More upcoming Classic Sonic stuff from Impact Innovations

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.