For example, the Wii game is being outsourced. Given the identity of the developer (Sonic Rush's Dimps), that's mostly a good thing, but it's still surprising to learn that we've been misled into thinking Sonic Team was simultaneously developing all three versions. That means that the "Hedgehog Engine," which we thought was being used for all three games, is not being used for the Wii. Furthermore, Dimps is doing not only the coding, but also level design for the Wii game, which means it's a different game.
Worst of all is the news that Sega has already started downplaying the 2.5D aspect of the game. We believed that the whole game played as a sidescroller, but Hashimoto said it'll be about half 2D and half 3D. Great!
None of this means that Sonic Unleashed on the Wii or any other platform will necessarily be bad, it just means that it won't be what we thought it was.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-29-2008 @ 1:52PM
ssuk said...
We knew it had 3D sections since the earliest leaked videos before the official announcement. Everything else is pretty shocking, though. The game looks to be heading down the shitter like most recent Sonic games.
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4-29-2008 @ 1:59PM
Nigeria - MK: 0430-8491-9123 said...
"We believed that the whole game played as a sidescroller, but Hashimoto said it'll be about half 2D and half 3D. Great!"
I was already the under impression that 3D platforming would take up a significant proportion of this game. And was that "great", and its accompanying exclamation mark, some snarky sarcasm. Because if it was, that was great!
I like the Rush games - I just finished SR Adventure on the weekend - but I hope Dimps get over their bottomless pit fetish they seem to adore. One can only fall into nothingness so many times.
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4-29-2008 @ 2:03PM
samfish said...
I can hear the Price Is Right 'fail' horn, now.
I found the Rush games to be enjoyable enough, but they really were...well...a parody of the classic Sonic games in the sense that you basically just hold left and go.
At any rate, I'm not completely willing to write this off yet. The Wii got the good 'different version' of sonic the last time around. Hopefully lightning will strike twice...
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4-29-2008 @ 2:16PM
snkngshps said...
I agree. We really shouldn't write off anything until we see some videos/screens. It sounds like they are interested in making this a good game, so they should have a larger budget and hopefully more time to make things just right.
4-29-2008 @ 2:27PM
Buntaro said...
This rumor sounds pretty cool to me. I'm not part of the 3d Sonic hater crowd, but I value Dimps takes on Sonic more than most 3d Sonic games.
I also hope that the Wii and PS3/360 versions will offer different stages, as this rumor claims.
This was great in the 8bit days: NES ports to the GB usuall got new or different stages, so I hope this tradition makes a return.
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4-29-2008 @ 2:31PM
Waffala said...
If Sonic Team has been making all the really awful Sonic games of late (see: any Sonic released on a platform other than the Sega Genesis, besides Sonic Rush) then it's actually slightly encouraging to hear that the people behind Sonic Rush will be working on this, those games were great on the DS.
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4-29-2008 @ 2:53PM
Roto13 said...
Hey, the more Sonic Rush this game is, the better.
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4-29-2008 @ 3:31PM
Ridgecity said...
You know, since the Dreamcast demise,I been wanting to buy a Sonic game for years, but somehow, SEGA can't make a good game with this character in it. The last good Sonic game I played was Sonic CD... And I'm sorry to say but Sonic Team has been doing most of the games of the past years, they aren't good anymore.
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4-29-2008 @ 3:35PM
MonkeyTownDeathTrap said...
Wait, so Dimps, the people who even if they haven't been able to recapture the magic of the Genesis Era have made consistently fun-to-play handheld Sonic games since Advance 1, are in charge of the Wii version, and Sonic Team will be too busy making their inevitably worthless piece of garbage versions to fuck it up? I was waiting for the shocking reveal that has ruined any hope Sonic games have started with almost (Not Shadow) everytime they're announced... But this is the best fucking news I've heard all year. I'm actually genuinely excited for it, now.
Which is more than I could say when I thought Sonic Team was in control, because I wouldn't trust them to wipe their own ass without fucking it up. Actually, that's probably where their ideas for what makes a 'good' game keep coming from.
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4-29-2008 @ 4:21PM
Christopher said...
I'm not a grammar Nazi, but...
"According to Kombo, a recent interview with Sonic Team's Yoshihisa Hashimoto about Sonic Unleashed."
That's not even close to a real sentence, and I can't figure out what it was the missing verb here was supposed to be.
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4-29-2008 @ 4:58PM
samfish said...
That's because it's only half the sentence.
"revealed a bunch of stuff about Sega's latest attempt to refresh the franchise."
4-29-2008 @ 6:32PM
JC Fletcher said...
Yeah, you were right. I started the sentence and then moved on to other stuff without finishing it! I fixed it between your comment and the last one, I guess!
4-29-2008 @ 6:33PM
psyborg said...
This isn't all bad or surprising news to me. First off Sonic Team makes awful games so Dimps taking the helm is a plus. The 3D part was already known really, the gameplay switches to 3d during a few sections of the trailer. From the looks of it I'm guessing it'll be 50% like oldschool Sonics and 50% like Secret Rings.
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4-29-2008 @ 8:08PM
Mr Khan said...
I get the feeling that we've got a dedicated PS2 port on our hands now, and that the screens ONM fed us were lies too
I don't know, i've been burned too many times. Secret Rings gave me great hope for Sonic's future on Wii, now they're going to fuck it all up
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4-29-2008 @ 8:10PM
Mr Khan said...
Also, this makes little sense. Sonic is one 3rd-party series that consistently does better on Nintendo consoles, and Secret Rings was not only a better game, but also sold much better and was probably cheaper to make than Sonic 2006, yet Sonic Team wants to focus on consoles they'll probably fail again on anyway
what the fuck...
4-29-2008 @ 11:01PM
samfish said...
You're asking Sega to make an intelligent decision?
You know better than that!
4-29-2008 @ 10:03PM
Jhongerkong said...
Dimps + Sonic = win
Advance 2 was the best Sonic game ever (including genesis era games)
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4-30-2008 @ 9:32AM
Jayenkai said...
Sounds interesting.
If it's aiming to be "more or less" the same game, it could be interesting to see how the two different developers handle it.
I'm with the common consensus here, that Dimps do at least get the whole "Sonic = running quite a bit!" rule, even if they can't quite manage the "Levels should be in layers" one..
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4-30-2008 @ 9:41PM
Aldura said...
dbvidsv
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