[Sonicandtails]

I don't hate SRB2, but I don't like it as a game. The camera thing is annoying and platforming in 3D doesn't work when you can jump to anything from anywhere. Also, 2D sprites are just annoying when trying to hit things.

[Mikel]

I started playing the game after I found it at the old SFGHQ on April 12th, 2003, the version was Demo 4.1, and to celebrate the final version of SRB2 in May. I might want to add five things from 2004-2008:

* A port of SRB2 v1.09.4 to the Mac OS X was released on December 14th, 2008 by Sappharad (Who is sonicblur), If you are a Mac OS X user, the Mac port of SRB2 v1.09.4 is recommended.

* A private beta of SRB2 v1.1 was released for SRB2's tenth anniversary on February 21st, 2008, it was released exclusively on #SRB2Fun (It was in beta testing from Late February to Early March, 2008). There were numerous netgames from the months of February, and March. All of the v1.1 netgames in the Master Server are mainly Match and CTF. The match netgames are done to test the new match system that will be used in SRB2ME. During February, people started leaking the 10th Anniversary beta to the SRB2 Message Board, and they got banned for a month for leaking the SRB2 v1.1 10th Anniversary beta.

* The many betas of SRB2 v1.09.3, which lasted from April 8th, 2006 to August 17th, 2006, during those five months, there were about fourty six v1.09.3 betas released. And the betas are usually known as Release Canidates (Starting with v1.09.3.18), every beta adds new features to SRB2, take v1.09.3.18 for example, one of the new features were the new Knuckles sprites.

* The release of SRB2 v1.09 and Mystic Realm v4 on September 11th, 2005, many people have been waiting for v1.09 and Mystic Realm v4 for a year. Here are two of the changes in v1.09, as mentioned by Mystic:

"Mystic" said:

There are a lot of additions in 1.09, and almost all of them are overwhelmingly positive, however there are two specific removals that are creating a little public outcry, and I'd like to address them.

The first is the big one: Chaos mode was removed.

Frankly, I'm kinda surprised at the reaction from Chaos's removal. No one played it in multiplayer, the way it was designed to be played. A few people did play with it in single player looking for high scores, but even those people (myself included) generally stopped playing. The main thing Chaos was used for was amusement, like bouncing on Crawlas until one hits the sky, or to get to billion points or some other ridiculous point total. The reality is that it was used mostly for random amusement and trying to crash the game, not competition. Chaos had broken gameplay in general, and the fact that even the people that miss it didn't play it in multiplayer sorta put the nail on the coffin for it.

The second is a smaller one, but important none-the-less: Knuckles was nerfed.

The reason for the nerf may not seem obvious, but it's to avoid the exploit where the player bounces off an object, glides to gain height, and then at the top of the arc, lets go of the glide, and lands on another object. They bounce, glide, and repeat the process. This allows people to get VERY high into the air with relative ease. Why do we care? Because Knuckles traditional weakness is his inability to go straight up. He can climb walls, but he can't reach the air above the player without a wall to climb. The multi-glide ignored that balance, and allowed Knuckles to 'fly' better than Tails. The second part of it, the slowdown, is to more accurately mimic the classic games. I don't know if that will have a negative effect on match, but it appears not to be causing many problems, but only time will tell on that front.

It may turn out in the future that we nerfed Knuckles too much, and we may have to provide more buffs for him. However, if that does occur, we will not be returning the ability to glide more than once per jump. Exploits of that nature just ruin gameplay and break the balance between the characters. No matter how amusing they are to play with, they're still deterimental to gameplay in the long run.

* And last but not least, SA-SRB2 (That's right, Blazehedgehog's old SRB2 mod). We last saw a release of SA-SRB2 on SAGE 8 (March, 2004), as well as a Graphics Replacement patch on July 22nd, 2004. And the most recent release is for v1.08, while it was ported to 1.09.4 by Naga (Formerly known as ree-c).

If you have a couple of responses to any of the five things I listed, let me know.

[Dark Sonic]

I admire SRB2. It doesn't control 100% though (Too slippery) and the level design is not quite at Sonic standards. Like people have said, it looks like classic Sonic, but that's about it. Basically, think Sonic Heroes.

Although I can't wait for the final game to come out. It will come out eventually right? I eagerly await to see what Knuckles final sprites look like (Easily the best character out of the bunch, but also the ugliest).

