Remember this early concept art found on Impact Innovations website ages ago? Well it turns out two more projects from that lot have been released as I found them in Debenhams, who had a 25% off sale on them. They also had some of those classic Sonic carrying bags that you may of seen on GAME. I picked them up figuring they were even cheaper at the moment and if they're anything like that track set they'll all be gone by Christmas. The remote controlled 'racers' look far better than in those old prototypes, thankfully.
Both are in a running pose and are attached to big black lumps of plastic with wheels on them. I can understand that designing Sonic toys like this is more difficult than Mario kart, but why not make the wheels their legs like in the artwork? Oh well.
The Sonic one is really nice. The face is a great design especially. I'd almost go as far as to say it looks even better than the First4Figures vinyl toy that was in the same pose, though the paint work isn't as good, but then this is a toy first and foremost, unlike the vinyl toy collectible.
The Tails one looks a little off. I think it's mainly to do with his eyes, they appear to be far too small and give the impression that he has a large cranium. Also, was it really wise to paint the part that connects the figure to the base in-between his legs like that? Er...no comment. XD 
The remote control is interesting: they've gone for a Sonic & Knuckles like silhouette of the characters with two simple buttons. A re-creation of the Mega Drive controller would have been awesome, but this is still a decent design.
These toys are £12 RRP, though due to the sale I got them a bit cheaper, so they're not bad at all. The quality of Sonic toys and figures in the last year or two has been far better than we've been used to I think: after years of wonky Sonic X rubbish and even a lot of the old 90's merchandise wasn't all that well designed. I remember the Sonic RC car just being a cruddy purple car with Sonic stickers on it, for example. Perhaps this is all in preparation for project Needlemouse? I doubt it, but wouldn't that be ace?
Despite the utter disappointment of there still being no sign of the Dr.Robotnik soft toy Impact Innovations promised us on the boxes of their other soft toys, not to mention the constant delays and doubtful release of any of First4Figures range of lovely vinyl figures and that statue, the odd piece of stuff from this classic style Sonic range has crept out into the wild over Christmas. If you've stumbled into a busy GAME store lately you may of seen the console carry bag things with Sonic on them that sell for about £12 and £15 each, but there is also a racing track set, much like the one Impact had early designs of on their website a while back, out there which as far as I know is only available in Debenhams stores at the moment.
Gotta love how they wrote "SONIC BROKEN" on the box. I'm sure you guys will read a lot into that.
It had a card stuck on it stating that "Sonic doesn't move" and it's price being dropped to £6. I took it to the till where they said it was not sorted out by the staff yet but they let me have it without the option to return it anywhere, with another half slashed off, so i got it for £3. It says it's broken, but sod it; for that money it doesn't matter and I only really want it for the figures anyway.
Here's all the junk you get in the box..
.. and here it is set up. It didn't look Sonic-y enough for me so I stuck some badniks on the track for Sonic and tails to crash into (had they worked, that is).
So what's it like? Well, nothing amazing really, but the characters are pretty neat. The track is about as basic as you can get, with nothing to distinguish it from any other car racing track set, and you get two controllers with a Sonic logo on them and two buttons that both do the same thing for some reason. Really basic stuff, and as with just about any of these kinds of car racing sets, it only works when it feels like it, which is barely ever: most of the time the cars just twitch a little but sometimes they would suddenly spring to life until they get stuck in the crossing path and topple over. Why they still use those fluffy lumps of wire at the bottom of these things to connect to the track is beyond me, as it's clearly a totally unreliable and downright rubbish tech.
Just pretend they're moving. I had to 99% of the time.
Still, the characters themselves aren't too bad. The Sonic and tails are good likeness and look far better than the wonky prototype images. Instead of sitting them in cars Sonic Drift style they have wheels for legs and a big white lump which I guess represents the speed lines to support them. Sonic also appears to have bags under his eyes on my one. If you replaced the wheels and lump of white with normal standing legs they'd actually make rather respectable little figures of the pair, especially compared to some of the wonky eyed figures we got back in the old days. I also remember having a radio controlled Sonic car which was a bit shit: it was just an ugly purple car with some Sonic related stickers slapped on it.
