With Sonic Generations, Sega seems to be finally nailing it

[Specially Cork]

Apparently it's in "early development". It'll be interesting to see what actually takes Sega longer to develop - an entire new game after Sonic Colors, or the second episode of Sonic 4. If we don't see it at E3 I doubt it's coming. It should only take a couple of months at the most to crap out a handful of new Sonic stages. If they're changing it more than that I'm not sure we can call it Sonic 4.

And let's face it...the Wii certainly isn't going to see an episode 3.

[Nico0020]

I think tails was confirmed for episode 2 IIRC. Episodic content for a 2d sonic game is far beyond retarded (with episodic content not being far from the retard line in general.) There is no reason that there should be no info on this game.

Episodic games should happen where you are working on the entire game at one time, and just release the parts to get them out quicker and increase money for development.

Sonic and Knuckles did this right, as time constraints (and I think the price of making such a big game on one cart?) resulted in two carts, but the games only came out around 6 months apart.

Instead now, developers use it as a cop out in making full games now adays and charge insane prices for something that feels like it was created over a weekend.

I felt Valve doing this plan for Half Life 2 was okay. But fuck it. It's 2011 now, and we have two concept arts for HL2:Ep3 and nothing else ever said or shown. Release a full game, or don't release one at all. I can see sega making Ep2, probably showing it off at E3 and releasing around the same time E1 came out (with that time frame already outrageous,) and then I just see th whole project getting dropped since they have sonic generations and probably some other sonic project up their sleeve. Hmmm I remember another time when sega had too many projects.........Sega Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Neptune, and Saturn......... And we all saw how well that worked out.


Ugh, I went off on a large rant there. I love Sega games, and I love what sega was. But god damn they make me angry now adays.

[Specially Cork]

I just don't understand what Sonic 4 is supposed to be if the whole selling point of a completely separate Sonic game is being able to play as classic 2D side-scrolling Sonic.

[not just souLLy now]

I've not read a single post in this thread nor watched the video, but believe me this game will be utter shit.

[melancholy]

It doesn't matter if they release an Episode 2 or not. Episode 1 was so broken I felt like I wasted my money on it. A better idea would be to use their time to fix the physics of Episode 1 so I might actually care about another 2D Sonic game. And by fix, I mean straight copying the physics of their 20 year old Sonic game. That should take them no more than, what, 8 months and two delays to do?

[mankrip]

Rather than a replacement or sequel to Sonic 4, I think Sonic Generations is Sega's answer to Sonic Fan Remix.

I'll wait and see, but at least visually it's the most impressive Sonic game I've ever seen.

[DaMadFiddler]

Did anyone here play Sonic Colors? Was it any good? This seems fairly similar in design to that... though if the earlier observation about being able to play any level in 2D or 3D is true, I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's a neat concept, but how good could the 3D level design be if it also has to work in 2D? Not that it can't be done; Super Paper Mario does this pretty well for the most part, and there have been several other games that make good use of mixed 2D/3D perspective. Echochrome is an example, as is the fan project Mega Man 2.5D:

I don't trust Sonic Team to get that kind of nuanced design right, and the trailer looks to suffer a bit from hold-forward-itis. Of course, the opposite extreme wouldn't be any good either--all exploring and no opportunity to dart through areas. Just look at the SA2 treasure hunt levels, or Sonic 3D Blast. And though I'm sure we'd all love to get our hands on it just for history's sake, I'm not convinced Sonic Xtreme would have turned out any good either:

[cube_b3]

What you talking about?

They are 2 sepeate levels

1) Inspired by the original 2D games.
2) Inspired by Unleashed/Colors which switch to Side Scrolling and Behind the back.

Both levels are completely seperate.

[not just souLLy now]

[ace]

DMF - I enjoyed Sonic Colors. It's a bit infuriating at times with some of the controls/limitations/interactions and camera angles, but then I find all platformers infuriating. It's without a doubt the best Sonic game in a long time. No extra (read: useless characters); it's pretty much just Sonic and Tails, some really great level design and sound, and a nice melding of 3D and 2D Platforming. Oh yea, and Sonic is fast again.

souLLy - ROLF yes, ROLF. Ref: Null

[DaMadFiddler]

DMF - I enjoyed Sonic Colors. It's a bit infuriating at times with some of the controls/limitations/interactions and camera angles, but then I find all platformers infuriating. It's without a doubt the best Sonic game in a long time. No extra (read: useless characters); it's pretty much just Sonic and Tails, some really great level design and sound, and a nice melding of 3D and 2D Platforming. Oh yea, and Sonic is fast again.

souLLy - ROLF yes, ROLF. Ref: Null

Is the level design decent, or is it pretty much just heading from left to right with no variation or exploration/alternate routes/etc.?

