Judging from the gameplay clip those English voices are as cringeworthy as ever, I sure hope this game has a voice option! /> I don't think anyone is going to be too pleased if they come 1st in a race only to find out they still lost overall because the rest of their team fell behind somewhere. The article goes on to explain how teams can pass along items to each other and build up a boost meter, but that's not gonna help much if your team sucks in the first place :v: Can't say much more about the game yet because there's not that much of it out there right now. I like the Chao making an appearance, as well as the neat little edits they've done to the gameplay models (Sonic has eyebrows again). I hope for the courses they aren't just entirely going to pick from Colors/Gens/Forces areas, you know they're gonna stick Green Hill in there somewhere but there's plenty of alternatives to Chemical Plant and the Death Egg.
This looks solid but it's boring, it's as if someone asked a genie "give me a Sonic kart racer but ONLY put in shit you'd expect modern Sonic Team to put in, don't throw any curveballs or surprises in there". Hoping to be wrong on that front in the end, I suppose only time will tell. No transforming is definitely a bummer though. Going back to regular old kart racing after all the great, brain-twisting tracks in Transformed and Mario Kart 8 seems boneheaded. Like, Mario is supposed to be the boring/safe one of the two. Not sure what happened here... I want to be hyped ;__;
http://youtu.be/UtwYEGZt3lQ Iizuka gives interview. Pretty fluff, but still. No gameplay footage, for some reason. Biggest thing is that there is supposed to be a story reason for Sonic to be in a car. How underwhelming that is remains to be seen :p.
I watched the first couple of questions get answered and have up after that. It was a bunch of politicians answers and for no real reason. Why isn't the transforming vehicles mechanic returning? "Because we really wanted to make a Sonic racing game because there hasn't been one for a while". That has literally nothing to do with the question asked. And even if it did, it didn't actually answer anything.
Calling it now, Eggman breaks Sonic's legs with a wrench. Sonic figures he'd prefer a car over a wheelchair while he recovers.
Still waiting for more footage before giving final thoughts. But yeah the article and video gave us firmer details on how the team dynamic is going to work, and the sentence from the article you quoted and your reaction to it is similar to mine: The team dynamic is an interesting wrinkle. The description of it from the Wal-Mart page made me think it was just going to be like "Double Dash," where you have two racers on a single kart, are able to get two power-ups at one time, and the characters swap on the kart after you've used their item. But this is quite different and more involved than that--seems like your team will always consist of three characters, and in order to win the race all three racers (meaning you *and* your AI or human teammates) have to do well. (Sounds like "doing well" comes from a combination of finishing in a high position, using power-ups to wreak havoc on other racers, and doing tricks. I imagine finishing in a high 1-3 position is weighted the most in terms of points received, but it does sound like maybe it'd be possible to have your team finish in 2nd, 5th, and 6th place and still "win" the race if you got enough points via power-ups/trick moves/etc.) That is interesting, but I have no idea whether I'll actually like or prefer that to just the standard "the higher position you finish the race in the more points you get." The AI obviously has to be good enough to make it not annoying to win races with them. And the online netcode is gonna have to be really good so that winning races with friends online is a good experience. But honestly even if all of these things are done well--the AI, the netcode, how the team system works in general--I still feel like the question remains as to whether this team system will be better/more fun than just worrying about how you do in the race and what position you finish in. It could potentially be a bit too much and possibly even too distracting, depending on how much you have to micromanage and worry about how your two racer teammates are doing. The previous game had a lot of different modes, so I'm sure there will be a mode that is more traditional that removes the team element and has the points simply be based on what position you finish in as a solo player. But clearly that is not the focus of the game. Still excited to see better and longer footage of the game in-action. (I'm not a human frame rate counter like the Digital Foundry guys, and based on the first two games I'm sure the game will run well by launch/the final build, but it certainly seemed like there were some noticeable drops that made the game look a bit disorienting at times--especially from 0:11-0:18. Maybe it was the PC build and the PC it was being played on wasn't up to snuff specs-wise. We'll surely get a better sense of where performance is currently at from all the footage of the game being played at E3.) Hoping all the best for the game; the Sumo Digital folks proved with the last one they can make a great kart racer.
Part of me is saying "trust Sumo" but the other part is saying "the team mechanic and some of the gameplay footage seems underwhelming." I'm hoping for the E3 coverage to prove me wrong though.
You're all going to be waiting a long time before anything impressive comes along. Game journalist are all garbage and I highly doubt any decent footage will come from them. Especially any that shows off the team mechanics. Don't get your hopes up on any decent E3 footage either. Sumo needs to put out their own videos in the higher class settings if they want to impress. I'm waiting for some Talladega Nights footage from them.
