Tendo City

Can't watch the video, my dad's computer is running Linux and I have no idea how to run WMVs in Linux...

Then DON'T ARGUE what you DON'T KNOW.

Seven words that would do you very well to live by.

I saw that animated gif or whatever it was you posted, you know.

That's tiny.

It's an image of Shadow with his gun, though.

It's tiny.

It's not THAT small...

Just wait until you see the big pictures, guy.

Sega Guy 1: The last Sonic game didn't sell too well. Why do you think that is?
Sega Guy 2: It wasn't a very good game?
Sega Guy 1: NO! It's because it didn't have guns! Kids love guns. Look how well Grand Theft Auto sells! Let's make a new Sonic game WITHOUT Sonic that has guns!
Sega Guy 2: Sir isn't that kind of stup..
Sega Guy 1: *cuts him off* It'll star Shadow, Sonics even edgier counterpart! And it'll have guns. And Shadow will say things like "fo shizzle"!
Sega Guy 2: ...

http://www.the-magicbox.com/0503/game050313a.shtml

(screenshots)

It looks like a Sonic game to me...

Yeah, totally. Just like the old ones.

Quote:It looks like a Sonic game to me...

No, THIS looks like a Sonic game:

Shadow of the Heg<strike>emon</strike>hog. Flying through the air and blasting... Sounds to me like Sega has been reading too much Orson Scott Card.

Quote:No, THIS looks like a Sonic game:

Yeah, of course. I meant 'this looks like a Sonic Adventure game'... when I looked at the shots I was definitely thinking about how far the Sonic series has sunk when you compare the 2d to the 3d titles.

As for OB1, you (and PA) are being ridiculous...

Quote:this looks like a Sonic Adventure game

Well, I give you THAT.

Quote:As for OB1, you (and PA) are being ridiculous...

No, I'd say their right on the money. It's basically a flagrant disregard for what the Sonic series once was and an attempt to appeal to the "mainstreamers", instead of actually making the games themselves BETTER, which is what they need to be doing. There's absolutely no need for the main character of a Sonic game to have a gun, of any kind really, but to put in one that looks as realistic as that one? Insane.

It would be like if Nintendo made a Mario game about Mario's evil clone/brother/whatever and he's a mob boss who kills people and deals in drugs and hires out hookers. It's basically like GTA. Except it's made by Nintendo and is closely associated with their Mario franchise. That's basically what we have happening here, though I don't think it's quite THAT bad. You get my point, I think.

Hasn't Sonic ALWAYS been about appealing to the mainstream?

Yes.

So has Mario, believe it or not. Nintendo's just been bad at it lately. ;)

GR is right though, and the outrage can be heard on every gaming site and forum on the internet. DJ and ABF are the only two gamers I've heard not have a problem with it.

And ABF is a liberal, no less! There's nothing worse than a hypocritical liberal.

Even if you don't morally oppose putting a realistic handgun into a kid's game, you should still be offended by how much more they're ruining the Sonic series. A handgun makes no sense whatsoever in this game.

It's just a game, and it's not THAT realistic!

Hey I said it didn't exactly fit once before, but yeesh I'm not going to get outraged. You see the thing is, it's like, I don't care. The existance of Shadow the Hedgehog alone was a move equal to this in stupidity and ruination to me, as is a realistic military presence. And, since when were they in like the real world with humans? Before, Robotnik was the closest to human there was, and even then he wasn't exactly normal looking. Instead of showing a kraaazy city with cartoony humans, they put realistic humans in a realistic city, realistic cars, buildings, people, and then you have Sonic & Company fighting an evil genius..

What I'm saying is, this gun thing is not the first time they went and made an artistic fopa.... faupe.... frappachino... thing... It's just the first time there's been this much outrage. I'm thinking it's because the Sonic fans have finally gotten fed up with this art direction.

Just wait till 60 Minutes does a show about how this game made some kid go on a rampage of blood and bullets.

Haha, of course of course...

And I've already said my moral stance on this, completely neutral, and OB1 and I came to an agreement so I won't bring it back up.

Quote:and it's not THAT realistic!

Says the person who didn't see that gigantic poster that depicted Shadow point a .357 at the viewer.

