Technologies

How Sonic Rumble Spins Away From Mario Party With Its Own Multiplayer Style

Sonic Rumble producer Takashi Iizuka explains how the team built a party game suiting the blue hedgehog’s style.

For decades now, the Mario Party franchise has dominated the niche of the best multiplayer party games you can play with friends on your couch — or now, online. Despite challenges from games like Fuzion Frenzy, Super Monkey Ball, Rayman Raving Rabbids and more, none have stolen Nintendo’s crown.

But now, Sega is making a play for the casual party game space with Sonic Rumble, a new title featuring the company’s iconic hedgehog and his friends. The free-to-play game is now available on PC, as well as on mobile for iOS and Android phones, allowing up to 32 players to join in on matches.

Sega’s hedgehog mascot is no stranger to party games, but entries like Sonic Shuffle on Dreamcast and Sega Superstars on the PlayStation 2 came out decades ago. For the publisher’s newest take on Sonic multiplayer, Sonic Rumble producer Takashi Iizuka answered questions over email, from adapting Sonic’s «gotta go fast» action to party multiplayer and whether other iconic Sega stars will make cameo appearances.

Q: There are some party games that have cemented the genre, like Mario Party. Aside from a cast of Sonic characters, how does Sonic Rumble distinguish itself from other party games?
Iizuka: While many other party games have their charm, our vision for Sonic Rumble was to combine the speed of classic arcade games with the competitive, high-stakes energy of a battle royale game. We call this mix an «Arcade Royale.»

Each stage is designed to keep the mayhem on full blast, whether players are dashing through obstacle courses or scrambling to collect rings before time runs out. What really sets Sonic Rumble apart is how it blends approachability with intensity. We wanted it to be easy for anyone to jump in and play, while still maintaining the intensity that fans have come to know and love from the Sonic franchise.

With the live service aspect of Sonic Rumble, we plan to consistently introduce new elements, from surprising collaborations to limited-time events, keeping the game fresh and fun for years to come.

When designing Sonic Rumble, what guidelines did the team/studio abide by to ensure it feels like a Sonic game?
Iizuka: We wanted to create a game that both new and longtime fans would love, and that could be played on the go or at home on their PC.

Sonic Rumble needed to embody what makes Sonic special, not just through the characters, but through the gameplay itself. That meant focusing on movement, momentum and control of the characters within the environment, so even in this new multiplayer format, gameplay still feels authentic to the Sonic experience. We also wanted to ensure that Toy World itself captured that Sonic spirit, with bright arenas, upbeat music and plenty of personality. Even if Sonic Rumble is an entirely new kind of Sonic game, players will instantly recognize the spirit and rhythm of the franchise in every match and mode.

The gameplay shown in the trailer has a distinctly Sonic feel — racing along tracks, jumping on bumpers, collecting rings and so on. How did the team adapt this to party gameplay?
Iizuka: We didn’t just place Sonic characters in a stereotypical party environment; we made Sonic mechanics and gameplay the foundation of Sonic Rumble. We achieved this adaptation through strategic twists on familiar elements.

In Sonic Rumble, rings are the high-stakes resource, rather than protection like in previous Sonic titles. We’ve made the Ring collection central to victory, allowing players to steal them from each other. The Dashing mechanic is another example, something usually used for speed can now also be used for attacking. By updating these core movements and abilities, we’ve added another layer of strategy and skill to the competition.

The recently released Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds had a deep roster of Sonic characters along with several from other Sega franchises, like Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball. Will Sonic Rumble also have crossover characters? What about characters from Sonic lore (like the Chaotix or Sonic the Werehog)?
Iizuka: Our immediate priority is to ensure Sonic Rumble is both fun and fulfilling for our core fan base as well as for players new to the Sonic franchise. That means focusing on the incredible depth of the Sonic Universe. We know how necessary customization is and are heavily committed to allowing players to fully personalize Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, and Dr. Eggman with unique skins, in-game skills, and emotes.

As Sonic Rumble is a live-service title, it has the potential to evolve and expand over time. At launch, fans can look forward to the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Movie Crossover Event, which brings in elements like the Movie Shadow skin and epic battles in the iconic Shibuya Crossing arena. We’ve also integrated characters and skins from a SEGA Stars Crossover Event, featuring beloved icons like Opa-Opa and Upa-Upa from Fantasy Zone, AiAi and MeeMee from Monkey Ball, and characters from Altered Beast, Bonanza Bros, Pengo, and Phantasy Star.

