Playing Sonic Generations- Pt 1

Where is the update?
Delayed due to Sonic Generations. As a Sonic fan, naturally I couldn't skip this brand new game. The update will still appear this week, just...a little later on. So in the meantime, what about Generations? (This is the NON SPOILER part of the review--go ahead & read!)

I midnighted it...surprising as that may be.
Reserved it at Gamestop ages ago because you were supposed to get some prize lvl (have yet to find it) and when the call came, they said "Midnight Launch Party". Saddest. Party. Ever. Did you know that Uncharted: Drake's Surly Fanclub was also releasing at midnight? Yeah me neither. FIVE other people attended and I was the only one there for Generations. I guess when people said : "I will never buy another game because of the werehog" they were infact, not exaggerating. Or maybe it was because that particular gamestop had been robbed at some point a few months ago. Who knows. They should of put that internet meme "Foreveralone" face on the door.

Pre Ordering Reminder!
Do you want to let developers know that you like something? Pre Order it. It doesn't matter if you don't approve of game retailers or whatever, companies DO LOOK at the preorder numbers on their games. It is a great way to "vote" and show you care.

The Game:

It looks really beautiful. The 3 stages I did so far are Green Hill, Chemical Plant & Sky Sanctuary, as both versions. Sky Sanctuary is especially lovely with it's stark tropical lighting, plants, parrots, and techno-marble-ruins. Watch for the wetted areas/waterfalls in green hill. The badniks are cute, wacky, fun and VERY animated. Lots of personality for motobug, grabber spiders & egg robos. You can appriciate the Jazwares EggRobo toys! Giant spider is wacky too. Huge chopchop fish is an exciting touch! The characters all look good too, everyone's nice & on model there's nothing super odd running around yet.

Play Value?
YES. There's PLENTY to do. You can totally bomb thru it by doing the main stages if you want, but at a certain point a hoard of doors appear all around that contain "extra challenges" for you to do where the levels are changed around or have new features. (So it resembles the main stage, but has different stuff in it so it's like playing a different stage most of the time) And that's just the super obvious things I've done so far. You can get rings, use 1 ring, race dopplegangers/Amy/Tails' airplane, summon Knuckles to dig medals, or fight hoards of badguys. So not only does altering the stage create variety, the missions are rather different from eachother too.

But how is the engine? Does it play better than Sonic 4?

Yes, it's much better than 4. BUT it can be super super frusterating because it feels like there's a delay on the jump button. You mash, and it does nothing for like a quarter of a second. Like the controller is failing somehow. Maybe mine is but FRUSTERATION ABOUNDS because I am not completely psychic. With the delay the button is down, and WAS down but he's plummeting to his doom for the 8 billionth time because I wasn't precog enough to push the damm thing a full 3 seconds before I needed to. FUNNY THING: Less delay with classic Sonic. Srsly. What the hell.

Why can't this thing just play like Sonic Adventure 1?

Why can't it play like S & K?

Those controls were tight but they're old as hellz! Even day stage Unleash jumped better than modern in here.

Is it easy?

Yes OR No. Either you're going to S rank something on the first or 2nd go, or you die like 50 times suffering in failure over rinky dink junk. "Oh he picks the wrong balloon 14 times in a row!" or "You don't know where this is going to be, but you have to be able to guess right 3 seconds ahead of time on something totally random, or you deathdrop because jump delay" and "homing attack fails for no reason / spin dash does nothing at random" a case of "I'll pretend you never pushed the button and just stand here/just fall down!"

Did they do the nostalgia right?

This was a big thing on people's minds, and it sure seems so. The music is classic in the right spots and they've enhanced (rather than replaced) classic elements. Like the pink chemical in the plant, the blue blorp things, the tubes you go thru are now thick glass/see thru, and there are plenty of loops & twists and things all over. The "2D" stages also feature twists and turns that are not 2D looking...but are very fitting. It's a great thing to see. The modern has everything you'd expect, like boost areas to crash thru cannonfodder badguys, rails (but not to an obnoxious degree!), the rainbow rings/air tricks/boost gague & etc.

Interesting Aside:

Scoring is better. You get a bonus if you don't die before finishing the level. That's nice. Also that it SHOWS you what time you need for S is good too. No need for print outs/charts.

The over-all first impression is good...

If the jumping was better, this game would be over the moon. I am actually hoping it is my controller failing somehow. There will be a part 2 to the review, with more of the levels plus a look at the 3D.

Reccommendation now: Go buy it.
There's no "crazy garbage" (at least yet) that people wail about on the internet. No wierdo alternate Sonics, no forced bizzarre levels (ie Knuckles treasure hunt irritation), cutscenes are small/minimal but look good, VA's seem decent, you can Turn OFF Omochao (people hated him with a passion...he's optional) Metal Sonic is IN and you get to race him in a fun way (he was always a big fave, looks good here) No "hunting for level doors garbage" like in Unleashed where you needed a squillion irritating medals and then you ran around the 'map world' thing and still couldn't find where to place them or doors were in gimmicky stupid spots you had to waste time getting to. As soon as this thing loads, you can be in a level. Load times are fair, and if you want to just replay a place, theres no loading at all.