Game Title: Sonic Generations

Platforms: PC (reviewed) Xbox360, PS3, 3DS.

Price: £19.99 (Steam)

Sonic the Hedgehog has had a rough time. His fall from console shipping mascot to nothing but a husk of his former self has been long and arduous. It was not long ago that Sonic was being dismissed, a prize fighter out of his prime, but things have slowly begun to turn around for the blue hedgehog. It started with Sonic Unleashed, which for the Wii at least proved that the Sonic formula could still work and that there was a little magic still there. Unfortunately the game’s brilliant day time levels also had to share disk space with the infamous werehog, an experiment which Sonic Team are hoping to bury as quickly as possible. What came after was Sonic Colours, a return to form on the part of Sonic but which, whilst being fun, failed to reach the heights of its venerable ancestors. In fact, even now, older Sonic fans remain sceptical as to whether Sonic Team can actually pull off a Sonic game properly. And so it falls to Sonic Generations to prove that our intrepid heroes are finally back on form.

Sonic Generations is an interesting beast. Instead of opting for a Sonic Colours style formula, Sonic Team have instead chosen to introduce a pair of Sonics. Using the ever reliable gimmick of time travel, our ‘modern’ Sonic finds himself sucked back in time, causing a meeting with his former self. Surprisingly enough, despite both characters being the same person, they have significantly different movesets. Modern Sonic retains all the tricks that fans of the series will know, complete with a homing attack that allows him to lock on and attack enemies from the air and a boost that propels him along at frankly terrifying speeds. Classic Sonic lacks these skills, but instead can perform a spin dash attack and later on gains the ability to use the famous shields from Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Each level is then separated into two acts, the first, utilising classic sonic and the second modern.

Unsurprisingly given the theme of time travel, the levels included in the game are redesigned versions of classics from the previous games. The first three are dedicated to the traditional Sonic games, Sonic 1 & 2 and Sonic and Knuckles. The second three are dedicated to the Dreamcast games, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 as well as Sonic Heroes. Finally three levels from the modern incarnation of Sonic are also included, with the awful Sonic 2006 sat alongside Unleashed and Colours.

All in all, the formula works rather well. Classic Sonic stages are 2D and generally focused on pixel perfect platforming where the Modern Sonic stages are much more strongly focused on speed and momentum. The break between the two styles keeps the game fresh and it is almost always interesting to see how Sonic Team have interpreted the second act after going through the first.

The Classic Sonic stages are almost all well designed, with the physics not being quite the same as the Genesis games, but still tight and intuitively designed, this is no Sonic 4. Level design itself in these areas remains varied, but the most important part is that Sega have managed to maintain diversity within the levels themselves. There are multiple paths through each level which crisscross through one another, allowing players with quick reflexes and a sharp mind the ability to go higher and get through the stage faster, as well as with greater rewards. Whilst the desire to play the level as well as you can is sometimes overwhelming, it is a true pleasure to just sit back and explore a level to its fullest. Red coins, which give bonus artwork and music, are positioned for this exact purpose, to encourage the player to take in everything that Sonic Team have thrown at them. A surprise highlight of these stages is Crisis City, a level from Sonic 2006, where I believe that Sonic Team have reached a pinnacle in level design that trumps anything that New Super Mario Bros. has been throwing out. Whilst the level itself seems fairly generic at first, it soon spirals into a platforming battle with a flaming tornado that sees you jumping from car to car as they float in the air, held aloft by the tornado’s fury.

The only real low point of these stages is that Planet Wisp, the final stage, is fairly ludicrous in its length, the entire level pushing around seven minutes on a relatively fast run through. The vast nature of the stage, as well as the somewhat uncontrollable Spikes power up (a quick nod to Sonic Colours) lends itself to frustration as I often found myself lost and wondering when the stage would end, as opposed to wanting to explore it further. That said, this is only a fairly minor gripe when compared to the excellent overall design.

