A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged sonic
Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii)
Mar 1st
First impressions, then.
Short version: it’s good, really quite good.
Long version: read on.
It takes a while. It jumps into a six-hour (approx. figure) cut scene before letting you play and when you do… oh, it’s not too good. After Excite Truck it feels slow, clunky and just weighted all wrong. Sonic starts off very slowly and only gets up to high speeds after a good long time and only if you don’t hit any obstacles, which you do. There are a lot tutorial levels and, really, I felt like I’d wasted my £27.99 while playing them.
Then the first level proper starts and everything you learned actually becomes useful. You start to level up and get new powers, such as increased acceleration. There are twists on different levels, such as having to avoid breaking jars. (No, really.) There are different collectables and medals to get hold of, giving the promise of replayability. Speed boosts help keep things moving. And it doesn’t hurt that it looks absolutely lovely.
Gradually, like Sonic’s initial acceleration, it grew on me. It hasn’t yet reached the heights of excitement that Excite Truck gives you from the first second. Oddly for a Sonic game it feels slightly more deliberate than that and it relies even more on the memorisation of stages. Sometimes you can get caught up against an obstacle and it grinds to a halt. But that’s your fault and the game is genuinely good fun and addictive – I kept failing a level in Dinosaur Jungle today and never once felt like giving up, I always wanted to beat it.
It’s a genuinely, actually, shockingly good 3D Sonic game.
But, Lord, I miss Chao Garden.
Sonic Rivals (PSP)
Feb 11th
It’s a tragedy really. The only reason this has got any attention from anyone – including myself – is that it’s a Sonic game that isn’t completely awful. It’s not a bad game, but it’s not really very good, either. In a proper world this would be the worst Sonic game in ages, not the best.
Sonic The Hedgehog Demo (360)
Oct 5th
I tried this again to see if I was being too hard on it before.
I wasn’t.
Sonic The Hedgehog Demo (360)
Oct 3rd
No, I’ve not played it again, but I’ve written something I think begins to sum up how bad it is -
Imagine you get into work to find your boss at the door with a cardboard box of your belongings telling you to go home. Forever. So you walk home in the rain, stepping on dogshit twice on the way. On your doormat is a letter from the bank saying they’ve discovered errors in your account dating back twelve years and you owe them $57,583.10, payable immediately. Annoyed, you kick the cat, which lands at an awkward ankle and breaks its neck. It’s yelping in pain and confusion, trying the drag itself across the floor by its chin, so you put it out of its misery with a heavy book. Just then the doorbell rings and it’s your wife’s parents come to collect the book they lent you. Which you’re holding in your hands. Covered in cat brains. And an eyeball. With a dead cat lying on the hallway carpet behind you. They turn in disgust and leave, their Volvo running over your prize-winning flowers in their haste to exit your driveway. Then you go upstairs to find your wife to tell her about your day and find she’s been brutally murdered. Her brains – looking not unlike the cat’s – are spread all over your bed. You call the police and they arrest you and beat you in the cells and feed you food they’ve all pissed in, but by mid-evening come to the conclusion that you’re not a murderer and it was all the work of a gang of seventeen men she had been sleeping with every day for several months while you were at work. The police therefore simply charge you with animal cruelty and release you on bail. You get home to find you’ve been burgled because the police investigators left your front door open. All that’s left is your TV and Xbox 360. And a tightly coiled turd in the middle of your living room floor. So you sit down on the floor, away from the turd, download the Sonic demo and play it and it’s the worst thing that’s happened to you all day. That’s how bad it is.
Sonic The Hedgehog Demo (360)
Sep 27th
The worst thing I’ve played in months.
Absolutely, utterly awful.
Either the camera and controls get a total overhaul before release, or this is going to be one of the worst games of all time.
No, really. It’s horrific.
Sonic Pinball Party
Apr 10th
Was bored at lunchtime, so pulled my Micro out of my pocket and this was the game in it. Played the NiGHTS table for ages and ages and ages and scored a massive 42,000,000 points, which I thought must be a good score until it showed me the high score, the lowest score on which is 56,000,000. Oh.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Mar 29th
The music’s right, too. Which is very good. No sound effects, mind.
And I’ve got to the end of Green Hill Zone now, but the pathetically easy boss killed me. D’oh.
It really is a fantastic achievement this game and it looks absolutely wonderful. It’s just a pity that there’s a better version from fifteen years ago to compare it to.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Mar 29th
It’s come out on mobile phones now. A surprisingly faithful conversion. Controls aren’t as good as on a proper gaming device, obviously, but they’re far better than I expected them to be. (Using the K750i thumbstick.) It’s nice and fast, too, and seems to have the same level layouts as the Megadrive original, as far as I can remember.
Well, so far. I’ve not got past Green Hill Zone Act 2 yet. As I said, the controls are much better than expected, but aren’t perfect. Having to stop pressing right to press jump is a bit odd.
Sonic Rush
Nov 20th
Zone four finished.
I still have no idea if the game’s any bloody good or not.
I just can’t tell.
Sonic Rush
Nov 20th
Not only do I die because I miss jumps, but it’s so colourful and it moves so fast that I can’t even tell what I actually failed to jump on. I’m just running and the game keeps making me go faster and faster and faster and faster and I can’t see what’s happpening and then I’m falling off the bottom of the level. Again.
I’m getting to old for this shit.
Yes, okay, so you can make a very, very fast Sonic game. Well done. Now how about one that’s actually playable for those of us who haven’t got the reflexes of a bluebottle on speed?