[Vendettagainst]

Because since I first found them back in 2003 they've made very little progress in making demos, or even levels. They've had 1 more single player level made in 6 years. And it's not even done yet. Wow.

Honestly, it feels too loose and the levels are too restricted to Doom type levels to make it feel like a Sonic game. The art and the music are amazingly well done, and it's not horrible or bad, I just wish they would actually put some effort into completing it.

[Sik]

Wetflame, on Feb 22 2009, 02:05 PM, said:

Yeah, but it might give them a fresh start and give them a better environment. They should have made the switch years ago.

*points to Sonic GL*

Vendettagainst, on Feb 22 2009, 03:07 PM, said:

I just wish they would actually put some effort into completing it.

*points to Duke Nukem Forever*

Everything is solved by pointing to another games =)

[Cap]

This is the first time I've actually played it. My old computer wouldn't run the game.

Anyways, my thoughts. Its too fast for its own good really. Plus its too slippery. Most of the time you end up going all out and too fast, so you end vaulting an entire area of platforming or simply falling randomly into it somewhere, most of the time a pit. So most of the time your edging forward, simply tapping forward, trying not to fall of the edge cause you can't stop. Plus the areas are too sparse and empty. A lot of it simply feels like aimlessy running around.

Its a nice idea. Its a bit like Paper mario actually. Just without being an RPG. But its just to awkward and twitchy for my liking.

I haven't got around to playing the side scrolling bits, but they look a lot more promising.

[JennyTablina]

I don't hate SRB2 at all, but I wouldn't say it's a fangame I really enjoy eather

I admire it for technical innovation, back in the day when SRB2 had a lot of work being done on it, other fangames were mainly Game Creator type affairs. SRB2 was one of the first to break out of that and when you look at it considering the infancy of the scene at the time its pretty amazing

that said the game has it's good points but I've played it only really once proper. It's a tad on the fiddly side but considering the scope of the project it's forgivable. Though the factorly level turned me right off by being too confusing to navigate :\

[Tweaker]

I like SRB2.

In terms of fangames, it's right up at the top—it had an immense amount of effort put into its creation, it's uniquely constructed, has some pretty cool music, is fun to play through, and aesthetically represents classic Sonic pretty well from a graphical perspective. The environments are rich and colorful, original, and extremely vast—you'll be hard-pressed to find yourself without a multitude of ways to get from Point A to Point B. Add on the fact that custom games are entirely possible with the engine and you've got a pretty wide range of appeal to work with.

At the same time, though, the engine—mainly the physics engine—is extremely difficult to work with, and the camera leaves much to be desired. The level design feels very forced in some places, and you can constantly be overwhelmed by the feeling that you don't know where you're going. The multiplayer concept, while intriguing, is something I never personally bothered with. A lot of the level packs I've seen are pretty boring and uninteresting, and the character packs I've seen mostly consist of recolor fancharacters and different "styles" of player. I also feel that the graphics—whilst tolerable—could use some serious improvement. If you're going to do 3D, you can at least do better than the Doom Engine's default output (if that makes any sense).

Overall, SRB2 can be pretty enjoyable if you decide to give it a playthrough once in a while, but I'd hardly consider it the "perfect 3D Sonic game" by any means whatsoever; as far as I'm concerned, that title is still tied between the Sonic Adventure series and Sonic Unleashed. It is pretty fun, though.

[Wetflame]

The development is ridiculously slow though. No matter how busy you are, it can't take that long to do level design. Everyone has at least some degree of free time, and if they can't rationalise giving up some of theirs to it, they should give the Megamix SRB2 source to someone else since it's so ridiculously unfinished.

This post has been edited by Wetflame: 22 February 2009 - 01:06 PM

[muteKi]

Lostgame, on Feb 22 2009, 09:39 AM, said:

Seriously, SRB2 is undoubtedly the best 3D sonic game ever made - fan or otherwise. (Although I've never played Unleashed, it sure beats...Heroes...in terms of being an actual classic sonic game.) The level design reeks of classic Sonic, along with the graphical style. The controls might be a little iffy but it's got a great community, awesome music, and some really sweet unlockables that show off some amazing shit - they've even got an entire NiGHTS engine built in. Fuck. How could you possibly dislike this game and call yourself a sonic fan?

I'm really interested to hear what people who hate it have to say.

Eh, the SRB2 levels are a bit more open, yes, but I find the game harder to control in pretty much every way, and Heroes is really taking all its cues from the same places in terms of art style. They are quite similar in appearance.