 By comparison, the Modern stages are a lot more variable in their quality. I feel that Sonic Team, have been trying to fix what isn’t broken since feedback came in on Sonic Unleashed. The day stages of Unleashed, roughly analogous to the Modern stages now were considered sloppy and poorly done on the Xbox360 and PS3 versions. However, the Wii version had stages that were created under a different engine and modified for the less powerful hardware. The overall result was what turned out to be a vastly superior game, with daytime stages that were exhilarating and required true skill to excel in. Sonic Colours, in taking feedback from the 360 and PS3 versions, changed the formula, creating a game that wasn’t bad certainly, but often focused on platforming. Simply put, Modern Sonic is not designed for platforming. Modern Sonic will never be good for platforming, what Modern Sonic is good for is speeding around a course like a maniac and relying on quick reactions to get you through on the fastest path. Modern Sonic is more comparable to a racing game than a platformer and when it strays into the latter it suffers. Specifically, precision jumping as Modern Sonic is a nightmare. It's often difficult to judge where the blue hedgehog will land and this is made worse by the homing attack, which allows you to jump farther, but also gives you a burst of speed that often sends you slipping off cliffs. This means that stages that focus on speed, like Rooftop Run, the Unleashed stage, are probably the most fun I’ve had playing a game all year, however, levels like Planet Wisp, which focus on platforming far more, aren’t exactly a chore, but certainly aren’t anywhere near as enjoyable. The result is that Act 2 contains higher peaks and deeper troughs than Act 1, but ultimately, those peaks certainly outweigh any of the troughs.

The Boss battles are as ever a high point in Sonic, with most being exciting and different, but all reliant on the same skillset so that they never become too frustrating. It has never been more satisfying to spin jump Eggman on the head, nor have I found myself looking forward to what the boss will do next quite as much. An exception is the final boss, which whilst being an epic experience is a bit too uncontrollable for my taste, it took me a fair number of tries to discern exactly what I was meant to be doing there, which takes away from the encounter somewhat, especially given how well designed the other bosses are by comparison.

The main campaign in of itself is short. It took me around 10 hours to complete it with S-ranks on every single Act. However, Sonic Generations also provides the player with a number of challenges, similar to the Acts 2 through 6 of the Sonic Colours worlds. These are generally optional, with the game mandating that you do one from each world before the boss, certainly not a trying task. The challenges are fun, often being time trials with weird stipulations or changes in level design. Whilst not being jaw-dropping in a way some of the acts themselves are, they do remain fun diversions and reward the player with artwork or music for their efforts. Further, all boss fights also have hard modes for those who want to revisit the favourite foes. Certainly whilst the main story might be a bit short, Generations is certainly not lacking in content and for those who are completionists the game is set to clock in around thirty hours or so.

Not content with this though, Sonic Team have also implemented online leaderboards for those who want to compete with their friends or random members of the public.

Graphically speaking, the game is incredibly pretty; however, it suffers from a lagging framerate at particularly intense points which takes away somewhat from the sense of speed Sonic is meant to invoke. The sound is as one might expect with a Sonic game, the voice acting being purposefully dire so older fans can have a chuckle and the new music being great at times and always good. The option to play unlocked songs during the stages is also a nice touch, although speeding down the ruins of Crisis City, whilst the Angel Island theme blares might be something you wish to avoid.

The game appears to have been ported to PC fairly well, customising controls is easy, however the lack of a windowed mode is somewhat problematic. However, you are absolutely obligated to have a game controller of some sort, the game being almost unplayable with a keyboard.

All in all, at £20 on PC, Sonic Generations, isn’t quite perfection and isn’t quite at the same level as its Genesis bretheren, however, it is far and away the best Sonic game to have been released since that era. Great value for money, it would make a worthwhile addition to anyone’s gaming collection.

Trumping Adventure and Colours is no mean feat and Sonic Team continue to show flashes of utter brilliance. For the first time in a long time, the future looks bright for our blue friend.

85%

Buy it

At the Eurogamer Expo last week I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to play the latest Super Mario game coming out for Nintendo 3DS. Super Mario 3D Land is in short an attempt by Nintendo to bring the magic of Super Mario Galaxy to your handheld whilst also staying far enough away from the concept so that the game feels fresh as opposed to a poor man’s version of the Wii games.