Quote:GR is right though, and the outrage can be heard on every gaming site and forum on the internet.

I did hear some people at Anime-Forums saying that they liked it, but this is also the same forum thats populated by a number 11-13 year olds and is constantly bombarded by people making idiotic posts.

Yeah exactly, he didn't see that poster. OR the videos.

Well admittedly, most people aren't going to see that poster, but rather the gun in game. That said, it WILL be on the cover art in it's full bang bang glory.

So anyway, you'd agree these are steps that Sega's been taking ever since Sonic Adventure 1 right? From there, I suppose we'd differ on how this ranks with that. Honestly, to me, this is pretty much the same thing. Sonic just didn't really fit in a realistic city with realistic people and realistic cars, and realistic ships, and realistic... people with actual lives. It should have been some huge cyba-city thing with tubes running all which way and hover cars and the people should all look like Dr. Robotnik, by that I mean the art style, not a city full of fat balding scientists.

Honestly I couldn't care less about any of the stuff that's just cosmetic. That's not why the latest Sonic games pale in comparison to the oldschool ones. It's the gameplay in the new ones that's the problem. Sonic just doesn't work as well in 3D.

Well I did enjoy Sonic Adventure quite a bit, namely because it was pretty fun to me to play the speedy stuff in 3D. These games really aren't as good as the old ones though... Part of it is the lack of speed. Tails and Knuckles used to speed dash as much as Sonic ever did. Now they are just sort of... there... And Tails has this mech... I mean, he can fight outside of it just fine. It would be like putting Spider Man in a mech.

Some comic book nerd: That happened once-

DJ: Shut up you! Anyway, honestly I didn't really even have a problem with the artistic stuff even in Adventure 1, but thinking about it now, in the sense of something ruining the artistic setup, honestly that WAS where it all started, and from where I'm standing it was just as bad a move then, well maybe more so, as this little fire arm is.

Still, the part that makes me not really care is this. Sonic has always been about being edgy. Sonic was INVENTED to basically be an "in your face hedgehog with RATtitude" from the very start, in Japan as well as America. The good gameplay was awesome, but Sonic differs from Mario for that very origins reason. Mario was never meant to be "in your face", he was just meant to be a funny little man battling monkeys and magical turtles. He was never meant to be a "hip and cool" replacement for Pacman. He was just meant to be awesome in a not hip way... if that makes sense... I mean, just freakin' addictive and fun. Sonic was the one formed in an oven of commercialism aimed at the rebels, trying to be "hip" and have an in your face attitude. I mean, he frickin' jumps into the screen at the end of each game shoving his fat gloved finger in your face with that smiling angry eyes look. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, I'm just saying that Sonic has ALWAYS been the "hip and cool alternative, because Sega does what NintenDON'T, and Mario is lame and Sonic is fast fast FAST, blaze processing!". Mario on the other hand was never really like that. He was just meant to be awesome because his games were fun and his world was like stepping through the looking glass where mushrooms make you a giant and vines grow out of floating blocks, and a DINOSAUR.

Sonic Advenure 1 was a fun game, though mostly just the parts where you played as Sonic. It still had some of the feel of the original games, I thought. But, Sonic Adventure 2 was astoundingly boring. It was a trial by boredom. The Sonic parts were still fun, but all the other parts [which were about 75% of the game] were just not any fun at all. I haven't played Sonic Heroes so I can't comment on that. This, though, is something else entirely.

Quote:through the looking glass where mushrooms make you a giant

Find the right kind of mushrooms, and you CAN become a giant. In your mind, at least.

Indeed, this is a... game I haven't played yet...

I will admit, since I had the most fun with the sonic/shadow parts of the past two games (yes, I know Shadow wasn't in the first one, that's still a technically correct statement though), and this game seems to JUST have Shadow, one would assume it would actually be MORE fun than the past two Sonic games. They seem to have added the gun in there... maybe because they wanted the gameplay you got in the mechs and with that robot in the past two games combined with the speed of the sonic levels. I guess that, since Shadow himself is supposed to be an extreme and also dark version of an already extreme but merely rebelious Sonic, they figured that instead of the lasers they gave Tails, they had to come up with something darker for Shadow, so a handgun that shot bullets seemed the natural choice... Eh, I dunno... I already said my opinion on the artistic direction, and also the reason I don't exactly care how bad it's gone. I'm just saying I see how it got to this point.

