I actually thought it was pretty fun--and the graphics certainly aren't terrible (if you've played the last like, five sonic games--then this is a freaking breakthrough). Plays mostly like what one might expect--pretty much just like the Sonic Adventure series.

Camera does need work though, just allow me to adjust its sensitivity and uninvert both axis and I'll be happy.

I'll probably be picking this one up, big fan..hardly would call it lazy, especially considering just how lazy the developement of this franchise has become--this is certainly by far the most effort they've put into a sonic the hedgehog game in SEVEN YEARS. Good enough for me.

EDIT: Oh, and the graphics are fine--not spectacular or anything but far from horrible--maybe I'm just going easy on it because the last two demos we got were Fuzion Frenzy and Just Cause, heh. Seriously though--get the clip up to 60fps and I don't need any more detail--Sonic is about speed, not stopping to take in the surroundings. I will be playing Sonic the Hedgehog--the only thing I really worry about is shadow and his SUV.

I am so happy right now, I'm gonna have to wait a moment to stop shaking.

...

There. I love it. I love it so damn much. It's improved in all the right ways (upward spin dash, rail/rope lock ons, not getting knocked around in mid air by attacks) and the fluidity with which you can do simple tasks that weren't so simple in the past is just intoxicating. Rails respond to the spin attack lock like bumpers did in the past, controls are *less responsive* in a great way when you run on straights. You can actually do some daring things now without signing up for near-certain death.

You can actually jump off running on the wall, take out two baddies that climb the wall, then continue. There's tons of different paths through this tiny level, and you feel like you can go just about anywhere to get to the finish. The music has a Sonic Adventure 1 air to it, and Sonic himself looks absolutely great! In fact, I think it all looks great, including the enemies and the environments.

I've played the demo three times already and I'll play it a great deal more today. Right now I'm utterly confident that the game I buy this november is at least on par with Sonic Adventure 1, and has the potential of being even better.

@ Quez - I don't think the demo is up in Sweden, which is a fucking disgrace really. We should beat someone up for it.

See, Sonic fans am happy! They just need to clean up the framerate a bit and tweak the camera and I'll be happy--just make that thing slightly more sensitive and give me the ability to univert both axis and it'll be sweeeet.

The seperate paths are pretty sweet too--just watched my roomate go through the level again on a seperate path and it was pretty damn sweet--much shorter than the path I took too.

All in all I like the demo, sort of wish there was more to it though.

EDIT: Unbelievable--people all over the net are ripping this game a new one--poor Sega..despite what people say it's 1) Certainly not the worst demo on XBLM and 2) Not nearly as bad as some may claim--no--Sega really shouldn't be ashamed of themselves. Perhaps I go to easy on them--but seven years of crappy Sonic games will do that to ya--a half decent platformer is all I ask for. Sure, it may still exhibit some of Sonic Adventures pitfalls (no pun intended), but that doesn't make it trash (imo)...

Among the gaming public, Sega can do no right--but they're right there cheering them on as they release games like VF5 (with good reason)--only to proclaim them dead the next day over Sonic The Hedgehog.

Yeah, it's a tiny, tiny demo. Though I think if it was longer I wouldn't have explored the multiple paths as much. Those orb thingies that enable those air grinds, some of them can be bumped twice for a different path through the air.

Also, since you can attack UPWARDS there's plenty of places where you can basically climb enemies to get to other paths.

As for the camera, I usually just center it on L, but it's really quite puzzling why the right stick control is so slow. Hopefully they'll fix that.

And up the framerate like you say.

I also need to invert them from the default settings (the camera controls)--really screws with my head. People are complaining about falling off the level--aparently they've never played Sonic Adventure. That's practically a feature!

I'm sorta shocked (not really, I expected it..but I still think it's shitty) at the general reaction to Sonic, and Sega in general. They really can't get a break--it's a good thing that people are generally willing to overlook that when concerning something like Yakuza (well, thanks to Yakuza's localization they got nailed pretty hard/unfairly for that too imo) or Virtua Fighter...

I know it's too simple an answer, but I think it's the playstation generation talking. Reviewers and gamers alike.

Of course, then you have the people that played Sonic when they were little, hopped on the PC train and then got an Xbox. Or, you know, PSX -> PS2/for whatever reason missed the Dreamcast and are stuck in the mindset that 2D Sonic is the only *right* Sonic.

I can't imagine missing Dreamcast. Sega's (all too brief) moment of glory..I love my Dreamcast. Possibly my favorite videogame console ever--and I've had quite a few over the years.

There was just something special about that little thing.

Then again I skipped the PSX until the generation was almost over (Saturn!)--and hardly touched my PS2--save for some AAA games and specific games that I just couldn't miss (like VF4/SC3).

Yeah, it seems by default you can't have the "perfect" videogame upbringing no matter where you went, because you're gonna miss out on someone's moment of bliss.