In a lot of ways Super Mario 3D Land does this admirably. The inclusion of the Tanuki suit is a fun addition to the game and has allowed Nintendo to throw out a marketing campaign based on recreating nostalgic moments from Super Mario 3. This is yet more evident in game where you find Goombas with tails running about as well as a number of blocks situated on the floor, begging for a tail smash. Nintendo even add on end of level flags, a la Super Mario 1 as well as the New Super Mario Bros. Series, that require you to solve a puzzle in order to reach the top. So whilst many comparisons can be drawn to the Galaxy series, Super Mario 3D Land strives to be its own game.

Yet the lessons of the Galaxy series still appear to have been taken on board. The levels I played as well as the boss fight all had their own ideas and the game never failed to show me something new and interesting to play with. It is comforting to see all the different aspects of Super Mario’s rich history come together so seamlessly.

Graphically speaking, no pictures or videos do the game justice. It frankly looks incredible in 3D, remaining as vibrant as its counterparts on the Wii. It’s cliché now to remark about how vibrant colouring makes such a difference in a world populated by brown shooters, but in this case, the game is truly worthy of that praise.

And yet, despite all of these positives there is one single overwhelming negative that I find I just cannot ignore.

It just didn’t handle that well.

See, for all the mastery of level design that Nintendo showed me, where they have failed is in an area that they mastered fifteen years ago with Super Mario 64. A Mario game is nothing without tight control. Super Mario Galaxy is almost always panned retrospectively because of a camera that was just slightly problematic.

Super Mario 3D Land’s issue is that the 3DS thumbstick was never truly meant for the kind of movement that a Mario game requires. Given that it is necessarily smaller than a joystick it has less room in which to move and this has meant that to ensure precision of control Nintendo have slowed Mario down, a lot.

Yet in slowing Mario down the precision Nintendo were attempting to find has disappeared. It feels like Mario should be able to jump a lot farther than he does and this simply put leads to death. It feels like Mario should be able to move a lot faster than he does and this also leads to death.

The worst part is that this cannot even be compensated through long-jumping everywhere as we once did in Mario 64. The long jump itself seems to get no more range than its normal counterpart and trades a significant level of height to do so. The Tanuki suit is no doubt here to remedy the problem, yet you can’t fly with it, so in reality it just acts as a slow fall. Not only is that disappointing when compared to the freedom the suit once gave you in Super Mario 3, but it serves to make the game feel even more sluggish as your falls are slowed to a snail’s pace, yet you get very little distance from the whole affair.

Ultimately the game is compensating for a thumbstick that simply wasn’t designed for this level of control in a 3D environment. Where it might be perfect for Star Fox or for Kid Icarus when it comes to precision platforming it just doesn’t hold up.

I came out of my time with Super Mario 3D land with one simple question, “Does this game really belong on 3DS?”

I’m not so sure.

Today in Gaming makes its triumphant return today with a look at one of the games I was able to play at the Eurogamer Expo in Earl’s Court London. The Old Republic is a game that the majority of the modern world appears to have heard about and coverage of the game has been extensive. The PvE content has been analysed to pieces by all those involved but it was only as recently as Gamescom that we were able to get a good look at the PvP content of the game. There the lucky goers were treated to a battle on the face of Alderaan, a conflict which no doubt has important ramifications for both the Republic and the Empire. At the Eurogamer Expo however, we were treated to a light-hearted affair.

Huttball is similar to both the British and American versions of football. The objective is simple, a ball spawns in the middle of the arena and your team’s objective is to get the ball to the goal in the other team’s half. Things get a little more hairy when you realise that anything goes in this bloody sport and participants are allowed to use any means necessary to incapacitate their opponents. Rocket launchers, force lightning it’s all legal.

It is important to note that the path taken to the opposing goal requires that you navigate a walkway floating above the arena. This walkway has pits intermittently placed a certain junctures, which fire bursts of flames into the air every ten seconds or so. Those who still haven’t learned that fire is probably a bad thing are treated to instant death, but the secondary purpose they serve is that they slow down a ball carrier attempting to score, by forcing the carrier to wait until the pits are serving out hot death to continue.

