to force people to buy Mario kart 8. WHAT IF gamers want to keep playing Mario kart 7?
Just like all the game updates. Why can’t we download the game updates and apply them, like we do with the offline ps3 firmware?
For example, skyrim ps3 had a huge bug, after a certain level, the save file becomes huge, and the fps almost reach 1 fps. They released an update for it.
What about in 10 years, of someone wants to play skyrim, and the update isn’t available for download. The game will be unplayable without that update. Why couldn’t gamers be able to download it on a computer, and apply it, like the ps3 firmware?
As long as videogames will be seen like toys for kids, there will be no protection against these practices.too bad.
You bring up some great points, Arnold. I feel the same way about having concerns over patches and servers and what will happen in 10+ years with those games. Look at the plethora of games that are only available on the various online networks for the consoles. Why can’t they release the better ones on a compilation disk of some sort? Why do they have to remain online only on Live, PSN and Nintendo’s digital service?
Patches. Man, don’t get me started on those. I knew as soon as the Xbox hit with a hard drive that we were going to start seeing patches for incomplete games that should have been held back and fixed (it is not like they are having to program for a myriad of variations of hardware like on PC’s). Things have only gotten worse in recent years though, not better and that is a shame.
Basically, a studio can announce a game for next June, release it after 2 months of dev, and release a new patch every night, with gamers/buyers doing the QA job.
Like mass effect 3 ‘s prothean day one dlc, because… they hadn’t finished the dlc before the game went gold.. bla bla. And they just made 1 or 2 millions x 10$ for that dlc.. easy, huh?
Regarding mass effect, its my top favourite games ever. I bought all released content. Weapon packs were amazing, and a huge addition to the games, some weapons could literally change the way I would play and approach some enemies, etc.
I finished the 3 games like 2 or 3 times, and put more than 400 hours on it.
ME series are games I am sure one day, in 4,5,8 years, I will have tons of fun, playing all those missions again, and it will almost be like a new game, because I will have forgotten plenty of details. But without those extensions I bought, weapons, etc, I won’t even feel like playing. They could find a way to sign files digitally, with our email/psn/code embedded, so we can download on a PC, and apply patches, updates and purchased content.
I wish some big studios, lawyers, journalists, etc, started talking about the subject to make some noise and hope it reaches the big guys on the top. Most people don’t care now, but in 4 or 5 years, these things will start happening, with the ps3 not supported at all, and we will all be hit really deep, without being able to talk.
The ps4 being easier to max out, I believe Devs will start complaining and begging for more powerful systems, in less time than it took, on the ps3. I believe the PS5 will be released in 2018. Do you think the ps3 will still be supported through the psn? Of course not. They will do all they can to make people go digital, and play ps3 games through gaikai-like systems.
Where are our fcking ps3 updates, patches and content, and our digital games we bought, at full price? Where are they?
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I wanted a 32X when it first came out. My reason in a game form was Star Wars Arcade but Knuckles Chaotix was a fast approaching second reason. Star Wars Arcade was the first game I encountered that cost $1+ to play so I could only play a little here and there because I was interested in more games than just that.
Reading about this game in Gamefan really made me want it. The pics were awesome and this was clearly a game that couldn’t be done on the Genesis due to the color use.
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