Sonic Boom (Games) Megathread

Lost World didn't satisfy anyone's appetite, and Sonic Boom looks to do the same. Are you really surprised people are making mountains of a mole hill with this info ?

 

Were hungry Endri, Boom isn't cutting it and other then its fans we've kind of stopped caring what it does because we know its not going to be sonic or even the norm we've come to expect, its gonna be strange and laughable.

That little bit of info. you gave us was mundane to you but worth discussing because we really want to know what the next Sonic Team game is.

 

I'm getting my information from here; they have their own set of numbers too: [Link]
Pretty fun video to watch actually, you should see their other videos too. As for your measurements, one camera is zoomed in and the other is zoomed out. Sorry, but did you take that into account too when measuring pixels? If not then you'd have to take into account the pixel translation from Mario to Sonic and translate both to a set unit. It's possible 2-3 Sonic pixels equate to just one Mario pixel. I'm not doubting you, just I'm always one to question information. I suppose however Classic Sonic's speed really is just determined by what the level design allows, like Machenstein said. In the end of the day I think we can agree 3D Sonic is much faster than 2D Sonic.

Remember when that little kid showed that simple Sonic Boom poster? For some reason people though it would be a wise idea, even though we were weeks from E3, to successfully manage to get his first, middle, last name, and family. The fanbase tracked him down, not SEGA. That video, recorded on a shaky potato that was like 20 seconds long ended up getting Mike Pollock's attention to tame them.

 

Largely why we kind of stopped posting rumors upfront. I mean, we had a very nice accurate track record, but if it's not news, it's just page filler to get easy hits. If you're right, yay. If not, well plans changed or your source was full of bunk.

 

I watched the B-roll that was posted on the front page, and... yeah. The art style and the whole setting reminds me of Chronicles, and I don't really want to remember that. It looks like a Ratchet and Clank game, which would be really fun if it were a PS2-type platformer, but that's not what Sonic is (except for those two times were Sonic was a platform game on the PS2).

Obviously we can't judge the game without playing it, but it just looks really drab and not what anyone would really expect from Sega; of course, it's not being made by Sonic Team. I'm trying to be optimistic, and I'll most likely end up getting both versions when they come out, but I'm just not excited about these games. The TV show, however, looks like it'll be a great time. THAT I can get down with.

 

If we're going to get into how fast Sonic is, lets look into the fastest video game character. The Doom Marine.

Seems like Doomworld forum people had been looking into it, and even John Carmack acknowledges Doomguy runs too fast for his own good.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/5909-so-just-how-fast-does-the-marine-run

 

I'm familiar with Game Theory. Which rises the question: are we really using Game Theory videos as evidence? Not only Game Theory's videos are for entertainment purposes only and every information there in should be taken at face value, his measurements in this case are inaccurate up to eleven, as he is calculating the median of the pixels displacements based on time.

There are no such thing as measurements here; my information comes straight from the games source codes themselves. With this, I have the actual, accurate subpixel displacement values for each frame. You couldn't possibly get any more accuracy than that. And actually, now I noticed that I posted the Super Mario World integer representation of the hex values as hex. Weird. Fixed it now.

Since it would be useless to just post the source codes of each game, I'll leave these bits of interesting informations, which basically break it down for people who don't know the inner workings of the aforementioned games:

Sonic Physics Guide
Super Mario World Game Mechanics

Mario is 28 pixels tall; Sonic is 39. Even if Super Mario World camera's were zoomed in twice as much as it normally is and Mario were 59 pixels tall on the screen, his maximum possible speed ever in Super Mario World would still be slower than Sonic's top speed (0.40625 compared to 6). Heck, you can even zoom in the camera 16x, Mario would be 448 pixels tall, you would only be able to see the bottom half of his body, and Mario would still be slower than Sonic (3.25).

 

I knew posting Game Theory as any form of citation was a bad idea, but you see a mix of laziness and stupidity got the best of me so I decided to do that instead of getting my own numbers. They're really just bad fanfiction when you think of it 99% of the time, but like I said, too lazy to come up with my own numbers. What's with me posting inaccurate citation here? First the Sonic Boom multiplatform possibility then this. I guess I'm just easily mislead. I apologize for the idiotic citation, I didn't doubt you, just I tend to question things a lot, bad habit of mine.
Again, thanks for pointing that info out. Like my username suggests my only skills lie in the visuals department, I really shouldn't talk about what I don't know or checked up on fully. I hope it won't happen again, but no promises because I can be an idiot at times ;P

Edit: Siliconera did an interview with Bob Rafei on the WiiU version. [Link]
He claims that most of the fanbase is happy with the changes in Boom when the reception so far is about 65% negative if not more. The interview was fine though, I like how they stated the WiiU version is also about exploration like the 3DS one. Seems like they're still saving a lot of info for E3 though.