Whilst I could comment on my overall experience of the game and whether the control scheme felt smooth, there are enough youtube videos and blogs that already cover the subject significantly that I feel that I am unlikely to add anything new or original to what has already been presented. Instead I want to look at what I see is the problem with Huttball as a PvP experience and the strategy I expect to see evolve out of this game.

The issue with Huttball comes at the start of a game. Both teams meet in the centre and battle for control of the ball. Eventually one team is likely to be victorious and in an organised scenario, the remnants of the team will start making a gradual push forward into the opposing half.

What this practically means is that if the losing team dies one by one, they can either try to reinforce the frontline and likely die again, or wait for their allies to respawn, giving the winning team time to push forward along the raised walkway. The issue is, waiting for their allies is also a double-edged sword as it gives time for the winning team to get allies in to their frontline from their respawn.

So what happens is that there is a repeat of the same conflict from the middle about halfway along the walkway, which the offensive team is likely to win because they still have buffs and all of that jazz, this is of course aided by the out of combat full heal that the game allows players to use. So surely then the defensive team can just counter break, wait by the ball respawn, grab it and score while the offensive team is stuck in the wrong half?

Sadly, this is where the firepits come in. See, the offensive team, having scored can now do something rather perverse. They can commit ritual suicide on the fire pits and be teleported back to their goal for an instant respawn. The counterattack is done; the losing team has no way to regain momentum at all. So an entire fifteen minute long PvP experience comes down to one fight in the middle of the arena.

Needless to say, this hiccup doesn't change my overarching opinion that the Old Republic is shaping up to be an MMORPG experience that is worth playing, but it still provides a little food for thought.

(As an experiment comments are enabled on this article)

In absence of my ability to release a video today owing to internet problems I'll post the script here instead.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is Natural20 and this is Today in Gaming for the 19^th of July 2011.

In the headlines today:

Zynga is being sued for stealing concept of Farmville

Sony is working on Virtual Reality

Infinity Ward will buy Battlefield 3.

Zynga, the games giant behind facebook game Farmville is being sued by SocialApps for stealing the idea and foundations of Farmville from SocialApps, the guys behind the game myFarm.

According to Patent Arcade Zynga have been accused of copyright infringement, violation of trade secrets breach of written contract, breach of implied-in-fact contract and breach of confidence.

SocialApps claim that Zynga stole the source code for myFarm in May 2009 under the guise of buying up the game.

SocialApps signed a letter of Agreement allowing Zynga to look at the source code. This agreement came in the expectation that any use would be compensated and credit to them. However, once Zynga had access to the code they ceased communication with SocialApps and then released Farmville a month later.

SocialApps have waited to sue owing to the fact that they only formally registered myFarm and its source code with the CopyRight office in June 2011.

SocialApps seek damages in excess of $100,000 as well as all of Farmville’s profits which are well over $500,000.

SocialApps also believe Zynga is using stolen code for games like CityVille, FishVille and FrontierVille.

Zynga currently have nearing a hundred million users on facebook compared to SocialApp’s 17,000.

Develop, speaking to Sony Worldwide Studios’ senior director Mick Hocking have found out that Sony are currently experimenting on a number of games including first person shooters that are to work under a virtual reality framework. Develop noted there were no plans for a product launch right now, with Hocking saying “At the moment it’s just a head-mounted display, the head isn’t being tracked but that’s something we’re doing R&D on.”

However, Hocking was confident that the dream of the 80s was now set to become reality.

"We've now got the power to do it, we've got the screen resolution to do it, we've got the processing power to update fast enough so we can have very immersive experiences on head-mounted displays in gaming in the not too distant future," he said.

Hocking will be talking about Sony’s plans for 3D at the Develop Conference in Brighton this week.

In other news, Capcom has announced the cancellation of Megaman Legends 3, which was set to come out on the 3DS. Capcom say the game failed to meet the “required criteria.” Capcom denied that the cancellation was related to the departure of Keiji Inafune from the company last year.

Inafune was the man behind the creation of Mega Man, and with the cancellation of two megaman games this year Capcom were quick to reassure fans that Mega Man was still important to the company.

Edmund Mcmillen, one half of the illustrious Team Meat has announced a new project, retro PC adventure, the binding of Isaac.

