Saw Sonic Colors and Sonic 4 at PAX yesterday. Didn’t wait in line to play either one, but they look interesting.
I may go back today and look again.
Here’s some new footage of Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Casino Streets zone. It reminds me of Casino Night from Sonic 2.
gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8219 … eets-zone/
I’m still sceptical… it’s hard to tell how much they’ve improved the physics.
Sonic 4 release dates and prices confirmed:
au.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/112/1123849p1.html
1200 MS points for 16 Sonic levels (that’s including the different acts and bosses). That’s 3 or 4 actual stages. Too expensive for what it is if you ask me.
[quote=“Solo”]Sonic 4 release dates and prices confirmed:
au.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/112/1123849p1.html
1200 MS points for 16 Sonic levels (that’s including the different acts and bosses). That’s 3 or 4 actual stages. Too expensive for what it is if you ask me.[/quote]
If you’re like me, you were willing to pay the equivalent of ?90 for the full version of Sonic 3 (i.e. 3 and S&K) when it first came out. I don’t really see the difference here.
It’s true, it will end up costing about as much as a classic Sonic game would have when they were new. I’ll buy it, providing the speculation about uncurling doesn’t turn out to be a problem…
But I’m still something of a Sonic fan. I imagine this will be a hard sell for more casual gamers.
Yeah, I paid NZ$100 for Sonic & Knuckles back in the day, which is about ?40, and borrowed Sonic 3 from a friend.
But, surely it is a lot cheaper in 2010 to develop a 2D Sonic game? The developers aren’t constrained by the limitations of the Megadrive’s hardware, so optimisation is not the concern it once was. Development tools have made huge leaps forward as well.
I wonder how many episodes Sega plans to pump out? It will take about two episodes to reach the length of Sonic 3, four to reach the length of the complete Sonic 3 & Knuckles. That’s almost the price of a full 3D new release game right there. I appreciate the attention to reviving 2D Sonic, but I find the idea of drip feeding episodes at the same price as full Xbox Live Arcade games questionable. Is this form of distribution in the consumer’s best interests?
1200 MSP?? Balking at the price here. If it were 800, that’d be fair. 1200 is just too expensive for what will take me maybe 30 minutes to complete.
Probably still going to buy it though.
Hopefully there will be lots of replay incentives. Challenging achievements, time attack missions, and whatnot.
I’ll still buy it as well, but that’s because I’m a huge fan of 2D Sonic, not because it’s value for money.
I bought Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1. I haven’t quite finished it yet, but so far the game is a disappointment. The controls and physics are similar to the Sonic Advance/Rush games, but Dimps have done nothing to improve the game flow to make it more momentum based. The same problems that have plagued the Sonic series for years haven’t been resolved, including numerous death pits that are nearly impossible to avoid if you don’t know the layout of the level. So much for listening to fan feedback. 
The levels and enemies are based on five zones from Sonic 1 and 2 (Green Hill, Casino Night, Labyrinth, Metropolis, and Death Egg) to the point of ripping them off. No doubt that was the intention, but the result is that the game feels recycled, as if they’d run out of ideas. I’m up to the final stage which rehashes all of the bosses to pad out the length of the game.
Unlike Sonic 3 and Knuckles, there’s no in game story telling. The music is a step backwards too.
On the plus side, Sonic 4 is nice to look at graphically, but that’s a given. It does give the player the sensation of speed. There seems to be a decent amount of replay value with the special stages and achievements, and Acts are unique enough to be considered separate levels in their own right. But I honestly can’t recommend the purchase, even to Sonic fans, due to the flaws mentioned above. You’d be better off spending your money on Rocket Knight, a much better old school sequel that was a genuine effort to move that series forward.
Really Solo? I waited 16 years for THAT? My life sucks.
The main problem is the homing attack, as it breaks whatever momentum based flow you’ve built up manually. It feels like Sonic is propelled along a set path and merely has to use the homing attack at the right moments to maintain that momentum. I don’t like the way that control over Sonic’s movement is taken away from the player to this extent.
If you’re platform jumping, pressing jump a second time will automatically make Sonic lurch to the side even if there is nothing to lock onto, so you have to be careful not to perform multiple jumps too quickly. It can get unnecessarily frustrating in later levels where a false move can cause Sonic to fall to his death.
I wouldn’t call it a terrible game. The Sonic Advance games were fun in their own way. But it’s not worthy of the title “Sonic the Hedgehog 4”, especially as it’s essentially a remix of older titles rather than a game which moves the series forward. Download the demo, it’s worth a try.
This what what gave S3&K that extra tier of awesomeness…
I’m buying a 360 on saturday, i’ll still check the game out nevertheless
A sweet looking fan remake of Sonic 2 will be getting a demo release next week. Announcement and some screenshots here. And here is the video if you missed it. I like how this looks much more than Sonic 4. I mean visually since I have played neither. It just looks so good, it’s a very fine reimagining of 2’s visuals. Sonic 4 to me always looked bland and sterile, some elements reminded me of early 90s 3D FMV…
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/4258/wowph.jpg http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/974/wow2j.jpg
Looks really good. Thanks for sharing, Alex. Although with the amount of changes that have been made, I wonder why the developer hasn’t made a whole new game instead of a remake of Sonic 2.
Maybe with all the effort, he didn’t want to risk new level designs? (that may not work). He probably decided to play it safe by keeping a game everybody likes and ramping up the graphics.
Looks great tho
Gamespot have reviewed Sonic 4: Episode 1:
gamespot.com/xbox360/action/ … eview.html
The review nicely sums up a lot of the problems with Sonic 4, although I disagree with the point about the homing attack being a welcome addition. Also, the boss battles are reminiscent of Sonic 1 and 2, not just the first game as the review claims. Otherwise, it’s an accurate summary of Sonic 4’s problems.
Another less critical problem that I noticed last night is the way Sonic 4 handles high scores. Everything is a manual process. Before you begin a stage you have to select whether you’re going for a high score or best time. These scores and times then have to be uploaded to the leaderboards manually for each stage. It doesn’t seem very well thought out when most games handle leaderboards automatically.
Does Sonic Colors look like it’s shaping up well, as well?
I dunno but NGamer gave it 86% when they gave Unleashed less than 60%. They likened it to Mario Galaxy’s creativity, hopefully that’s an indication. The graphics engine looks superb but that’s with most Sonic games anyway, good and bad, so, I guess we gotta wait. All I’ve seen is early level videos which don’t look special in gameplay but at least the power ups like the drill look like a nice addition unlike other mechanics they have tried in the past. Still, I think the homing attack takes a lot from the gameplay as usual and makes it just a case of tapping buttons to go through enemies and other setpieces.
I don’t think I’ll get it unless it turns out spectacular, the Wii’s home to many great platformers and even more coming, like Kirby and Donkey Kong Country Returns which are similar character revivals but much more likely to be great (watch recent videos).
Here are a few videos of early levels. It shows potential but there seem to be too many control free segments so it looks like a chain of QTEs. And they know it I guess, because often the camera zooms in ways that you can’t see anything much ahead of you showing control at that point is unimportant or nonexistent. Hopefully there’s less of that later on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMLrpnjwyTU)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuUyfRbXO9c)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDwm_I1_VM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jsNkEzNU8w)
This Sonic 2 remakes looks pretty awesome. Somehow I forgot Sonic 4 is out yet, I have too hook up my 360 again to play it.
Those Sonic 2 remake shots are gorgeous. That’s more along the lines of what I was expecting from Sonic 4 =\
Still, I should probably download and play it before I pass any final judgements.