Edit Again: After looking into this more I just realized that I wasn't talking about Sonic's actual "on foot" speed but rather the flow of the platforming in comparison with the two games. It's no doubt that if I put Mario in Green Hill he'd finish it slower. You're definitely right though when you said the measurement of median pixels passed is inaccurate since that would change stage to stage. Right or wrong the point I was trying to drive home was that Modern Sonic is considerably faster than his 2D variation.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_TRUHYmGn4
He kind of has a point, to some extent. :P

 

You got a point. Just found the whole thing a tad odd is all. I don't mind his design though, since it does make him a bit more intimidating than if he was drawn in the same style as Sonic and the others. A bit out of place, but I can live with it.

As for the game itself, I'm gonna be a bit cautious. I do want the games and television show to succeed, no question. Have seen Frost browse places like Sonic Stadium and answer some questions, so that's something, I guess.

 

There's only so much I can say about this game. At the moment, I just don't really know what to make of it, overall. It doesn't look BAD, but it does look frustrating in some ways.

I'm going to touch on the gameplay, real quick. The idea of Sonic being a button masher with lasso gimmicks and enemies that take several hits an' all that kinda turns me off. Not because Sonic isn't constantly running around, but because that kind of combat really is slow-paced. Okay, so, if speed isn't the focus of the gameplay, then why do they have those speedier levels here and there? I mean, yeah, it's neat that those parts still have alternate paths an' all, but for the most part, they look pretty automated. This is my main problem with Sonic game in general, these days.

A lot of people on youtube have gotten this weird impression that I don't want a Sonic game to be fast. They are wrong. The last thing I want is a slow Sonic game. I just want a healthy middle ground. In some ways (SOME), they got it right with Sonic's gameplay in Sonic Adventure, and the modern stages in Sonic Generations. Those are not "slow." They're fast-paced because things are constantly happening and you're always getting something done, not pounding the same enemy for, like, five seconds before moving on to the next enemy and so on. You don't have to torpedo down a corridor to get that experience. So when I see a game like this, I just... I find it perplexing that they can't seem to get it right. They can't just make something reasonably fast paced, they can't find that middle ground. It's either really plodding, or super-duper fast and automated.


But anyway... I'd also like to touch upon the writing. now, I know some people will think this is nitpicking, but I feel like talking about it anyway. SOME of the writing is actually very good. That bit where Sonic asks Eggman if he "read the instructions this time" and Eggman says he "only had two screws left over," is pretty funny... not just because of the more obvious and relatable part of the joke that makes us think about that time we assembled a complex lego set incorrectly and left out a piece or... five, but the more subtle punchline. Maybe not everyone will pick up on this, and I wonder if we can even say the writers have the capacity to intentionally do this, but they're basically saying he has a coupla' screws loose. That's GOOD writing.

But then, you've got this "RINGS! NOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM" shit and "Hey! These things have things inside them!" junk. Yeah, yeah, we get it. You're poking fun at the silliness of breaking boxes an' whatnot to get items in videogames, all right, whatever. But with the "rings" bit, they're just pandering to the "kids on teh internets" with their l33t-speak and made up words like swag and yolo an' whatnot who giggle at this "LAWLZSORANDOM!!1!" crap. That kind of humor is sooooo 2009, and it's just going to become really dated, and even less funny in a few years. It's really cheap and not very clever at all, and I am worried that most of the humor in the game will be more like this.


But anyway... that's enough outta me. Kinda been holding it in for a while.

 

It seems a bit obvious that they wouldn't care to talk about the games as much as the TV show. The games are really just a cartoon tie-in instead of being it's own new series of games.

 

As I've been saying since the beginning, this is a Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures type of deal, all the way down to the drastic redesigns. Of course the TV show will take precedence over the games. It's hard to tell if Pac-Man inspired this since that was only a year ago.

 

That being said TimmiT, it makes me wonder why the stability of RoL is going down the toilet with all that dev time behind it (though I might be overestimating their ability to clean up silly oversights), and it also makes me wonder how long they've had the TV show in development. Chances are the SHOW'S been in development for 3 years or even more, and the thought to branch out from that might have come after the concept of the show was yielding some hope.

And stuff like this where, very late into development time, the CORE GAMEPLAY seems to fall flat on its face, makes me wish companies did more CHEAP spinoff titles as experiments instead of blowing all the dollars they have into something that's flawed at its core yet has millions of dollars thrown into it :x