The GHZ Forum

The playable demo is now live and online Xbox Live's Marketplace.

I have downloaded it and will post impressions later. Use this thread for impressions and opinions of the demo.

Apparently consensus on GameFAQs is that it SUCKS, really really bad. Slow framerate, extremely touchy controls, and the homing attack rarely works properly. Maybe it's just the demo, but when this is coming from a website that hosts pretty much the only people who like crappy games (see <i>Shadow</i>), that can't be a good sign, can it? Admittedly some people were using some very much retarded logic, like this fun line.

XT-inc wrote:I mean sonic was fun but now its just falling to old cliches, like grabbing a giant bird to progress further, for next gen thats is just tired and lame.

Yes, because the new generation is all about NOT grabbing giant birds.

I wanna download it to see for myself, but I don't have a 360. My dad does, but my dad's in another city entirely (even if it's a 20 minute drive). A person on my floor has one, but his Live isn't set up. Ergo, I'm stuck. Oh well.

The ranking system returns. Fortunately, you can see the point requirements for each ranking.

There is a "rank bonus" which awards you rings to your total. For example, Rank B nets you 500 rings, Rank A nets you 1,000 rings, etc. So apparently there will be items to purchase/unlock with the rings you earn.

There is at least one large enemy with a health bar. It took me about three homing attacks to take out. After he exploded, his parts scattered around and I could push them about with the physics engine. It looks nice but the parts disappear abruptly after a few seconds.

Apparently there are no English voiceovers present in the game yet.

Controls feel like SA2. The homing attack needs some work, as there is a longer cooldown time between when you can perform it again immediately following one. It feels a bit unnatural compared to the instantaneous repeat homing attacks you could perform in SA1.

I noticed a couple spots where slowdown occurred. The game is definitely not very polished, at least in this demo build.

The light dash has been improved. Unfortunately, it's still mapped to the same button as attacking. However, I did not die once because Sonic rolled instead of light dashing, so it is better.

The game only utilizes two face buttons: A for jumping and X for attacking/light dashing. B and Y are unused.

The demo is short.

As i mentioned before, there are two different warp points in this demo.

First one is on the first platform which leads onto the first wind grind section. Use the light dash on the rings on that platform.

Similarly, use the light dash on the first set of rings just after the second checkpoint. This one may have been removed, as on the last build of the demo i tested, it sent you into a bottomless pit.

I actually like this new ranking system, in that a perfect grade isn't necessarily required to get absolutely everything. It sounds as if you can just replay levels at will to get ring bonuses if so desired, and that you can still eventually get "upgrades" or whatever you end up buying even if you can't get an A rank, it'll just take a little longer. I hope none of the upgrades are necessary to advance the story, or that if they are they're reasonably priced. I'd hate to think of myself grinding rings just to get farther into the game.

And, taking all things into consideration, is the game actually fun? I know there are flaws, but is it, you know, good?

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doc ... 9&hl=en-GB

The Demo has been exposed...

PM me gay midget porn.

That actually sounds a bit like Ryan to me.

So, thankfully, this isn’t another Sonic heroes or Shadow the hedgehog?

I played it for a few minutes at work today. Didn't love it. :(

The good:
- The controls are a lot tighter. The fact that you can't just hammer the homing attack button anymore diminishes the chances of accidentally homing off the edge of a platform. Also, you don't fly all over the place when you lose your rings, so less pit deaths all round.
- Alternate routes = GOOD! There is no definite path through the level. I died trying to jump across the rope bridges, so I took the light dash route instead. Brilliant.
- The voiceover guy. Much better than using an annoying nasal cartoon voice to explain the obstacles.

The bad:
- It has the worst camera of any Sonic game ever. Most of the time, the camera is looking down on Sonic and away from the level route / enemies. OCB, PLEASE tell me they fixed this in the full game!
- It's not fast. Sega have spent months going on and on about how fast the Sonic levels are, and it all felt quite slow and ponderous.
- The graphics. Still doesn't look as good as the E305 demo.
- The slide attack. You can basically skid on your bum indefinitely without running out of momentum. Very bizarre.

- The slide attack. You can basically skid on your bum indefinitely without running out of momentum. Very bizarre.

If you played ShTH you will be perfectly comfortable with that.

On another note Shadow's running animation looks much more like his SA2 one, a welcome change. And does anyone else find it fitting that the "son", of Gerald is adept at using vehicles and gadgets?

Hearing impressions of this demo from people outside of the Sonic community makes me very depressed. I'm hearing a lot of negativity towards this demo.

This is the game I am getting an Xbox 360 for, and I'm kind of worried it's going to be a lot more shit than I was anticipating.

Yeah, it turns out that this is really, really, really bad. I always felt people were exaggerating the camera and control problems in Sonic Adventure, and I still do - but this is just ball hair. Controlling Sonic feels less like maneuvering a speedy platform character and more like maneuvering a car through stages designed for a speedy platform character. When he's running, you can't just make him glide smoothly to the left to pick up some oncoming Rings - he will veer to the left and either fly headlong off the side of the track or into some ill-placed crate or boulder that fudges up the camera so you end up falling to your doom even before you have a chance to see Sonic and resume your track. You can't even jump now without the camera doing cartwheels. The homing attack always had detection issues, but now it's just slow and clunky. You can't chain attacks anymore, you have to wait for Sonic to actually stop spinning on his descent before you can home again. It's impossible to pay attention or react to anything going on around you. I kept getting blasted by enemy fire that I never had a chance to see coming. It really doesn't feel fast at all, just obtuse and disorientating.

If this is any indication of what we can expect, I think we have made the proverbial leap from the frying pan into the fire. The last few Sonic games have all had problems, but this schlock is barely even playable. I wonder if it's too late to beg Iizuka for forgiveness?

just played it. It needs to be delayed badly. the game comes out in 2 months, right?

