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New 2D, HD Sonic Game Coming In 2010
Anonymouse writes "Sonic the Hedgehog is going back to his roots, but with a fresh coat of HD paint. 'An all-new 2D side-scrolling High Definition Sonic game is coming with a 2010 release date, according to a new teaser trailer from Sega.' Sega's Ken Ballough had this to say: '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.'"
About time Sonic came to Linux!
A chance at a _good_ sonic game since the genesis.
Before you get your hopes up, I would like to direct your attention to what is called the Sonic Cycle.
It would be nice to buy a new sonic game that doesn,t suck. Some of the best times I had growing up was playing Sonic and Knuckles with my dad. It would be cool to be able to do that with my children.
I always thought Sonic's transition to 3d was much less graceful than say, Mario's. Maybe it was the high speed and the weird feel of the Dreamcast controller that made me feel like I was influencing Sonic's motions, not controlling them.
The more I learn about Windows the more I am surprised it runs at all
-Every character except Sonic, Tales, and Knuckles
-Clumsy, overbearing storyline
-Rail grinding
-Furries
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Most of the 2D Xbox live/PSN HD remake games have been about $9.99-$19.99 which is fairly reasonable.
If this came out for PC I would be happy.
This is Sega making a Sonic game in the 21st century. You just KNOW they're going to find some way to fuck it up. It's company policy.
If they let fans down with this one, it'll be the end of the brand, for sure. Sega cannot afford that. After all the recent letdowns, this looks promising seeing as (they say) they're looking to emulate the "old skool" Sonic feel. Play control is a must, and creativity as well. True to the Sonic Cycle, my hopes are up, but I'm not going to pass solid judgment until I know a lot more.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
from http://www.needlemouse.com/
You've found our Needlemouse project! Congratulations!
You may think you're looking at a sample of the upcoming Sega game, which according to recent speculation is called Project Needlemouse. What you've stumbled on is actually a fan-created game that weâ(TM)ve been calling Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills since we began working on it a few months ago.
oh well.
Trine is a "2d" side-scroller, but makes beautiful use of pixel & vertex shaders, along with fun gameplay.
I haven't remembered a SEGA game being fun in ages (aka Dreamcast days)
I don't think this will work out exactly the best because you just know some higher up douche is going to pressure them into adding something complex, flashy, and "modern." It's like developers aren't allowed to make simple, awesome games anymore unless they're making them in flash online or something. They'll probably end up giving him a rail gun or letting him pull out a laptop and blog in the middle of a level or something idiotic like that. I want my damn simple sonic, damn it!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Hmm, first xkcd roll I've ever seen... it's an xkcdroll troll!
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Well if there is a sonic cycle or not, I still got my hopes up. Why? Because I am a positive person. Like it or not but they made good Sonic games. They were on Genesis but there were there. So they should be able to make a good Sonic game again. After 10 years of sucky Sonic games (with an exceptions of Sonic Adventure) they had enough time to think about it.
When it's released, I'll look for reviews and screens, and if it's released for the PC, I'll probably buy it.
12 hours? I recall them talking about 3 hours with Unleashed which is why they added those werehog filler levels.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
There has been a load of 2d sonics, but they were only released on the handheld consoles, needless to say they were quite good.
We can't be sure this'll be a downloadable game.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
$60 for a good game. Who cares if it's 2D or 3D? Or if it takes 12 hours or 120 hours?
If your definition of a good game is being 3D and taking forever to complete, then I have a copy of Superman 64 I'd like to sell you.
The Coca-Cola Classic of video games. When you've got a great formula, don't go changing it.
"Who modded this informative? Whoever it is must've been smokin' some of that martian pot!"
How to they measure these magic "hours" that all game reviews talk about? What is the definition?
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
I think they use a clock or maybe a watch. An hour is a unit of measurement of time it's 3600 seconds last time I looked.
I agree. If we used the current high end 3D games that require the most advanced graphics cards and systems then the simple games found at PopCap and other places would not be so damn popular and addictive. A good game is a good game.
Arctic Turtle
I doubt it.
One of the interesting factors I've found with Sonic is any time Sega uses the word "Adventure" in any sonic game, the quality goes towards the crapper.
For example, Sonic Rush was pretty good. although it added another friend, but Sonic Rush Adventure was a useless grindfest that made you play stages over and over and over. nowhere near the first Rush.
Also in original games, the word Adventure is almost never found. It's nowhere on Sonic 1 or 2 either on the box art of the manuals. It's on Sonic CD's box art but thats probably why the boss battles were so easy, and it's on Sonic 3's book and Sonic and Knuckes's book and box art, but they both sucked on their own unless you locked on (more like Glued on when it came to my copy) Sonic 3 and S&K.
Considering that the first trailer for this 2D game already says adventure in it, I'm not keeping my hopes up.
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Hmm. I would love to meet a cute black girl named Ivory. It would be ironic, and amusing.
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I think its an average calculation based on the beta testers.
Personally when playing a 40 hour RPG it usually becomes a 100+ game as I am one of those people that has to get 100% completion. But i know people who just rush through and beat the 40 hour game in 6-10.
But platformers, even if I'm going slow are usually no more than 6 hours. This game better be $20 or less with good replay value. I replayed Sonic 1,2,3 and S&K hundreds of times. But I know replay value is not big on programmers minds anymore.
What kind of crappy trailer was that? Text on a website would've sufficed. I mean, if you got nothin' to show...
