Tets Plays Sonic Generations demo

Woooo, so for the 20th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog, SEGA are in the process of making the rather cool looking and hopefully good game of Sonic Generations.  The actual date of the anniversary is the 23rd of June 2011, so since the game isn’t ready for release just yet, SEGA have released a demo version of it to the Playstation Network and Xbox.  The demo lets you play through 1 level as Classic Sonic.


As soon as I saw news of this, the first thing I did when I got home was jump online and download the little fella.  Then cranked a couple of games.  The only downer was that the demo has an expiry date 20 days after the release. So I have been trying to play it at least once a day.


Sonic Generations appears to feature 2 Sonics.  One is the ‘Classic Sonic,’ i.e, slightly fat and cute looking with black eyes and he runs through 2-D side scrolling levels and plays much like Sonic from the Megadrive days, and the other is classed as ‘Modern Sonic’ and is a more lean version of Sonic with green irises and he plays much like Sonic from the games such as Unleashed and Colours, i.e he runs into the screen with player controlled speed boost options and rail grinding, tricks etc.



Sadly though, the demo only features Classic Sonic as he run through the Green Hill zone.  What is really clever though is that Modern Sonic also goes through Green Hill, but has a different route.  If you look into the background, you can se areas that Modern will run over.


The final game appears to have a selection of levels taken from each of the Sonic games, Green Hill (Sonic 1), Escape City (Sonic Adventure 2) are the only confirmed ones so far, but other rumoured levels are Chemical Zone from Sonic 2 and Icecap zone from Sonic 3, (I think).



My experiences with Classic Sonic have proven positive so far.  The odd physics of Sonic 4 have been dropped (yay) and they are much closer to Sonic 1.  To get the feel perfect, I think they need to have Sonic jump just a little bit higher, to me, he seems to jump the same height as Knuckles from S&K, not Sonic height.  There was a difference between the two, trust me.


It also seems that Sonic is a tad too clingy to the ground as well.  This is kind of hard to describe really, but if you play it, you will probably understand what I mean.  One other thing they need to change is the ball rolling as well.  When going into a ground roll, Sonic used to be able to get moving faster than he could run (with momentum) and he would stay in the ball until you stopped or jumped.  Now he comes out of the ball and starts running of his own accord.  Which I find annoying as it means ball rolling through multiple loop the loops doesn’t get you the speed it used to.  I have also come a cropper many a time, as I have un-rolled before an enemy and thinking I was still in a ball as I had done a ducking dash, I have hit said enemy and lost my rings, or come to an untimely death.


If these minor problems are fixed, then we will definitely have a classic Sonic game, that is what Sonic 4 SHOULD have been!!  Incidentally, I played Sonic 4 again today to see if I still disliked it.  I do.



Sonic has kept most of his I’m bored’ animations, combining 1, 2 and 3’s all together, he taps his foot, looks at his watch, points the way and even lies down.  Nice. 





The level looks incredible and it has 3-d option for those with a 3-D TV.  I tell ya this, this is the first time I wish I had a 3-D tv.  I just want to see what it looks like, because I think it would be quite cool.  There is heaps of parallax scrolling in the background.  Hmmm, parallax scrolling, reminds me of the times when that was at the top of graphical frippery…




Using the amazing technology of my camera and my TV, I have photographed for some screen shots.  I even did some video footage to remind me what it is liked after the demo has expired.  Truly a day I am not looking forward to as I am enjoying it immensely!



Oh and the Green Hill Zone music has had an update and sounds very spunky indeed.  Still Green Hill, but different, less 16 bit I guess.  Looks like I will have to hunt down the soundtrack for this Sonic game as well.  It’s about time I had a Sonic game that made me want the soundtrack again!  HUZZAH!



Vid footage.

This first one I had to cut short, as I was preparing lunch at the time…

Sonic Generations starting and a bit of play

This is the level from start to finish.  Not a bad run if I do say so myself.  I have managed a 1 minute 30 second finish before.