Well, I can't say I'm crushed, but I'm surprised it's that bad-- I was expecting mediocrity, and cautiously hoping for something that could, at least, pass for 'decent'.

So, uh, if the controls didn't suck ass, would it be okay or what? How's the level design?

Well, there's something truly screwy about this demo that transcends control and camera problems. It's strange to me that they'd include the E3 trailer of all things, and some of these control issues sound alike to the old "40%" build. I've read impressions of the TGS demo, and the single recourring complaint between it and this that I remember was sensitive controls. Before we do consider it a prelude to failure, I think some investigation is in order.

It's one level, and the design is not conducive to much exploration or speed. There are a few moments where you do get some speed going, but overall it's pretty slow and still does have a lot of pit deaths. Hopefully this one stage is not indicative of the rest of the game's level design.

Some people on GameFAQs are saying this demo is actually from E3 2005, which would explain why everything seems so poor. Of course, this is coming from the same people who defended ShTH by saying "But its not a Sonic game so don't expect it to play like one!", so there's a good chance this is just pure speculation in a last ditch effort to defend their beloved little mascot.

Any truth to these claims, OCB?

FlashTHD wrote:Well, there's something truly screwy about this demo that transcends control and camera problems. It's strange to me that they'd include the E3 trailer of all things, and some of these control issues sound alike to the old "40%" build. I've read impressions of the TGS demo, and the single recourring complaint between it and this that I remember was sensitive controls. Before we do consider it a prelude to failure, I think some investigation is in order.

Weird thing is, I'd be willing to chalk this up to a bullshit E3 demo, but then you've got the HUD: In the most recent TGS demos, the HUD had changed. Previously it was spread out across the entire screen, rings and time on one side, lives and score on the other. Videos of the TGS demo, the HUD is all bunched together in the top left corner of the screen, more like a classic Sonic HUD.

That's essentially the same HUD they have here. If they were lazy enough just to give us the E3 demo, I have a hard time believing they'd actually go back and revise the E3 code just to include the new HUD. It just doesn't make sense.

Hybrid wrote:Some people on GameFAQs are saying this demo is actually from E3 2005, which would explain why everything seems so poor. Of course, this is coming from the same people who defended ShTH by saying "But its not a Sonic game so don't expect it to play like one!", so there's a good chance this is just pure speculation in a last ditch effort to defend their beloved little mascot.

Any truth to these claims, OCB?

E3 2005? Not a chance in hell. E3 2005 this game... was it even playable then? I thought the first playable version was unveiled at TGS 2005. And when it was shown at TGS '05, it was extremely early. As I recall, the TGS '05 demo ended after the first stone bridge crumbled, and there was no goal ring or anything. The enemies didn't even have AI.

I think they're talking about the demo where Sonic seemed to fall really slowly, saying the fact he does it in this demo is a "dead giveaway" it isn't a recently made demo.

Some people are saying E3 '05, some are saying TGS '05, but either way it looks like that is complete nonsense with the HUD issue you just brought up.

This would suit the old Next-Gen thread better, but whatever.

Sazpaimon's irrefutable evidence!

Is he actually serious? I've never seen anything more obviously photoshopped (maybe even MSPaint'd) than that.

BlazeHedgehog wrote:Weird thing is, I'd be willing to chalk this up to a bullshit E3 demo, but then you've got the HUD: In the most recent TGS demos, the HUD had changed. Previously it was spread out across the entire screen, rings and time on one side, lives and score on the other. Videos of the TGS demo, the HUD is all bunched together in the top left corner of the screen, more like a classic Sonic HUD.

That's essentially the same HUD they have here. If they were lazy enough just to give us the E3 demo, I have a hard time believing they'd actually go back and revise the E3 code just to include the new HUD. It just doesn't make sense.

Stranger things have been done. I'm no tech genius but the HUD can't be that hard to reposition, right?

It may not be the engine in its' E3 state, but - and this could be a serious long shot, knowing as much as I know - you think it could be something about it being the demo it is? In other words, something broke big time when they transitioned it into a downloadable demo. I have no idea what factors are involved in taking a game that runs off of normal 360 hardware and making it into something that runs from the system's hard drive, but any number of things could have gone wrong. Something tells that keeping the download light isn't the only reason Silver and Shadow weren't playable.

In any event, someone at the CulT (I think he's Plorpus III here) posted his experience with the TGS demo and said the 360 version played fine, so we'll what he says about this one if he can get it.

Alot of the camera problems I think could be alleviated by backing it away a bit. As it is, the whole screen has to "jump" along with Sonic just to keep him in the frame, which is balls. The level design is not spectacular, certainly nothing we haven't already seen, but could be still be functional if the control wasn't haywire. It's less rigid than Sonic Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2, but it still doesn't flow as well as Sonic Adventure 1.

If Sonic didn't maneuver like a first-generation PSX platformer from Acclaim, the game would probably come off as an alternate dimension Sonic Adventure 1.5 with the feel of Sonic Adventure 2 but the structure of Sonic Adventure 1. As it is, it's just kind of a mess.

So, I played the demo, and it made me stick glass shards in my eyes. It is the worst game ever. It controls like a Buick with a tire missing. Also, it isn't conceivably perfect in every possible way.

I hates it.

I haven't played the demo yet, but from what I've seen, there are a lot of mixed opinions over it. Some say it's an older build as some sort of retribution - myself, I think it was just hastily thrown together as a Live demo so people could at least try it.

The whole "energy meter" thing isn't appealing to me either... Why put a delay on the homing attack? Redundany ahoy, and it really puts a damper on my enemy blasting chains. Bad move. =\