Hirokazu Yasuhara (also credited as Carol Yas) is a Japanese video game designer and Sonic Team's 2nd Assistant President. He designed the gameplay and stages of the majority of the initial Sonic the Hedgehog video games for Sega Mega Drive based on technical demos and engines coded by Yuji Naka and characters designed by Naoto Ōshima. In spite of Yasuhara and Oshima's key creative roles, programmer Naka has since claimed most of the credit for and become identified as the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog by the mainstream gaming press. Yasuhara stayed with the franchise until 1994 though he worked on Sonic 3D Blast in 1995, Sonic Xtreme in 1996 and Sonic R in 1997 and with Sonic Team until 2002. He then joined Naughty Dog, working on the Jak and Daxter series and 'Uncharted', collaborating once more with former Sega employee Mark Cerny. He is now the senior design director at Namco Bandai Games America. It has been announced that he is working on a 30th anniversary Pac-Man game.

[edit] Production History

• Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) — Director, Game Planner, Project
• Fatal Labyrinth (1991) — Director, Game Planner
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) — Director, Game Planner, Object Placement, Project
• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) — Director, Lead Game designer
• Sonic & Knuckles (1994) — Director, Lead Game designer
• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (1994) — Director, Lead Game designer
• Sonic 3D Blast (1995) — Playfield Design, Saturn Enhancements
• Sonic Xtreme (1996) — Head Designer
• Sonic R (1997) — Map Design Director
• Sega Smash Pack 2 (2000) — Special Thanks
• Floigan Brothers: Episode 1 (2001) — Game Designer
• Jak 2 (2003) — Game Designer
• Jak 3 (2004) — Game Designer
• Jak X: Combat Racing (2005) — Game Designer
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007) — Game Designer
• Afro Samurai (2009) — Special Thanks

[edit] External links

• Naughty Dog profile
• Announcement of the new Pac-Man game

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