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Sonic making 2D, HD return in 2010

It seems that Sega is gearing up to launch an all new 2D high definition Sonic game sometime in the 2010. Currently, the game is codenamed Project Needlemouse and Sega has released the above trailer showcasing said game.

GameSpot sat down with associate brang manager of Sega America, Ken Allough, who commented on the game:

Old-school Sonic fans have long asked to see Sonic return to a more 2D style of gameplay. Many liked the daytime stages in Unleashed, but wanted to see a game that plays purely similar to the early games of the Genesis. Project Needlemouse is that critical first step that brings Sonic back to his 2D roots.

So folks, tease yourself with the above teaser trailer and then wait from Project Needlemouse’s impending 2010 release.

Sonic The Hedgehog Game Review–Sega, How Do You Sleep At Night?

Sometimes I wonder how Sega sleeps at night.

And then I realize it’s probably on huge piles of money.

This is the inescapable conclusion I reached after playing Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360. Looking back at that sentence I still can’t believe I typed it without having an embolism or something. Yes, I played Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 and I’m still alive to tell the tale. Yes, I’m also amazed by this.

Because once again, good old Doctor Eggman (whom I can’t stop thinking of as Robotnik for some reason) is back for more action with far more robotic minions than he should have (where is he getting the materials for all these robots, anyway?), to this time harass the citizenry of Soleanna, steal their princess, and attempt to seize something called the Flames of Disaster. This continues on for some time, with Sonic grappling with Eggman’s robotic hordes, until eventually Sonic’s counterparts Shadow and Silver get involved and the whole mess gets even more ludicrous.

While the plotline is so sufficiently convoluted as to be unrecognizable without a score card handy, there will be plenty of problems with this game. One, they built a Sonic game around this, which means you will spend a lot of time running around collecting rings. A LOT of time running around collecting rings. That’s sadly most of what Sonic does, and you’ll be playing Sonic a good chunk of the time. The controls will be woefully inadequate, and you’ll spend more than a little time trying to stick a jump or angle your fall correctly.

The first mission does a fantastic job of illustrating just how lousy this game is. See, in order to reach the first full level, you’ll have to have a special move that allows you to run along a string of rings. To get that special move, you’ll have to roam around town until you find a man who needs a pair of shoes tested. Once you test those shoes, you’ll then be allowed to PURCHASE the special move that allows you to reach the first stage.

Seriously, what’s the deal with that? It’s like they were trying to artificially pad the game in order to make it less like a complete joke. Believe me, I was getting REALLY sick of trying to get people’s permission to go on to the next stage. And the next stage wasn’t really all that fun either, so more and more, trying to save Soleanna and its princess seemed less like an epic adventure and more like a lousy day job.

Even worse are some of the game elements—for instance, playing as Sonic and carrying the princess with you allows you, somehow, to access some kind of force field. Carrying the princess of Soleanna around in your arms allows you to generate energy sufficient to deflect objects. Is she some kind of dynamo? A mutant, perhaps? Spending a little too much time near the large hadron collider in her hometown? Or just really craptacular Sonic setup? I’m going with the craptacular, myself.

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin is how, as you’ve probably heard, Sonic and the princess will be carrying on a quasi-romantic relationship, despite the fact that she’s a human being and he’s an anthropomorphic hedgehog. When asked about it, the princess’ voice actress Lacey Chabert gave us this little gem: “Ha! No, you’re just being silly. It’s not an inappropriate relationship. Let’s just say Sonic and Princess Elise have an attraction for each other.” Um…Lacey…that would be exactly the problem. The human being is attracted to the anthropomorphic hedgehog.

That’s bestiality. The textbook definition, in fact.

This is just sad, really—unless you’re absolutely desperate for a Sonic game, you can do vastly, VASTLY better than this.

Sonic Unleashed Game Review–A Good Try That Just Doesn’t Hit

I’ve got to hand it to Sega, I really do—they’re trying.  While their efforts aren’t always successful, they’re at least taking a run at things, and that says a lot for them.  And their recent release, Sonic Unleashed for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii, shows that they’re at least making an effort.

Again, not always successful, but again, an effort.

So once again, in Sonic Unleashed, Sonic is taking on his old nemesis Eggman, who must have some really deep pockets because this time he’s managed to assemble an entire deep space fleet of heavily armed attack ships to go after Sonic.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long for Sonic to turn them into hulls with massive holes in them venting atmosphere into the big empty that is space.  But the gigantic space fleet was just a gigantic distraction, as Eggman uses Sonic’s presence, and the Chaos Emeralds that power Sonic these days, to charge a weapon that manages to shatter the planet below and yet NOT kill everyone on the surface.  But this incredibly unlikely event also releases a beast known as Dark Gaia, whose power Eggman covets for his own to construct his dream empire, Eggman Land.  This in turn launches Sonic and friends into a whole new globe-spanning adventure in a bid to, once again, defeat Eggman and return Dark Gaia to its prison.