Sonic Rumble is available now on PC, iOS App Store and Google Play Store.

Technologies

Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt Trade Blows in Latest AI Slop Video, and Hollywood Won’t Stand for It

While some Hollywood icons are feeling doom and gloom over the AI-generated clip, labor unions are fighting back with legal threats.

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are trading blows in a viral AI-generated clip on social media, sparking backlash from the film industry. Chinese company ByteDance’s new video generation model, Seedance 2.0, allowed people to create fictional videos of real likenesses with short prompts. Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson used two lines to generate the clip of Pitt and Cruise fighting.

If ByteDance sounds familiar to you, it’s because the company also owns TikTok internationally, though it recently sold its US ownership of the social media and video-sharing platform to US companies. Oracle, MGX and Silver Lake each hold a 15% stake.

The actors in this latest viral AI slop video still don’t look like perfect re-creations — close-up shots of the fake Brad Pitt’s face, especially, have an «uncanny valley,» dreamlike AI look where the cuts blend into his flesh a little too smoothly. However, a CNET survey from earlier Tuesday showed that while 94% of US adults believe they encounter AI slop on social media, just 44% say they’re confident they can tell real videos from AI-generated ones.

One of the most inflammatory parts of the Pitt-Cruise video is the dialogue, as the computerized facsimiles of the actors fight over a supposed assassination plot regarding Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who maintained ties to rich and powerful people worldwide. The two actors’ likenesses became a vehicle to push conspiracy theories that have been picking up steam as the millions of pages of redacted emails, receipts and other documents that make up the Epstein files continue to trickle out of the US Department of Justice.

Hollywood is fighting back as AI-generated content consumes and spits out actor likenesses and copyrighted content alike. Major studios and their labor forces alike have united to push back against the precedent set by the viral AI video.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Motion Picture Association demanded that ByteDance «immediately cease its infringing activity» through Seedance. SAG-AFTRA, the labor union that represents Hollywood performers, released a statement on Friday saying it «stands with the studios» in condemning the Seedance video generation model.

The Screen Actors Guild specifically pointed to Seedance’s unauthorized use of members’ faces, likenesses and voices as a threat that could put actors out of work.

«Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent,» the actors’ guild said in its statement.

Representatives for the MPA and SAG-AFTRA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similar videos generated by Seedance have depicted Star Wars characters dueling with lightsabers as well as Marvel superheroes Spider-Man and Captain America brawling. Disney issued a cease-and-desist order to ByteDance on Friday in response to these videos, which it alleges constitute copyright infringement, according to the BBC.

A representative for ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment, but issued a statement to the BBC saying it is «taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.»

Following the viral incident, ByteDance updated its tool to prevent people from uploading images of real people for AI-generated content, but it remains to be seen how effective that policy will be. Certainly, it won’t curb the output of videos depicting fictional masked or anthropomorphic characters like Spider-Man or Mickey Mouse.

As AI models continue to create mediocre copies of cultural icons, this won’t be the first — or last — legal battleground for AI video generation.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 18, #983

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 18 #983.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle was great fun for me, as I’m the co-author of two pop-culture encyclopedias, one about the 1970s, and 1980s and the other about the 1990s. Two of the categories are retro-themed! Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Farrah hair.

Green group hint: Totally tubular!

Blue group hint: Bock-bock!

Purple group hint: Can refer to a dairy product or a cosmetic.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Retro hair directives.

Green group: Retro slang for cool.

Blue group: Chicken descriptors.

Purple group: ____ cream.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is retro hair directives. The four answers are crimp, curl, feather and tease.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is retro slang for cool. The four answers are bad, fly, rad and wicked.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is chicken descriptors. The four answers are bantam, crested, free-range and leghorn.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ cream. The four answers are heavy, shaving, sour and topical.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Feb. 18, #1705

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Feb. 18, No. 1,705.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle answer is a word I thought I’d seen in Wordle before, but I guess not. The letters aren’t super common, so it may take a few guesses. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.