It's funny because I had a NES and a SNES when I was a kid. It was Virtua Fighter in the arcades that basically dictated the path I had to walk. I got a Saturn with Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 eventually. So, basically, while I played Sonic 2 a lot on my friend's sister's Megadrive, I never really grew up with him.

As we all know, Saturn didn't really have Sonic games at all, apart from R, Jam and Flicky's Island (which was far better than people made it out to be, just not very Sonicy) and I basically loved the character before I loved the games. When Jam came out I played the 2D ones to my heart's content, but it was sort of a missed bus I suppose, not actually growing up with the originals.

When Dreamcast came out and I played Sonic Adventure for the first time, I think that's when my gaming carreer sort of peaked. That was pure god damn magic. I still have this image of Knuckles guarding the Master Emerald burnt into my head. Let's see.. I was... 16 at that time.

I glanced at PSX stuff during my Saturn days, and found things like Soul Calibur, Bushido Blade and Tobal #1 to be unavoidably entertaining. MGS was, of course, fantastic too. But things like Wipeout, Ridge Racer, Gran Turismo I just never got onboard. Of course you can always jump in later, but I'll never quite be able to capture that appreciation for those series that fans that were there *as they happened* have.

With Sega putting VF4 on PS2, I too went multiplatform properly. The rest is history. Economically disasterous history.

Virtua Fighter pretty much dictated my path to a certain extent too--though I never got deep into PS2--it made sure I was there for the party. Also secured me a Sega Saturn--though I probably would have made that jump regardless..being pretty into Sega from day one. I've been pretty dedicated to VF ever since part one was installed in my highschools rec. room when I was younger--was hooked from day one and honestly blown away by the graphics (seems funny now).

Likewise, Virtua Fighter once more asks of me to purchase a new console, and it is likely that I will obey.

I don't regret them going multiplatform though--I honestly don't believe we would have recieved versions of JSRF, Gun Valk, Virtua Fighter, Shinobi, etc that lived up to the PS2/Xbox releases on Dreamcast...but that doesn't mean that little guy couldn't have had more of a life, I suppose.

I wholeheartedly agree. Although I suppose we'll never know just how powerful the dreamcast could've been with a PS2 style lifecycle, some of those games changed drastically when they were reimagined for multiplatform releases. Gunvalkyrie was supposed to be played with a gamepad + lightgun combination, not entirely unlike the Wii control setup.

I do feel that they would've fared better in reviews had they stayed on Dreamcast though. While JSRF charmed pretty much everyone, Shinobi, Gunvalkyrie, Billy Hatcher, Blood Will Tell, Crazy Taxi 3 would almost certainly have gotten a better reception on there. They're ultimately the same games, and prolly saw the same sales or slightly more even, but it's unfortunate when you look at Sega's reputation. It's dwindled not only because some of the things they've put out isn't up to snuff, but also because reviewers everywhere have in some cases displayed a TOTAL lack of understanding for what a game is trying to do - perhaps most notably GV and Shinobi - because they haven't bothered to get into them.

They're still the best, on occasion :)

Game still lack AF?

Yea, it lacks AF, but doesn't look too too bad (imo, atleast, being that the texture filtering sucks)

Sonic has been going downhill for 7 years (maybe that's why he's so fast!)--but fix up the camera and the framerate and I think this ones looking okay..I know okay isn't enough to win back some people--but it seems like it's working on Simon and myself.

I'm not sure Sonic team has ever been "the best"--but they've made some nice titles and have a handful of decent ones up and coming (this + PSU).

Sega is always at thier best when we're talking about arcade games--Virtua Fighter--is still the best :P

It's not like there's a lot of competition for 3D platformers either..I'm not sure there's anything particularly better or worse than this, in this genre, for this platform.

Pretty fair impressions, Jolli--perhaps I'm being too easy on this one--but I think everyone else is being a little too harsh. The camera is a big deal though--I agree with that one big time--it's too focused downward (instead of ahead) and it's HORRIBLY SLOW. Sonic is too touchy--the camera isn't touchy enough.

I just feel so comfortable with the way things control, the camera not always showing what I'm doing isn't really a big deal for me, because I know how Sonic will behave when I control him. That's something I can't say about any of the other 3D Sonic games. I feel completely safe here when I'm hopping off a rail, going after baddies with the intention to actually get back on the rail again. Partly that's because the camera isn't a nervous twich fest that throws off my sense of where enemies and rails are in relation to myself. If I need to see something I press L to center it behind me.

I can't say I'm in a position to actually point out the game's shortcomings right now though, I'm just too happy about it. :)

If I were to force myself into complaining about something.. Um.. I guess it could be the difficulty. The ranking system has never managed to give me under a B, no matter how much I've experimented and died. I hope the full game expects a bit more from you, or this is the biggest case of rank inflation since DMC2.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/735/735501p1.html

A bit of info on the creation of Silver.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/video_player...

I made a run-through of the demo.