I just played through the demo of the new Sonic game coming out on the Xbox 360. Whilst the demo was visually impressive, the game looks like it’s going to need quite a bit of work before it’s released.
Sonic’s movements feel far too restricted; any false move that goes against Sonic’s predetermined path will send him falling to his death. At first the speed that Sonic runs at seemed too fast, but after playing the demo for a bit, I realised it wasn’t the speed that was the problem, it was the controls… Sonic will change direction at an unexpected moment when the camera or the “track” that he’s running along changes direction, and often there’s no way of telling how you should change controlling Sonic unless you already know the change is approaching.
At this point I don’t think I’ll be getting the game, unless Sonic Team can make the camera and controls quite a bit better before the final version is released, they’re considerably worse than Heroes at the moment. It’s a shame, because the premise behind the game is a good one: a Sonic game resolving around speeding through levels.
I really don’t want Sega to rush this out. Releasing sub-par games in the full knowledge that the brand name alone will sell them is inexcusable, and I won’t tolerate anyone justifying it.
The game has potential. Now realise that potential Sega.
Well to be fair, Yakuza is actually very good depending on whether you like Streets of Rage-style old-school action on top of suspenseful storytelling.
But that game was delayed until it was ready.
Needless to say, Sega shouldn’t rush out a flagship title like this new Sonic game. They should take their time until it’s perfected. And there’s still plenty of time for both new next gen consoles to build up a userbase, so there’s no hurry.
I’ve always felt that JSRF represents the closest thing to what a Sonic game should be in 3D. At least in the stages where you can grind rails for miles, it’s all about timing the transfers rather than maintaining precision navigation. They should abduct some of the old Smilebit team members to tighten the game up…
I played through this the other day and delete it straight after. It was really bad, in my opinion. It played like cack. Solo summed it up well enough, except I’d say that Sonic doesn’t run fast enough. Does anyone know if this was a level designed for the demo specifically or if it’s actually one from the game?
I thought the demo was great , so much promise is there.
Yes there a few bugs and the lock on needs fixing fast (its all over the shop) but apart from that and the odd clitch here and then I loved it. To me its what a SONIC game is all about SONIC running through stunning looking levels with a great soundtrack inthe back round , and all out action . Played the demo multi times and loved finding the diff routes through the level
This is the best SONIC game I’ve played since Sonic Adv and its reminds me so much of that game (for me the best SONIC with Sonic CD).
I take it this is very early code as the meter on the right side of the screen is never used nor does SONIC ever seem to run at full speed (like he does inthe clips) and more so this seems the same demo as shown off @ E3 and various games shows over the ast few months .
Please don’t rush this out for the joke that is the PS3 launch SEGA. This is shaping up to be the best SONIC game in years . I don’t get the hate, but is seems cool to hate SEGA and SONIC Team of late not matter what they do
I played the demo this afternoon a couple times, and would have to agree with Solo for the most part.
The music was nice, and Sonic himself looked great. But the overall level design was very confusing, and having to constantly reset the camera manually since it doesn’t offer a optimum view half the time is very dissorienting since you will suddenly switch movement direction if you are running.
Many times in the demo I just felt like I was watching instead of playing, with a couple of timed button presses here and there. I played it enough to find a couple of paths which was nice; but in general it is hard to understand the level layout.
I believe the clips where Sonic is running incredibly fast is during something called “Mach Speed” zones, which I assume there were none of in this level since like Team Andromeda said it didn’t seem he reached full speed.
