Oh, Sonic Team, what have you done?  There used to be a time when I looked forward to seeing a certain little blue hedgehog racing across my TV screen.  My ears were fond of that little ?bling? noise for every ring picked up.  And my hands twitched at the thought of every button on the controller making my hedgehog jump.  Alas, those days are gone.

A couple of months ago, I had the misfortune of trying out the Sonic the Hedgehog demo for the Xbox 360, the newest title thrown into the slew of 3D Sonic games.  Of course, every game has a catch, and this one was that the game was supposedly going back to the basics ? platform / exploration based gameplay, juggled in with enemies, bosses, and of course, pure speed.  But as is seemingly the new norm with games based in the Sonic universe, I was treated to a game with lousy sound work, questionable graphics, and touchy controls, where accidental deaths are apparently part of the experience.  Granted, the demo I played was not supposed to reflect the final quality of the game, but judging from some of the reviews I?ve seen for the game thus far, I am not in a minority in my distaste for the game.

I?m sure some of you are thinking to yourselves at this point, ?Who cares about Sonic the Hedgehog??  Well, I do.  I grew up when Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario were constantly dueling.  Mario was well-established, and had huge games.  Sonic was the cool new kid, with unparalleled speed.  I liked them both, and to me, the competition between Sega and Nintendo seemed to make each of their software teams put all the little extra touches they could into their first party games, in order to better sell their respective systems.

I played the hell out of those games.  I loved the Sonic series, from plain old Sonic the Hedgehog (the one that came packed in with the Sega Genesis) all the way up to Sonic & Knuckles.  The simplicity of the gameplay, the creative graphics, and the memorable music and sound effects all just worked.

Skip ahead a decade and a half, and what has Sonic Team done to the series since the original?  To their credit, the graphics have taken a turn for the better.  Despite the occasional glitch here and there, the Sonic games of today run blindingly fast, are colorful, and usually detailed.  Aside from the visual treats, the rest is trash.  Unmemorable, generic techno music in the background.  Lame sound effects.  Enemies that are not engaging.  Controls that make Sonic go from standing to running with an immeasurably small amount of movement on the analog stick.  Strange characters that look kind of like Sonic, but not really.  And weird ?special moves? that make you fly all over, mid-air.

Sonic Team / Sega are ruining their most famous mascot.  I know they can do better than this.  They need to take a breather, look back at what made the old Sonic games good, and come up with something better than this generic, on-rails, pseudo platformer.  I wouldn?t even mind if they just remade the old games with a 3D platformer engine?  If that?s what it takes to get this series back on track, then so be it.  I?d much rather see that than have my beloved Hedgehog fall by the wayside because, despite the power of the systems his games are released on, and how much time is spent on said games, his games stink.

Oh well?  here?s hoping for next time.  If history repeats itself, however, I will anxiously download and try out the new Sonic demo months / years from now, only to be yet again disappointed.  Anyway, I think I hear a game of Gears of War calling me from my living room.  Maybe chainsawing a few people online will cheer me up, heh heh.

Thanks for reading!

True, you're definitely not alone on this one. I remember way back when my brother bought a brand-spanking new Sega Genesis for $200 (Hehe, I thought that was SO much too) and it came with Sonic 2. I loved the game, personally, and wound up playing the first, and Sonic and Knuckles as well. I loved the games, and I loved how they were a great platform experience, fun and with beautiful graphics and animation... and weren't just a rip-off of Mario games. I also liked tails, and how you played with him, but couldn't really control him. Haha, you could always just run around and he'd try to keep up, running into spikes and monsters, but never ever really dying, always flying back to join you :P

Hehe, yeah I enjoyed the introduction of Tails, as well as Knuckles.  I don't know why, and I can't quite put my finger on why, but most of the characters they added after that just seem...  cheap.

Lol, soon ogmo from jumper will be like this, but with a gun!

I also really liked the Genesis (Mega Drive) Sonic games. The graphics and sound were great, and the code mostly solid. I recently borrowed Sonic Adventure 1, 2 and 3 for the Gamecube from my friend, and I'll be frank... they sucked. The production quality of the Sonic games since the Genesis and Saturn days seems to have rapidly decreased.

The thing I never really liked with the Sonic games, though, is that they encourage speed but at the same time punish it (running into spikes, enemies or pits with little time to notice them).

the best thing about tails was that player 2 could in fact control him.  this was many people's first experience with co-op gaming.
hell of an awesome inclusion for the game.

sonic games have gone downhill because the creative visionaries behind the best of the series have been long gone.

i've never been too ga ga over the sonic games, but i do respect them a ton.  they used to be gorgeous (visually and aurally), wonderfully cohesive, and lovingly crafted.  they just don't gel with my play style - i'm more of an adventurous, exploration driven mindset.  the abundance of seemingly unavoidable and cheap deaths doesn't help, either.

the wii version slated for next year looks to be an intelligent compromise.  the ultimate verdict is still out, but from what's been shown and discussed, it looks like they're making a genuine effort to translate the 2d gameplay into a 3d environment.  basically, sonic is literally locked on a fixed spline path, where the player simply strafes him left/right and jumps to avoid danger (the camera is splined, too, so you don't need to worry about controlling it or it getting in the way).  this really puts it in line with the 2d games in the series.  in those games, you basically held forward and reacted to dangers as they flew on screen (yeah, i know there's a bit more to it, but in a nut shell that's the gameplay).  so, this new formula might just be able to replicate that high-speed, reactionary, adrenaline-charged gaming nicely.

fingers crossed.

My thoughts exactly, I also played the 360 demo and was completely disappointed that it didn't have any of the classic Sonic that I have been used to, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble on the Game gear, those were a big part of my younger youth. I'm even quite disappointed in the ones for GBA, it just isn't the same.

just got a new issue of play magazine, which has a review of the new sonic on 360/ps3.

the editor, dave halverson, scored it a 9.5 and says,

"the best sonic game ever, hands down, 2d or otherwise."

riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.  we'll see if anyone else agrees with him  ;)

IGN doesn't that's for sure.   ::)

to be honest, i bet that dave halverson of play magazine ends up being the only journalist that scores it over a 6 or 7.
the guy is absolutely ga-ga for anything platformer.  he has a history of bloating scores for action platform games.
i view this as a very positive thing, however.  he never follows game journalist trends like most others do.  there's a tendency to feed off of eachothers' reviews and opinions in that canabalistic "industry".  i have a good amount of respect for halverson (and the rest of the play staff) because they never ever go with the flow.  they stamp their own true feelings onto the pages of their mags.  i rarely ever agree with any of their opinions at all.  but, that doesn't matter.  i'm glad that i don't agree.  it gives me a different perspective, and also lets me know that they are being genuinely honest in their own feelings toward a game.