The game is a “Roguelike shooter based on the dungeon structure of Zelda. At its core it controls like Smash TV/Robotron in a randomly generated semi RPG world filled with power-ups, items and special abilities.”

Presently the game has six dungeons over three chapters but Micmilen hopes to expand it to eight dungeons with more than 10 bosses and 42 enemy types.

The game, set to feature unlockable characters, 70 items and tons of other bonuses is set to come out on steam sometime in august.

Final Fantasy XIII-2, the sequel to the controversial Final Fantasy 13 has had its US release date announced. The latest in Square-Enix’s series will come out in January of Next year for Playastation 3 and Xbox360 according to Square’s Twitter Feed. A European release date is yet to be confirmed.

And finally, Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling has spoken to Eurogamer today, stating that he will be buying Battlefield 3.

Bowling has stated that he feels that there is enough of a market for both shooters stating that “I’m very aware that we have two very different audiences and we’re delivering two very good and very different experiences,” he went on to say that the rivalry between the two communities was owing to their passion about the games.

He went on to explain that he feels that EA are mistaken in their assumption that there can be only one winner in this battle saying that “If you are a shooter fan, you should be getting both, because they’re both going to be excellent experiences.”

Modern warfare 3 is due out on the 8^th of November this year, two weeks after battlefield 3.

And that’s it from me here at Today in Gaming.

As ever if you did enjoy the show then please subscribe to my channel, check out my other work on www.vtwproductions.com as well as send an email to thenat20 @gmail.com and follow me on twitter as thenat20.

Thanks for watching and I will see you all tomorrow.

So often when people complain about videogames we get into long discussions about the companies behind the games that we make. Further, we often find ourselves putting forward the idea that these companies act in a way which is draconian and counterintuitive. This is as true about Spore’s DRM as it is about Origin, two examples very specifically chosen for this argument. Both are ideas from EA and where the Spore DRM was a clear misstep in every sense of the word Origin is likely not one.

So we often get journalists stating that no other medium acts in the same way that ours does. No companies act to defend their property quite as viciously as game publishers. In fact, I often delve into comparisons between our own industry and those around us. Especially when we look at game design it is often interesting to look at other industries and understand how they design stories and create compelling experiences for their audiences.

With that said, it is often a problem when people do make these comparisons. The issue lies in that often when people say that “No other medium does this” is that often there are good reasons behind why our industry is different.

For example, there has recently been a lot of commentary behind the second hand gaming market. This comes following Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D which created an undeletable save file. Whether Capcom installed this feature to hamstring second hand gaming is somewhat of a mystery. Capcom are usually a fairly relaxed company with respect to consumer rights which is easy to see with the level they encourage the Street Fighter community and as such I give them the benefit of the doubt. However, separate from this, it is somewhat difficult to establish whether second hand gaming hurts or helps publishers. I favour the concept that the second hand gaming hurts developers overall because lots of people, myself included will sit back and just not buy games at release because I know that three months down the line I will be able to save money on them.

Establishing then that second hand gaming is bad overall for the developer in question; it is easy to see why a second hand film might be bad for the movie industry. So a lot of games journalists jumped on the concept that it is ridiculous for games developers to be so protective regarding second hand sales when other industries are not.

I find this argument to be somewhat fallacious. The main reason is that it doesn’t establish why our industry might be different before it derides the gaming industry as being wrong for being so strict with second hand sales. The simple point here at least is that film revenue isn’t mainly sequestered in DVD sales. The chances are for most of these companies that second hand sales do not hurt them that much because their money is made in the box office. Since the revenue loss isn’t that great companies often wish to encourage the second hand market so that people will see their next big hit. This is likely why we see such a prevalent rental market with respect to movies as opposed to games.

By comparison a games company loses a lot more through a second hand sale. Where a DVD may only cost £10 at retail and not gain that much, a game costs upwards of £30. So it’s easy to see then that more profit per unit is going to be lost when a game is sold second hand.

The deeper issue is that when comparing our industry against others we need to establish why exactly our industry is different and importantly inspect a company’s reasoning behind the decisions it makes before we establish a connection to another industry. Only in doing this can we understand why such differences exist to begin with and only in doing this can we see whether the comparisons that we make are actually relevant.