But, and this is the thing, if the entire 3rd game is nothing but fast paced speeding action, but with the added twist of being able to use long range attacks, then assuming the twist is pulled off correctly, then this may very well be a VERY fun game, despite whatever one may think of the art.

Sonic Adventure 2 was okay. Nothing special. Nowhere NEAR as good as classic 2d Sonic. And the Sonic/Shadow parts were definitely the best parts... though I didn't mind the Tails Mech ones, they didn't feel very Sonic-ish. Knuckles? Like a mediocre clone of a Mario 64 gametype... 'mediocre' being the deciding word there. I played a little bit of Sonic Adventure as well. They're both... okay. But they just don't have the charm, either in gameplay, graphics, characters... whatever... of the old games and with this beign the fourth game like this I don't know if they can recapture that.

Shadow stupid? Yeah, kinda. Ooh, he's black and has skates! That makes him REALLY evil! The gun is obviously trying to further that, but it isn't going to work... it isn't so much awful as it is sad that Sega platformers have sunk as far as they have... do they know how to make a great platformer anymore?

Of course you guys don't like Shadow. Sega didn't make him for 20-something gamers. They made him for their target audience: little kids. And little kids love Shadow. Giving him a realistic gun is essentially taking that away from them. No responsible parent is going to want their six-year-old to play this Shadow game. It's most certainly going to get a Teen rating, which is an extremely dumb move on Sega's part.

We'll see about the gameplay and rating, but the part about Sega not understanding marketing is certainly true.

Shadow is meant for kids? Seems to me he's aimed at like a 12 yearS old kid or something. Basically, the JUST on the edge of being a teenager and just starting to get all ansty. That's what Shadow is.

No, Sonic and all of the characters in his games are targeted towards the under 10 group.

But Shadow was accused of killing countless, and he's evil in that "I am going to murder your SOUL" way, not that "I'm hunting wabbit" kind of way.

Yeah, Sonic Adventure 2 seemed to aim the story a bit older than that... and, while not overly hard, that game might be a bit frusterating for a 10 year old.

Well it was certainly frustrating for me.

Especially the Knuckles/Rouge parts.

Still, I finished the game (not including trying to get all the best ratings of course) in under a week... too short. It would definitely have been a better rental.

I haven't even attempted the best ratings stuff... I just don't have much motivation to do so. If I did, it would be the Sonic/Shadow ones first, and then I'd probably stop after that.

Live and Learn Sega....

The game is just not fun enough for me to bother.

In SA2 Shadow was just a Sonic rip-off created by Eggman, and he wasn't even bad in the end. And the story definitely isn't too difficult to understand for your average 8-year-old.

But he BURNINATED entire humans!

...

Okay so he didn't...

And the story isn't that complicated...

Also I didn't say it was complicated....

But anyway, not sure how we got onto Shadow here, but yeah, my point was they have been doing this thing since SA1.

This is not the next logical step. It's like the 50th logical step, and that they skipped the previous 45 retarded moves.

So you agree that the whole real life city thing was a retarded move?

Not much in Sonic Adventure was a logical step for the Sonic series to take...

What's with all the "evil twin" archetypes Sonic has now? He's got like 3 of them at this point!

First came Mecha Sonic, a robotic copy of Sonic meant to killinate him. Then comes Knuckles the Echidna, someone with powers similar to Sonic's that they added so he could have a rival in one of the games. Then, since Knuckles went good, they had to go and add Shadow the hedgehog, another hedgehog and again, with similar abilities, except HE went good.

So Sega, when are you adding in another "evil twin"? Considering the pattern of making them more and more like Sonic himself, he'll probably be a slightly different shade of blue and be called "Sound the hedgehog".

Dark Jaguar Wrote:So you agree that the whole real life city thing was a retarded move?

Yeah it was pretty dumb.

Sonic deserves to live in the phsychedelicly crazy world of early-90's videogame architecture.