If it wasn't for the lump of white separating their legs from their bodies, these toys would be rather sweet.
Well I've typed far too many words about these now, but either way they seem to be rather elusive at the moment (at least until everyone starts returning them when they can't get the bloody thing to do anything) so this a sort of WORLD EXCLUSIVE first set of photos online of the thing...I guess. Exciting stuff. Have a happy new year and look forward to lots more photos of Sonic crap coming your way soon. This is now officially the only website on the Internet that is not bitching and moaning about the state of the Sonic series!
Decided to have a quick peek at Impact Innovations website to see if their Sonic page was still just a placeholder, and it appears they have completely updated it with the plush toys that are available to date, as well as bunch of new stuff, although a lot of them appear to be concept art at the moment, which is a relief as otherwise they would be rather ugly, some of them. They have Excel files with details on each product with additional images which I'll post here.
These, I take it, are early versions of the plush toys, as they look quite a bit different, especially the Sonic one.many more after the jump.
Concept art for Sonic and tails radio controlled cars, much like the Mario kart ones they did a while back. The design of Sonic one is a tad odd as Sonic is in a running pose, but has a par of wheels attached inbetween his legs, and he has little wheels on his shoes, which based on the pose means he has a wheel on the top of one of them.
These concept models are pretty ugly. Tails is riding a surfboard on the artwork but this model just has him in a stand pose, which makes no sense. These are early development pictures though, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and presume they'll be much better quality when finally released.
Next is a Slot car track set, again much like a Mario Kart set they did some time ago, only this time with a loop and rings drawn onto the track, which is a nice touch. The Tails toy for this one makes more sense as it's in a running pose. This one has a watermark on it saying "unapproved design" so maybe we won't even get to see this one. Maybe the health and safety farts though toys flying around a loop would be too dangerous, or maybe it's just because Impact's slot cat toys are a bit shite, if the Mario Kart ones are to go by. Those thing were being returned to marks & Sparks by the dozens over Christmas because most of them didn't work.
There's another Race track design here which may be a replacement for the one above, but is generally a lot less inventive, using a basic black track that just goes around and has no rings or loops, so is very un-Sonic like. This could be just a quick mock up, mind. You know what these racing sets really need? A Dr. Robotnik in his egg-o-matic whizzing about. Now that's a toy I would love to see.
Now this is a quick concept model if ever I saw one. They've literally taken one of those ugly Sonic X figures and shoved a webcam through his stomach. It gets the idea across, but the final product shouldn't look anything like this as this is the CLASSIC Sonic the Hedgehog range we're talking about here.
Finally, some rather interesting USB stick things, which come in 2GB and 4GB and seem to be based directly on the same designs of those viynl toys First4Figures are putting out. I can't see them having much partical use (try pluggin that into the side of your PC with a lumpy figure hanging off it) unless the USB cable pulls away from the figure part.
Still, it's nice to see this classic style range going full steam ahead, so people don't forget when Sonic was not trying too hard to be "extheeeeeme" and surrounded by a million pointless characters.
If you've walked into a GAME store in recent months, you have most likely seen the classic style Sonic plush toys, which I featured back in December. You'll also remember that there was supposed to be two more characters to the set which no one has been stocking of Knuckles and Robotnik. Well, Play-Asia has started to stock the classic Sonic range and they have Knuckles!
Not only does this mean we can now grab the Knuckles plush that GAME doesn't appear to be ever stocking, but people outside of the UK can buy these toys for themselves. Still no Robotnik in sight, though. I really want to see how that one turns out. To make up for it though, they have something else...
Classic Sonic beanies! Very similar to the plushes but obviously much smaller and er...full of beans, but they're also only about £4 each, so if you're not willing to part with £8 on the full size ones, you could always get these. That's if you're not a completest who must have both sets like me! First that Sonic statue and now these...my wallet is in pain!
It's like a box full of kittens, only not.
