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does elise show tit

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 12:50 pm
by Green Gibbon!
To make a long story short, the demo of the upcoming 360/PS3 Sonic is astoundingly bad. That comes as no great surprise to anybody. What is surprising is Sega's new methodology. While we were all busy looking out for droves of unnecessary ally characters and blazing plastic toy aesthetics and stock firearms with murkily-textured alien invaders, Sega quite cleverly snuck up on our blind side and bitch slapped us with the one mechanical pitfall we would never have dreamed could still happen in a commercial game of modest budget: Sonic controls like ass. Granted, this is a complaint that has been levelled at the series since time immemorial, and the 3D games in particular have been at the receiving end of inordinate quantities of such flak, but it's always been a gross exaggeration. Until now.

Maneuvering Sonic feels less like controlling a speedy platform character and more like driving a car through stages designed for a speedy platform character. I'm talking Pitfall 3D bad. A control setup so phenomenally awful that only Bubsy Bobcat would aspire to it. Even the likes of Sonic Heroes had a certain pick-up-and-play solidity in its mechanics that at least made the game feel like a functional piece of programming. But alas, now we are robbed of even that small comfort. It is no longer possible, for example, to have Sonic glide smoothly to the left to pick up oncoming Rings: tilt the control stick even a smidgen and he will veer to the left and fly headlong off the side of the course or into some ill-placed crate or boulder that fudges up the camera so you end up falling to your doom before you have a chance to distinguish one texture map from the next. You literally can't even jump anymore without the camera performing cartwheels. I found I was continually blasted with fire from enemies that I never had a chance to see. The game doesn't feel fast at all, just clumsy and out-of-control. Our poor ravaged hero feels positively disconnected from his environment in ways even the most poorly conceived installments of the series have thus far managed to surmount.

And then there's the title. Obviously, Sega has opted to strip away the subtitles and revert simply to "Sonic the Hedgehog", insinuating that some miraculous new technology has allowed the original vision to be recreated with such flair and accuracy that the cornerstone game may be jettisoned from all recollection except as a historical artifact - indeed, Sega has evidently diverted most of the game's development budget to the overworked marketing department in order to propagate this fallacy. But it's not even just "Sonic the Hedgehog"... it's "Sonic The Hedgehog", with a capital T. In the first place, that isn't even grammatically correct. Granted, proper grammar is a negotiable point with certain poetic license, but poetic license is only a valid excuse when it works, and I don't think Sega knows what poetry is.

The catch-all ray of hope in this situation, of course, is that the finished version of the game might address these critical flaws. If such a thing were to happen, we would be left with something very similar to a Sonic Adventure 1.5, a stylistic middle ground between Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. Even that would not be an ideal scenario and would still fall massively short of Sega's brouhaha, but it would at least leave us with nothing worse than another slice of passable mediocrity. Unfortunately, I've been playing games long enough to know better than that. Nothing's going to change and the finished version of the game will be as broken as the demo, only longer.

Vie la c'est, and all that. At least Lacey Chabert is hot.

Moving along closer to home: The Carnival Night logo graphic seems to have gone over astonishingly well, which has made me utterly terrified of attempting another one. Just as a disclaimer, the next one I do won't be as elaborate or as clever, so please don't look forward to it. Museum-wise, I've updated every single page up to Sonic Labyrinth, including the Sonic Team history page. I'm being particularly ardent about fixing errors just now, so if you catch any misinformation, do alert me. The Sonic the Fighters page is well underway and would be finished except that I've become bogged down transcribing the rather extensive command lists. It'll probably be up within the next couple of weeks. Also, at Pep's coercion, the Encyclopedia (which has been a backburner project for a while) should soon be reborn as a wiki, with a number of happy GHZers contributing articles. It'll be a while longer before it's ready to be opened up for viewing, but at least it's getting somewhere again.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:18 pm
by Popcorn
That's a great read. I haven't played the demo yet, but I too am amazed that Sonic Team have apparently managed to fuck the game up on such a seemingly fundemental level. I wonder why.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:44 pm
by Green Gibbon!
I don't think much of anyone left on the development staff still cares. Even Naka and Iizuka are out of the picture now. This is a purely corporate project. What Sega's overlooking is the fact that all the sales of recent games came from the teenybopper Sonic X GameCube crowd whose first experience with the series was Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Which is not the target demographic of either the 360 or PS3. The PR department is obviously bending over backwards to try to entice an older group (the ones more likely to own these overpriced and overblown "next-gen" machines) and I don't think that's going to work, either.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:48 pm
by Jack Bz
In my opinion, the demo was not nearly as bad as you described. It controls fine for me except the 1 second lag when you go on a boost pad, which is the probably the reason for the sudden turning and falling when trying to get rings. If you know of this it controls fine; just need to be careful.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:50 pm
by Frieza2000
OCB wrote:Actually, on the subject of the japanese bug testers, i've made a mistake. Sega does not hire the best people. In Japan, i've heard that they outsourced the majority of testing to an external company called SSL (not sure if thats right name but it's something like that).

This company also tested Shadow the Hedgehog. When SOE got the Pal version of that game, they found bugs everywhere. Sure, the final version was a buggy piece of crap, but SOE couldn't do much. They were given only 6 weeks to test that game. It was meant to only be a localisation project, yet they had to do pretty much all the functionality.
That was OCB's take on it. I add that after the failure of the Dreamcast and the subsequent mergers, the loss of talented individuals and disorganized, oblivious management are just the natural results.