[BlazeHedgehog]

I should dig out the unfinished version of SASRB2 if I still have it. I had redone the HUD and everything.

Also, porting SRB2 to a new engine probably wouldn't be that difficult. There are programs out there that rip 3D model geometry, so it's simple enough to load up SRB2's OpenGL mode, rip the level, and then import it in to something else. I've seen images of Green Flower Zone for... TF2, I think?

Of course, SRB2 is abolishing OpenGL mode entirely, so that probably won't be possible.

[Sik]

Wetflame, on Feb 22 2009, 04:04 PM, said:

The development is ridiculously slow paused though.

Fixed. Until recently, development has been literally stopped, sticking exclusively to adding features requested by players almost no level development at all. That's why it's taking so long really.

Wetflame, on Feb 22 2009, 04:04 PM, said:

and if they can't rationalise giving up some of theirs to it, they should give the Megamix SRB2 source to someone else since it's so ridiculously unfinished.

It's GPL. That, and most people want to make their own EXE mods than contributing to the base game really. Or making character recolors really =/

EDIT:

BlazeHedgehog, on Feb 22 2009, 04:34 PM, said:

Of course, SRB2 is abolishing OpenGL mode entirely, so that probably won't be possible.

No, as far as I know OpenGL will remain in SRB2 (at least SRB2ME), but none of the new stuff (e.g. polyobjects) will get programmed into that mode, so playing any WAD using them in GL mode becomes unreliable.

This post has been edited by Sik: 22 February 2009 - 01:43 PM

[Cooljerk]

JennyTablina, on Feb 22 2009, 09:26 AM, said:

I don't hate SRB2 at all, but I wouldn't say it's a fangame I really enjoy either

Bingo. If you hate it, hate it for being a doom wad. But it's not like it's terrible. But at the same time... I don't really enjoy anything related to the doom engine.

[Shadow Hog]

Hehehe... reading this whole discussion is quite amusing to me. All at once, though, it's hard to restrain myself from making any leaks about how 1.1 is going, so as to combat some of the claims here... although, obviously, complaints about loose controls, Doom-based mapping (ie: no ramps) and paper-thin objects won't be going anywhere any time soon (I feel I can say that much, at least, since there's not much I know of that we can do about the first, and the latter two are an inherent part of the engine, which obviously isn't going to change). Sorry! I don't think it's terribly loose, personally, but I'm used to it by now, having played it since, like, Demo 2.

BlazeHedgehog, on Feb 22 2009, 01:34 PM, said:

Also, porting SRB2 to a new engine probably wouldn't be that difficult. There are programs out there that rip 3D model geometry, so it's simple enough to load up SRB2's OpenGL mode, rip the level, and then import it in to something else. I've seen images of Green Flower Zone for... TF2, I think?

<img src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/11/5/352484/sh_map004.png">
Yeah, that was me.

I'll point out that it's not exactly the greatest map ever. I kind of focused a bit TOO much on keeping it 1:1 with the original map, meaning I had to do low-gravity for anyone but Scouts to take the first point - and there's very little cover, so it's Sniper heaven. It was still a good bit of fun to play, though.

However, the conversion was nowhere near as cut-and-dry as you make it sound. It's not really possible to use some kind of GL ripper and port it to Source - I had to convert every sector in the Doom-format map to a corresponding brush in the Source-format map by hand. I even did it such that I could make the ground entirely displacements if I needed to, although I doubt I will (that might actually have been a BAD idea, since that'd drive up the number of brushes... but, well, I did it anyway). And it took me nearly a bloody month just to do Round 1, which only spans as far as the first starpost. I haven't even started Round 2, where we get to the lake - I wonder how well that'd work in <I>TF2</I>, anyway?

<a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/11/5/352484/Levels/cp_greenflower_b1.bsp">Download it here, if you want.</a> It's a little more updated than the version in that screen, with authentic SRB2 water (I wanted the pretty Source water, but the little waterfall winds up causing too many rendering glitches to be practical), the proper SRB2 sky, and (although this may have been a bad idea) the Greenflower Zone music to boot.

[Wetflame]

Oh god. Is that a 2F2F Terrible Maps tuesday map or something. Maybe I'll forward to a guy who's just set up a new server.

This post has been edited by Wetflame: 22 February 2009 - 02:12 PM