Compared to the butt ugly Sonic X plush toys we have seen in the last few years (which I didn't even buy for collectors' sake, they were so bad) these retro styled plushies are rather ace and just how most fans remember the characters from the good old days. Now where's my Robotnik?
For the last year or so, you may of noticed a bunch of retro style Sonic merchandise being sold in GameStation, including T-Shirts, key rings, wrist bands, badges etc. Well just a couple days ago I was browsing in my local GAME, which being so close to Christmas was naturally packed with people running around like headless chickens because they leave their shopping till the very last minute, and I came across these new retro Sonic plush toys, one of Sonic and one of Tails. According to the back of the box there is also Knuckles and Dr. Eggman ones, but they didn't have these in stock. Best thing was they were only a tenner each, which isn't bad because there not too small and look the part.
Anyway, the queue was about a mile long so I didn't buy them then, but this morning I had another look and most of them had already sold, they only had 2 Sonics and about 5 tails' left, so that convinced me to grab one of each. While I have barely touched any of the modern Sonic X style stuff they have made over the last few years, I'm a sucker for anything that looks like the Sonic I grew up with.More after the jump.
They're both about 12 inches tall and quite nicely designed despite using simple materials, far more appealing then any of those wonky ugly Sonic X plushes. The eyes on pupils on Sonic soft toys are normally plastic, but these ones are knitted in, which is nice as they don't stick out of the eyes and go wonky over time. Both even have cute buckles on on their shoes.
Sonic is a lighter blue than expected, but it's a nice shade of blue none the less.He's fluffier than the Tails toy, especially his nose and quite a smaller body than Tails. It's a decent likeness to the Mega Drive era Sonic we all know and love, before he went all freaky looking with lanky limbs and that menacing toothy grin.
Tails is, quite simply, adorable. He looks a lot like he did in the old Japanese artwork with a small mouth and shiny big pupils. His Tails (which you can't see in the photos) are much smaller than in older toys, and he more close to a shade of yellow than orange. Unlike Sonic's nose, Tails' nose is a piece of plastic. My only small niggle with the design is the bright yellow colour of his fringe, but it's not that big a deal when the design is a good as it is.
Compare them to these older plush toys I still own:
These toys are developed by Impact Innovations, a toy company who also make all those Mario Kart toys you see about. According to their website, there are going to be many more toys in the "Classic Sonic the Hedgehog" in 2008, including beanies, radio control and track sets. Sadly they have no photos of any of this stuff yet. If you want to buy these Sonic plushes, the only place that seems to stock them so far is GAME. Sonic here and Tails here, they don't seem to have listing for the Knuckles and Eggman ones yet, which is a shame because these are the ones I'm most intrested in, as I don't own any soft toys of those characters at all (I refuse to own the ugly Sonic X ones). I'm going to make sure I find them , though, and when I do you'll be the first to see photos!
Remember this early concept art found on Impact Innovations website ages ago? Well it turns out two more projects from that lot have been released as I found them in Debenhams, who had a 25% off sale on them. They also had some of those classic Sonic carrying bags that you may of seen on GAME. I picked them up figuring they were even cheaper at the moment and if they're anything like that track set they'll all be gone by Christmas. The remote controlled 'racers' look far better than in those old prototypes, thankfully.
Both are in a running pose and are attached to big black lumps of plastic with wheels on them. I can understand that designing Sonic toys like this is more difficult than Mario kart, but why not make the wheels their legs like in the artwork? Oh well.
The Sonic one is really nice. The face is a great design especially. I'd almost go as far as to say it looks even better than the First4Figures vinyl toy that was in the same pose, though the paint work isn't as good, but then this is a toy first and foremost, unlike the vinyl toy collectible.
The Tails one looks a little off. I think it's mainly to do with his eyes, they appear to be far too small and give the impression that he has a large cranium. Also, was it really wise to paint the part that connects the figure to the base in-between his legs like that? Er...no comment. XD 
The remote control is interesting: they've gone for a Sonic & Knuckles like silhouette of the characters with two simple buttons. A re-creation of the Mega Drive controller would have been awesome, but this is still a decent design.
