Project Needlemouse: old threads

I've seen a number of good titles from Sega in recent times.


I mean, what did we have in the 80s, at the launch of the Genesis in Japan? Fucking Super Thunder Blade.

 

If Sega had a team capable of making a good Sonic game they would have made one by now. They tried to make a good game with Sonic 06 and they tried with Unleashed. Unless they outsource it or get a totally new team how could this be any different? Its not that Sega won't make a good Sonic game its that they can't.

 

They need a director who doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or sacrifice everything in the pursuit of speed. They could also use some better level designers, or at leaste not just stick hole everywhere.

 

I personally think they are limited in what they could have done with the direction they have been using. As for this particular game, the primary team hasn't done a 2D Sonic game in ages. Who knows what could come out of this. It could be a pure mess or it could be a perfect return to form. Who knows.

 

Hold on now, Sonic Team are the ones who have been making most of these games. Sonic 06 and Sonic Unleashed were made in the same studio, only with slightly different people. And Sega has been outsourcing Sonic to different studios and they have been getting mixed results too. Backbone and BioWare have made Sonic games of dubious quality despite BioWare allegedly being this great developer. The Dimps games have been generally good, but even that can be argued.

Just like with animation, making good Sonic games seems to be a lost art form. All of these developers need to realize there does exist a formula for making good Sonic games. Just like with any art form, you need to know the basics first before you can really be competent at something. Otherwise, where's your foundation?

 

I was under the impression that Sega has been deliberately sabotaging the series by forcing new stupid gimmicks in every installment and rushing them out the door after like six months of development.

Project Needlemouse is a desperation tactic, I think. Unleashed did about 2 million total across each platform, which is okay I suppose, but not fantastic.

 

2.45 million across all formats, which isn't actually such a bad turnout.

 

I don't think the team's the problem, it's a combination of Sega rushing things and the fanbase's ridiculously high expectations. It's a no-win situation.

 

This, except I'm sure it's been mentioned time and again that the original team got tired of Sonic, pretty much after Sonic Adventure 2.

 

...which is why they now have a bunch of newcomers and long-time Sonic fans in Sonic Team, which worked on Unleashed. And is why, overall, Unleashed felt like the most well done Sonic game since SA2.

 

And this is why we have not heard a word out of Project Needlemouse since that trailer.

 

Maybe Sega's been intentionally screwing up every game so that when Needlemouse gets released it just blows everyone out of the fucking water and makes a very large sum of money.

Then again, maybe THAT'S Sega's plan: to make us THINK that this will be Sonic's triumphant return. They release one measly little teaser video, leaving the fanbase to do nothing but speculate, and speculate, and think that maybe they're doing something different, not over-hyping and rushing it out, when secretly they're doing just that, except making us overhype it ourselves because of our perpetual speculating.

Man, and I said Unleashed was the LAST time too.

 

I liked unleashed. Its the first main sonic game since heroes I actually bothered replaying the story again. It has its faults though. They so easily have added another 3 locales and done 2 normal sonic levels per area if it weren't for the werehog. Also lag. Fucking lag least unleashed was pretty enough that there was some reason behind it this time

 

That really isn't saying very much at all, which is definitely worth noting :P

 

Faults? You mean like when the sun went down?

 

I think one fault was trying to create a new character to fill in for the roles of both a fighter and a dark super transformation. Knuckles was already a good candidate for a fighter, and we already had Dark Super Sonic (not necessarily in game, but the concept had already been explored).

 

Pretty much, but beyond that the medal hunting, having to pointlessly go and see Professor Pickle, HUBS, and the camera which I wasn't as forgiving of this time around. It really got in the way. Also the lag which I found to be horrendous at times they really need to fix that if they use the Hedgehog engine again. Such a beautiful game but it's slowed down so much, cutscenes included unfortunately.

 

Not to go all picky on you, but lag, when speaking about gaming, generally refers to latency during the transmission/receiving of online packets.

What you're referring to is drops in framerate.

 

Lets first hope for two important things in Needlemouse:

Accurate physics.
No more fucking new characters.
Pikachu in a sombrero.

 

Oh right, ya I should have known that difference. But yes drops in frame rate that made me mad.