Sonic 4 came available for d/l this week (only found out about it today). Gotta say, didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. I know that Sonic hasn't translated well to the latest gen of consoles so it was a nice idea that Sonic Team were going to try and bring Sonic's roots to a modern audience. It looks nice in full HD and music's got that nostalgia edge. Sadly, that's all I've found appealing about it. My biggest gripe with it is the controls and gameplay mechanics. It's gonna sound like a statement coming from a grumpy aged old fart whining about "kids today", but I'm used to the freeflow nature of how the old Sonic games used to run. How hills affected him and the momentum and transition of movement relative to his speed worked. Sonic 4 Episode 1 seems to have removed all those previous physics. Sonic now seems horribly robotic. His animations seem a tad jittery, and he seems like a effort just to get him to move from standing. The controls are disgusting clunky and about as responsive and trying to steer with a 12ft metal girder thats buried 7ft deep in solid concrete! And again, another Sonic game riddled with interface bugs!! By the time I hit the 2nd Act of the 2nd level, I ended up losing nearly half my stockpile of lives trying to navigate a series of floating platforms over a bottomless pit simply coz the game didn't register me standing on the platform and Sonic ended up dashing along the floor and to his doom. It was either that or the speed boost gained from a speed pad launched Sonic up but he'd inexplicably stop in mid air and all gained momentum was instantly killed (also leading to irritating unintentional deaths).
Well, forked out a tenner for it and kinda stuck with it now. Maybe I'll be able to work around the issues and learn to enjoy it. Still, first impressions..... not good... a shame really given the promise behind it... Looks like Sonic Colours is my last saving grace for Sonic otherwise I'm just gonna stick to him as a 2D 16-bit yesteryear icon.
