Rare Sonic the Hedgehog arcade game preserved via PC emulation

By Danny Cowan September 23, 2015

An extremely rare entry in Sega’s long-running Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has been preserved via PC emulation software, and will soon be available for play outside of an arcade setting for the first time.

Released alongside Sonic’s Sega Genesis debut in 1991, Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car cast Sega’s blue hedgehog mascot in the unlikely role of a traffic cop. The arcade game featured a kid-sized cockpit and steering wheel, allowing young gamers to take on the role of an authoritarian Sonic on the lookout for traffic violations.

Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car features simplistic, time-limited gameplay akin to a kiddie ride. After cruising the virtual city streets as Sonic, players encounter series villain Dr. Robotnik in a nearby vehicle. The game ends once Sonic successfully brings Dr. Robotnik to justice.

Despite its unusual premise and simple gameplay, Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car has been sought after for years by collectors and game preservationists. While emulating the game’s code is a simple matter thanks to its well-documented hardware, finding an intact copy of the game itself proved nearly impossible for several years, due to its rarity.

Game preservationists from the online collective The Dumping Union recently pooled their money to purchase a Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car machine and copied its contents to a format readable by modern PCs. The game will be playable in the next version of the popular arcade emulator MAME.

Kotaku reports that collector Will Medved fronted the majority of the project’s cost. While the game itself cost only $350, importing the massive cabinet from Japan pushed its total price to over $5,000. Medved documents his attempt at restoring the game in the above pitch video for a since-canceled Indiegogo project.

Few Sonic-related games have yet to be preserved. Sonic Retro notes that one as-of-yet unemulated oddity is SegaSonic Popcorn Shop, a Japanese vending machine that uses arcade hardware to dispense fresh popcorn. Like Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car, SegaSonic Popcorn Shop could also be preserved in playable form if an original arcade board surfaces.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributor

Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…

Gaming

The best Sonic fan games

Sonic stares at an open world in Sonic Frontiers.

Sonic was once the biggest rival Mario ever faced. The blue blur certainly gave the plumber a run for his money in the 8- and 16-bit days of gaming and was arguably winning in terms of mass popularity for a brief moment in time. Sonic was the cool, hip, more "adult" type of character with a very '90s attitude that resonated with a large portion of the western gaming audience. He was even the very first video game character to ever get his own balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Needless to say, Sonic was looking to run away with the title of the face of gaming. That was until the 16-bit days ended, and the shift to 3D began.

Unlike his contemporaries, Sonic wasn't -- and arguably still isn't -- able to find a comfortable footing in the 3D space. Rather than revert back to what made his first couple of games so good, Sega kept pushing 3D titles, even after they left the console business. Sonic's reputation quickly spiraled, but his popularity remains arguably as strong as ever. Fan works involving the blue hedgehog have flooded the internet for years, with the most impressive being Sonic fan games. Most give old-school fans more and new takes on what they loved about the old 2D games, but others showed that Sonic really can work in 3D, along with all sorts of other experimental titles we'd never see Team Sonic make officially. If you miss the days when Sonic was at his top speed, here are the best Sonic fan games that can give you the thrill his official games can't.

Gaming

After playing 6 hours of Sonic Frontiers, I’m sold on the ‘open zone’ pivot

Sonic grinding a rail away from the arched laser.

Sonic Frontiers has come a long way since the rough build we saw during the summer, when Sega fully lifted the lid on the mysterious project. When my time came to play a new build of it last week, one that would showcase significantly more content than we've seen up to this point, I was expecting that the "open zone" game would be extremely different from what we have seen over the last few months. Sure enough, Sonic Team seems to have polished the game up since then with cleaner graphics and a faster framerate -- not to mention fewer rails cluttering the skyline.

Sonic Frontiers - Story Trailer

Gaming

Sega is putting all of its chips on the table with Sonic Frontiers

Sonic grinding on a rail.

Back in May, I wrote about how Sonic Frontiers miraculously avoided the controversial Sonic Cycle by keeping updates dry between its first teaser trailer and its official announcement trailer at The Game Awards last year. Now the game is less than two months away from release, and with the reveal of four more trailers, two alternative rock songs taking us back to 2007 (Vandalize by One OK Rock and I'm Here by To Octavia's Merry Kirk-Holmes), and Super Sonic making his triumphant return at the Tokyo Game Show, Sega seems confident that it will be a big deal for the franchise. Hell, I'm feeling more confident about this game than I ever felt for some of its predecessors. And that's saying something.

In fact, Sega is so sure about Sonic Frontiers that it's pricing the game at $60 -- or in the case of the Digital Deluxe Edition, $70 -- and putting it in direct competition with God of War: Ragnarok and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet in November. It's a big gamble to go all in on, but also a sore point for some Sonic fans. Most current-gen AAA games are priced between $60 and $70 due to enhanced graphics, controls, and the engines they run on, but some have balked at Frontiers’ price tag not only because it's "too expensive," but because they can't remember the last time a Sonic game cost that much.