"This game looks underwhelming!" - someone who has seen less than a fucking minute of footage. Good going, guys. In seriousness, what we can discern from the footage is that we've got the (superior) Transformed trick system, they've changed the powerups YET AGAIN (but for Wisps, which I'm okay with), and very little else. Personally waiting on potential 'proper' E3 reveal before I decide I don't like a thing after a mere 44 seconds of not-actually-sanctioned amateur footage. :v:
Literally came here to post the exact same thing. Saw Iizuka, wondered how long it would take him to give an illogical non-answer, and WELL, that didn't take long, now did it. Edit: It seems like this hasn't been posted yet: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHdB1r8Zz58[/youtube] It looks all right.
That looks better. I'm fairly certain it's got to be one of the first tracks in the game though, because compared to anything from ASR and ASRT it looks way too tame. The course design is very simple. The team gimmick isn't looking too hot right now. You can ride slipstreams and share items, but if I wasn't actively looking for the elements of team gameplay then I wouldn't have noticed them honestly. It's easy to miss.
I know y'all like to dunk on game journalists, but going by previews they seem to know how to play the game (and Sumo's previous Sonic racing games) well enough. The gameplay footage that's out there is b-roll from Sega that was sent to them. (EDIT: Also, keep in mind that the footage that comes from E3 is often from people who are playing a ton of different games for the first time that week, possibly on a really busy and sweaty showfloor. When footage from there has the player playing badly, it's more likely cause of that than because of game journalists being garbage. Also, maybe don't call people garbage for not being good at video games regardless of all that.) Anyway, looks like it could be alright? The sense of speed seems pretty lacking, though that could be because the game is being played on a lower difficulty/speed setting. The music is disappointing though.
"Let's go ultimate on these guys" I've watched less than three minutes of footage and I'm already sick of that phrase. Well done.
I hope there's gonna be a race speed option in the setup, because Mario Kart 8 150cc is faster than that. I really enjoyed All Stars Racing Transformed, and I hope this game will at least be on its level. The team mechanic sounds interesting; I just wish for it not to make or break the game.
I trust Sumo. All Stars Racing and Transformed were my two favorite games of the early 2010s and probably the games I sunk the most time into. Plus the game is only $40, so if it sucks at least it won't hurt as bad as a full $60 game. I trust that the gameplay will be sound, my only concern now is character roster, stages, and music. Gimme another banger like the Sky Sanctuary/Back in Time mash up from Transformed. Honestly, I'd be surprised if there weren't some deep cuts in the character roster. Sumo's last games show they have an intimate familiarity with Sega, so hopefully they'll take that and crack open info dot sonic retro dot org and look for some cool, obscure characters to include. Not holdin my breath for Honey the Cat, but I'd be surprised if they didn't include classic Sonic.
I agree with what TimmiT said above. Also, by "better and longer footage" I meant 20+ minutes of different footage from various outlets that just gives us a better sense of what the game is like. I don't care whether the person playing is good at it or not. 2 minutes and 38 seconds of footage had been posted about an hour before my post about the team dynamic and 4+ hours before Casshern's post. For some reason no one here linked to it until much later (thanks to HP Zoner for doing so). More importantly, though, Jmtshaw, me, and Casshern were giving our thoughts based on multiple articles of impressions of the game that had gone live yesterday morning. The quote of "Simply put, you can't win as an individual by just being the best racer; if the team doesn't do well, then nobody does" comes from this write-up. Point being: multiple people had described in decent detail how the new team dynamic/system works, and all three of us were giving our thoughts on that. Would have felt comfortable giving my thoughts on the team system based on those written descriptions without seeing any footage whatsoever, since it's pretty easy to grasp. Also all three of us said positive things about the game, that we were interested in seeing more, longer footage from E3, and that we hope it turns out well. And I qualified my thoughts about the team system itself by saying I obviously am *not sure* yet whether I will like or prefer it to the standard "the higher position you finish the race in the more points you get." Could very well turn out that I end up enjoying it more than a traditional system and it ends up being the factor that differentiates and makes "Team Sonic Racing" more appealing than other kart racers. But as I said in my post, the team system (even if done well in terms of the quality of the AI, netcode, etc.) could end up being not fun and/or distracting, depending on how much you have to micromanage and worry about how your two racer teammates are doing. Also like Jmtshaw said, regardless of how well-done the team system is implemented, some people just flat out aren't going to like that they can get 1st place every race and still end up "losing" if their AI or human teammates don't do well enough, or feel like they didn't properly earn it if they get 3rd or lower place but still end up "winning" because their team as a whole got enough points via successfully using power-ups, performing tricks, etc. Like I've said multiple times, though, definitely excited to see and learn more about the game, and I hope it turns out well.