[ace]

Yeh, it's forward motion for the most part, but aren't all the good Sonic games pretty much the same? There are multiple Paths you can take to get to the end - ie: down instead of up, up instead of loop de loop, but it's more or less just pure Sonic speed and Platforming. Am I missing something?

My biggest gripe is that the game occasionally takes over the controls. Case in point, you're running over this shiny electric tile walkway ate constantly laying the next tile right at your feet, but you're not controlling that whole portion. And it happens a few times too. I'm not sure why Devs have started to do that in Sonic games. Why mess with the winning formula? Also, you can't turn off colours(powers) after activating them.

I like it because it's an interesting meld of Mario with the colours/powerups, classic Sonic Platforming, and a sweet looking 3D engine. The controls are touchy, but then they should be at the speed Sonic is going.

Actually, Mario obviously has had a lot of influence in this game. It's also got a very similar Map style to the SMB games.

I can definitely recommend a rental. IGN (I know, gasp) actually had a pretty dot on review.

[ASCIIN]

One of the biggest problems with sonic is oversaturation, its never gone enough to appreciate it.

shit since they said they were gonna make good sonic games there are already 3 announced.

and a side not pso2 looks awful.

[Nico0020]

new gameplay video of the entire first level. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/class ... ons/714051

I dont have faith sega has made an "A" sonic game. So i'll just wait to see what happens.

[Nico0020]

sonic generations demo is out on Xbox Live. Same story as always when it comes to sonic.

Physics still suck. Not as bad as sonic 4, but they are still awkward. How hard is it to just copy the physics of the genesis games. I don't get it. Level design is boring. They kept talking about lots of platforming in the videos, but its just not really there or used properly. The camera feels like a mess, which is odd to say about a 2d game. But it keeps zooming in and out in different areas of the stage. Why it does that I dont know, stuff to do with 3d support?

The demo is one stage of classic sonic on green hill zone. I had 8 lives at the end of my first playthrough lol.

[Specially Cork]

Physics still suck. Not as bad as sonic 4, but they are still awkward. How hard is it to just copy the physics of the genesis games. I don't get it. Level design is boring. They kept talking about lots of platforming in the videos, but its just not really there or used properly. The camera feels like a mess, which is odd to say about a 2d game. But it keeps zooming in and out in different areas of the stage. Why it does that I dont know, stuff to do with 3d support?

I absolutely 100% disagree with everything you just said.
- Physics are great, as close to the original Mega Drive games as they need to be, and platforming control is tight with no extras
- Level design is solid with a variety of routes, obstacles and no disguised drop-outs. Simple, but acceptable for the first stage of a Sonic game (a lot of it also follows the original Green Hill Zone)
- The camera zooming adds a little cinematic flair to the bits where you're not platforming and is fine

I really enjoyed playing it, and as long as they resist the urge to add gimmicks and focus on level-design instead, it should be a good game.

[DaMadFiddler]

I can't try the demo as my PS3 is currently packed up, but here's an extended gameplay video I found:

It's a little hard to judge from a video, but it does look better than what we've seen in recent years. There still doesn't seem to be much in terms of exploration/alternate routes, and there's no way to judge the physics without actually playing... though they'd be hard-pressed to do worse than the Sonic Heroes physics.

[Specially Cork]

Unfortunately there is no modern stage in the demo. Just 1 2 minute side-scrolling Green Hill act...in an 800MB demo...that is only playable for 2 more weeks.

The final game isn't out for months though so I guess I can't complain. I wish more developers would give the mass public previews this early.

[melancholy]

Physics still suck. Not as bad as sonic 4, but they are still awkward. How hard is it to just copy the physics of the genesis games. I don't get it. Level design is boring. They kept talking about lots of platforming in the videos, but its just not really there or used properly. The camera feels like a mess, which is odd to say about a 2d game. But it keeps zooming in and out in different areas of the stage. Why it does that I dont know, stuff to do with 3d support?

I absolutely 100% disagree with everything you just said.
- Physics are great, as close to the original Mega Drive games as they need to be, and platforming control is tight with no extras
- Level design is solid with a variety of routes, obstacles and no disguised drop-outs. Simple, but acceptable for the first stage of a Sonic game (a lot of it also follows the original Green Hill Zone)
- The camera zooming adds a little cinematic flair to the bits where you're not platforming and is fine

I really enjoyed playing it, and as long as they resist the urge to add gimmicks and focus on level-design instead, it should be a good game.

I agree with your second two points, but I still think Sonic controls pretty stiff. It's better than Sonic 4, but the jumping is not smooth at all. Not to mention the frame rate was pretty spotty, though that could probably be ironed out in the full version. Anyway, I see improvement, but it's not there yet. And unfortunately, we still don't know how the modern section will be like (other than one demo video), so I'll continue to be skeptical.

[DaMadFiddler]

Well, this all seemed fine until the last few seconds:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/30/sonic ... eneration/