This is a whole lot of storyline, and you’ll be seeing it build throughout the game through lots and lots and lots of talking.  Occasionally, you will be allowed to participate in action sequences, but these action sequences almost feel as if they KNOW they’re being ignored, so they try to pack as much as possible into themselves.  It’s a lot like that old Mad TV sketch—I’m pretty sure it was Mad TV—where the divorced father gets custody of his son for only a few short minutes every six months, so he tries to do everything possible while in the confines of the small apartment he calls home.  There’s an impromptu birthday party, he teaches him to shave, and so on right down the line.  That’s what Sonic Unleashed feels like—you’re with your boring chatty mother three hundred sixty four and ninety-four / ninety-sixths days of the year, so when you’re with Dad, suddenly it’s a frenzy of activity before Mom takes you back.

Your head is left spinning by the sheer speed of Sonic’s daytime mode, and at night, as part of a weird unintended consequence, Sonic turns into a “werehog”, which is much large and musclebound than the original hedgehog, but also much slower, so these sequences are largely brawler action.  Also, you’ll get to ride on the back of Tails’ plane, the Tornado, and work the guns in a largely unimpressive button mashing sequence made all the more frustrating by the fact that you’re required to press buttons that appear on-screen, but generally won’t appear until it’s ALMOST too late to do anything about it.  So unless you couldn’t get enough of playing Dance Dance Revolution with your controller, you’ll hate these sequences.

And that’s the really sad part about this—I did have a lot of fun during the “dad’s time” action sequences, but I found myself so neck-deep in “mom”’s ridiculous chatting that I just got bored with this game.  If you can stomach a whole lot of chit-chat and like some pretty sweet action sequences, then Sonic Unleashed should be at least worth a rental for you.

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection–The Most Ultimate Yet…For Now.

When you’ve been gaming for a few years, you start to get used to seeing the same thing done over and over again with varying levels of success.  One of these terribly familiar tropes is the game collection game, essentially where a studio takes a large quantity of its earlier releases and bundles them together into one larger collection.  Namco’s done this several times, as has Capcom, but quite possibly the most frequent repackager is Sega.

And now, Sega brings us Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection on both PS3 and Xbox 360.

When they say “Ultimate”, I’m relatively sure they mean it.  How can I tell?  Check out the list:   Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Alien Storm, Alien Syndrome, Altered Beast, Beyond Oasis, Bonanza Bros, Columns, Comix Zone, Congo Bongo, Decap Attack, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Dynamite Headdy, ESWAT: City Under Siege, Ecco the Dolphin, Ecco: The Tides of Time, Fantasy Zone, Fatal Labyrinth, Flicky, Gain Ground, Golden Axe, Golden Axe II, Golden Axe III, Golden Axe Warrior,  Kid Chameleon, Phantasy Star, Phantasy Star II, Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom,  Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium, Ristar, Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing, Shinobi, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Space Harrier, Streets of Rage, Streets of Rage 2, Streets of Rage 3,  Super Thunder Blade, Vectorman,  Vectorman 2 and  Zaxxon.

This constitutes the single biggest list of Sega games that I’ve seen in one place outside of an Electronics Boutique in 1995.  Seriously, there’s something here for everybody.  The down side, of course, is that many of these games are games you’ve already played on other “ultimate Sega collections”.  By the time we get to the next generation of gaming, there will likely be another “ultimate Sega collection”, and maybe, just maybe, it will finally have Splatterhouse.  But then, I’m looking forward to the remake too, so maybe that means I’m just weird.

You can tell from the list that there are plenty of opportunities for fun here, whether you just like a quick casual beat-em-up like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe, or if you like a deeper RPG, there’s plenty of those too, just not with all the amazing graphics that we’re all so used to since Square-Enix pretty much refused to release a game without them.  The sheer versatility of the disk makes it well worth it to spend a little time with it—you could probably go for a couple weeks straight just sampling all the games.  Plus, if you’re an old school gamer like myself, you’re probably already neck-deep in a reminisce about the first time you played some of this stuff, or the first time you took on your friends in two-player, or maybe the time you got your girlfriend hooked on Sonic.  Possibilities all, and possibilities well remembered.

As an aside, it’s also very interesting to see the differences in gaming technology and perception on an anthropological level–used to be, you’d save your money for weeks to buy Streets of Rage.  Now you can play similar games online for free; they’re called “casual” games now.  What a difference a decade makes, huh?

Leaving aside the fact that this game is probably a horrible buy, because you’ve already bought one or two “Ultimate Sega Collections”, there’s a lot of reason to like it, even if you only just rent it.  There’s just too many fun things to do with this disk to turn it down outright.

Sega: Sonic Criticism Warranted

Speaking to GameDaily, Sega of America VP of marketing Sean Ratcliffe admitted that criticism towards recent Sonic the Hedgehog titles was not without met.

“Some of that criticism is probably warranted,” he said. “We definitely recognize that a franchise that has been going as long as Sonic, you really have to put a huge amount of effort in to make sure that you maintain that quality, and arguably a disproportionate amount of effort.”

He noted that the company is taking steps to ensure quality installments in the franchise, citing the upcoming DS RPG Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood as an example.

“We can’t just stand still with Sonic; we’ve got to be looking at different ways to develop the character, different genres, and so on… If you’re going to put Sonic in his first RPG experience, who do you go to? Bioware, the world leader in making RPGs,” Ratcliffe said.

He also talks about Sonic Unleashed, the upcoming game in the franchise, saying that they’ve got a new engine and a “nice innovative” twist. That game is due out later this year.