Sonic the Hedgehog 4 [PSN, XBL, WWare]

[rmoxon]

It looks good, the level design looks very much like stuff from Sonic 2.

I agree Sonic himself looks crap though, he seems to lack personality and he walks like he has really bad constipation.

[Akihabara]

I hate those homing attacks by the way, what did that move contribute to the series anyway..

[Ouenben]

I hate those homing attacks by the way, what did that move contribute to the series anyway..

Often unneccasary deaths and going after the wrong enemies!

[abigsmurf]

Trailer still shows off the wonky physics. Sonic runs like he's glued to the floor

[saturn-gamer]

I expected this to be worse, but its completely lacking the brilliance of the 16-bit 'trilogy', and CD.

There doesn't seem to be a need for momentum anymore, and the homing attacks (lame in general), defeat that purpose too.

[eastyy]

someone said quite rightly.i know they might be wanting to go back to megadrive era but with it being sonic 4 means it should be a evolution of the previos 3 games (and sonic cd to)

looks like a sonic 1 hd update to me just looks really meh

[randombs]

Bearing in mind this is Shadow The Hedgehog Ltd. we're talking about, given the choice between evolving the concept and leaving it be (even if it does have the dodgy homing jump), I know which I'd choose.

[Ouenben]

Are 3D character models and these weird HD levels cheaper/easier to do than old style 16 bit graphics or something? All these remakes/retro sequels seem to use it other than mega man 9/10

[Flabio]

Are 3D character models and these weird HD levels cheaper/easier to do than old style 16 bit graphics or something?

Yes. Modern hardware is built to shift texture mapped polygons around at high speed. You have to work damned hard to get it to not filter out all the pixels in the artwork...

[Profit]

You have to work damned hard to get it to not filter out all the pixels in the artwork...

No, you don't.

It's just that some people associate high-res 2D games with flash which is a difficult illusion for some to shake. (it's a bit like how some people think 100Hz applied to films make the movie look inferior because they are used to watching films 24fps and TV 30fps)

If you take sonic 4 and decrease the resolution/color, it takes a more familiar look:


original

Sonic 3


Or play Sonic 4 on a 14" CRT via RF.

[Akihabara]

There is still so much that SEGA could do to make this release historical for at least the couple of true fans left. But they won't, and everything around the release will be mediocre. They'll probably release it on the same day as Gran Turismo or something...

[Neon Ignition]

Woah woah woah! It's not been delayed that much!

To be honest, overall it looks fine. There's no way of doing it which people would be happy with. For years they tried to progress the series and people complained and now there's one closer to the originals everyone's moaning the other way. As long as it's not outright rubbish then the job's been done and done well.

[Dogg Thang]

I completely disagree with that. Of course there are ways of doing it that people will be happy with. People are happy with games every day - it's not some freak occurrence.

Yes, for years they tried to progress the series. In a direction that, pretty much from day one, people weren't all that sure about and yet they blindly kept on going, adding crap character after crap character and glitch after glitch.

And the fact that they have kept Sonic Rush Sonic, complete with godawful physics and homing attacks shows they are doing the exact same here. Nobody is moaning the other way - they're moaning the exact same way because, in spite of calling it Sonic 4 and showing some pretty level design reminiscent of classic Sonic, Sega are showing yet again that they're pushing in the exact same direction that everyone has been complaining about for years.

And, yes, there are ways of doing it that could make people very happy. Any number of ways. You only have to look at the interest that calling this Sonic 4 created to realise the big truth here - people are dying to love a modern Sonic game. Dying to think that the next Sonic game they play will be great.

[Flabio]

If you take sonic 4 and decrease the resolution/color.

So, how do you do that in realtime?

[Profit]

So, how do you do that in realtime?

??

You don't.

If you create the game form scratch in VGA resolution with an 8bit palette, then it will look like a SNES/MD game, like the new Megamans.

e.g. the 2D games in No More Heores weren't made by applying some complex retro filter to 3D models; they were 2D low res to begin with.