And that was a great read. It's been a while since you gave us something that entertaining. Why'd you wait so long to? You already expressed most of this weeks ago.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 6:40 pm
by Sniffnoy
I am going to continue to repeat that when you consider what other obscure or undated things are listed on the year pages (a UFO catcher!), it ought to be mentioned on the 1992 page that that year Milton Bradley published a Sonic the Hedgehog board game.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:45 pm
by Green Gibbon!
A board game is just merchandise. If I'm going to list that, I'd have to list all the Sonic plush toys, bedsheets, piggy banks, ice cream bars, and band-aids ever released. Maybe we could do a merchandise section somewhere down the line, but it's too irrelevant for the museum.
Why'd you wait so long to? You already expressed most of this weeks ago.
I'm a lazy fuck, is all.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:04 pm
by Sniffnoy
Well, this board game is clearly just merchandise - I doubt anyone thought Sonic would actually translate well to a board game or put much thought into it - it's Milton Bradley, after all, and apparently it's a roll-and-move game - but I'd still have to say that it should be included on the basis that it's an actual game. And if you're going to include such things as manga, which is not only not electronic but not even a game...

Oh but then you don't even include the various Sonic LCD games, right. And I suppose if those aren't in then mayber neither should a board game be.

I just don't see how a UFO catcher can be in there but not a board game. Now *that's* just merchandise, even if it's not your ordinary consumer who'd be buying the actual machine.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:18 pm
by Green Gibbon!
That's not really merchandise. It's coin-op hardware, shitnozzle. Comics and cartoons are listed because they're actual media, not just generic sundries with stock character art pasted on them.

I do want to include some mention of the Sonic Town game centers and those (now closed) clothing shops, but I don't have enough info on either.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:32 pm
by Sniffnoy
Coin-op hardware whose only relation to Sonic is that Sonic merchandise is the prize. Other than that, I get the idea now. It makes sense that comics
and cartoons are included while the board game and the LCD games aren't, since the latter are basically generic and the former aren't. But, a UFO catcher? That's even *more* generic!

Well, no real point in arguing this further, I suppose... but still, a UFO catcher?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:57 pm
by Frieza2000
On the subject of embarrassing incompetence in the franchise, I don't remember if this was brought up last year but I just noticed there's a typo on the back of the Sonic Rush box.

"Includes wireless play and <B>new a</B> mysterious female companion created exclusively for Sonic Rush!"

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:04 pm
by Ngangbius
Green Gibbon! wrote: What Sega's overlooking is the fact that all the sales of recent games came from the teenybopper Sonic X GameCube crowd whose first experience with the series was Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Which is not the target demographic of either the 360 or PS3. The PR department is obviously bending over backwards to try to entice an older group (the ones more likely to own these overpriced and overblown "next-gen" machines) and I don't think that's going to work, either.
I don't know, this game can still be a success seeing that it is released during the biggest sales month for games. Those teenboppers who will be begging their parents(or Santa) to get them a Xbox360 so they can play the latest Sonic game and er, Viva Pinata.

Then again, the way the DSLite is selling and the fact that there are two new RPG-like Pokemon games, Nintendogs:Dalmation version, and a new Mario platformer for that system this year, they would probably beg for that instead.

And then there is the apperence of the Wii and it's slew of kiddie shovelware that is based on Nickleodeon franchises, courtesy of THQ, that sell to that demo no matter what. You know kids are going to be really excited about the Wii, though most won't be going for Twilight Princess, no matter how much better it will be than Spongebob's Waggle Wand Adventures.

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:26 pm
by FlashTHD
Unfortunately, I've been playing games long enough to know better than that. Nothing's going to change and the finished version of the game will be as broken as the demo, only longer.
You do realize an SoA rep admitted that they took the E3 demo, buffed a few asthetics up oh-so-slightly and shoved it out the door undressed? SoJ pulled the demo before it showed up for japanese XBL account holders during TGS week, so they've got to have been aware it was a rush job, even if the US and UK branches weren't (or didn't care).
And that was a great read.
...a post on the front page for the front page's sake containing an old post with a few new sentences and paragraphs is what you call a good read?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:33 pm
by Delphine
Not every visitor to the GHZ trawls the forum as you and I.

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:56 pm
by Green Gibbon!
<img src="/gibbon/doeseggmanshowtit.jpg">

hay guyz found this on another mb do u think its shoped??? :shock: :shock: :shock:

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:36 pm
by Shadow Hog
Image

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 7:12 pm
by Delphine
If you're going to use a meme, at least use a decent image.

<img src="http://www.dontfeedthewriter.com/11t/catsrbetterlol.png">

And then it would help if you knew how to type lol i'm dumb.

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 7:49 pm
by Shadow Hog
Pfft. Cats are overrated.

Except Longcat, but we'll let that slide.

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:49 pm
by Arcade
Green Gibbon! wrote:I don't think much of anyone left on the development staff still cares. Even Naka and Iizuka are out of the picture now. This is a purely corporate project. What Sega's overlooking is the fact that all the sales of recent games came from the teenybopper Sonic X GameCube crowd whose first experience with the series was Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Which is not the target demographic of either the 360 or PS3. The PR department is obviously bending over backwards to try to entice an older group (the ones more likely to own these overpriced and overblown "next-gen" machines) and I don't think that's going to work, either.
You know, I’m still surprised Sonic is still alive, how many time has been since the last decent Sonic game, that was like in 1998. Eight years?, if Sonic has survived eating crap games since that, I dough anything can kill him now…

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:15 am
by Baba O'Reily
You know what I hate? The Brother Karamazov. It's the same old ideas of humanity with only two or three twists. It's so gay.

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 9:58 pm
by jenkins
Speaking of memes...
Image
and at Del's request, "lol i'm dumb."

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 6:58 pm
by Delphine
See, what you missed is that the first time around I completely botched the HTML, so I was making fun of myself.