Also, apparently I have the complete opposite reaction than a lot of you. The 2D Sonic games are really boring and dated, yet the original Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast was by far one of the best games of its time. Seeing as it's the only 3D Sonic game I've played though, I can't really vouche for anything further.
The real issue is that there hasn't been a good SONIC game for over a decade. And by that it isn't allegiance to the character but the playstyle: large 2D maps with many many routes that are more fun to play when going fast but proportionately more perilous.
Let's face it, transitioning a classic non-RPG game to 3D requires supporting game mechanics to change dramatically. Compare games that jumped between 2D and 3D: Ninja Gaiden, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Prince of Persia. All of them keep familiar elements to continue to feel like part of the franchise (which I'd argue is a bad and constraining thing) but ultimately require more subdued game play due to complexity. If you deny that they require a different way to think about games, look at Lemmings 3D, Blaster Master Blasting Again, or every Sonic game after Sonic 3D Blast, inclusively. It's more than just adding a Z axis.
Sonic to date has been about playing to furry fantasies and adding characters taking a cue from Sanrio's Hello Kitty to give it some faux richness and complexity and moving to 3D just to compete in the screenshot arena when the game is not ready for it and really is just about going fast and smashing up creative mechanical bosses.
More Twoson than Cupertino
We'll see if it is actually faithful to the original Sonic or if it ends up being more like the crap, Sonic Rush on the DS. Excluding the frustrating boss fights, the game was completely 2D. The sense of speed was present, but the stages were poorly designed with all sorts of traps, obstacles and falls to constantly trip up a player. The game was constant trial and error trying to figure how to get past sections. But even worse, pacing was awful. The game encouraged, even required high speeds but then would throw obstacles in your way that would disrupt movement and usually kill you. The rest of the game wasn't much better; having to replay stages and the embarrassingly bad story in particular. The game got better ratings that it deserved, I think mainly because people were turned on by more traditional gameplay and every other Sonic game excluding the originals was so atrocious.
It could be argued that Sonic, the original, didn't quite have the personality and charm of the Super Mario Bros series. It could also be argued that it didn't quite have the depth of those games. But for what it did it was great. The sense of speed could be exhilarating; there haven't been many platform games with that sense of speed. And every stage was well designed, with the appropriate pace for each stage established right at the start.
While I'd like Sega to hark back to the original as much as possible, I also want to see some level of evolution. Unfortunately, given Sega's history with the Sonic series I don't expect anything good outside of them just remaking the original.
I still prefer Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games in 2D (and Castlevania while we're at it).
For a good look at a modern 2D platformer running on a 3D engine to good effect, see Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? on the PSP. It's also a good example for replayability, appropriate difficulty levels, and length.
I would probably buy this Sonic game as long as it turns out to be what they're promising, rather than just another crappy post-Genesis Sonic game. The 3D games have not been able to capture anything that made the original enjoyable and distinct from its peers.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I could beat the original Super Mario Bros. in about 30 minutes, while others can apparently do it in about 5 minutes. I'd still buy a good remake or reworking of the game for $40-50 (ie New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii), because I still enjoyed the game after beating it several times.
That being said, I don't take much risk when it comes to games at $60. $50 is pretty much the upper limit of my willingness to assume any level of risk,and even then it's stretching things, since I can usually find games I know I'll enjoy cheaper than that.
The time I would like a game to take to complete depends entirely on the game, though. Platformers and side-scrolling (or top-down) shooters I can usually accept at a pretty low play time because they're often repayable and entertaining (both of which have been noticeably absent from their 3D brethren). That being said, I expect the developers to spend the time they otherwise would have spent on content development tweaking the gameplay. If they crank out the content and dump the game on the masses and it has no polish, it deserves to be in the bargain bin with the rest of the $5-20 games, or sitting on the download services.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Lasting 12 hours and taking 12 hours to complete are not the same thing. I've played lots of flash games that I'd consider to be good, but which I've completed in under half an hour and which don't have much replay value. I would consider a game like that to be worth less than a game which is as enjoyable while I play it, but which remains that enjoyable for 12 hours.
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The time to consider shouldn't be the time to beat but the time to disinterest. If you lose interest exactly at the credits, well, that's fine but I found that usually the interest had a different length than the game itself.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Face it, those old games weren't that great. Take of your nostalgia glasses and realize they were ok for being on a a system that came out 19 years ago. When you were 10 years old they seemed pretty ok. You have to realize a entire game consisting of holding down the right directional pad for an hour to win is hardly the stuff of the ages.
Actually there have been good Sonic games, just not on the consoles. Not sure if people aren't aware, aren't counting the DS, or forgot, but yeah. The Sonic Rush games on the DS are everything I wanted from Sonic and I was quite happy with them.
:p
Just thought that warranted pointing out. Seems a bit dismissive to say there haven't been ANY good Sonic games. If you're talking about the console versions, just say so.
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If you didn't like even one of the 3D Sonic games, then the problem is not with Sonic; it's with you. You're hard to please and won't take anything else than the exact 2D gameplay of the early 90s.
For some reason when I opened the link and the trailer started loading up, I started feeling sick to my stomach and just closed that tab. I'll just wait to see it when it comes out. I don't want this to be drawn out any longer than it has to. Yes, it does sound too good to be true. I just don't have any strength left to hold out hope for another good Sonic game. Please make it as good as Sonic CD.
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