Project Needlemouse: old threads

Yes, it turned out to be a fun game that was leaps and bounds superior to any other attempt at a main Sonic title in years, and one that I still find myself going back to play.

I trust this is what you meant? I mean, I certainly thought this, and you did say "we".

...or am I not included in this highfalutin' club of yours?

 

It's minor, but it would be nice if the game has... You know, badniks. At least All Star Racing acknowledges them.

 

That's exactly what I thought.

 

:D I beat ya!

 

This has the possibility to be good. I mean look at Star Trek for example. Next Generation was made decades after the original series, and it was a great show that lived up to the originals and went in a new direction.

The development team just need to sit down and read everything on Zone: 0, learn how to build good levels, and they'll be away. The silhouette suggests a Sonic 1 remake, and I really hope that this isn't the case. It also looks awfully polygonny, instead of an actual HD sprite.

I guess it depends what they mean by HD graphics ultimately. Do they mean spritework done at a high resolution, or 2.5D environments rendered at an HD resolution? I'm very much hoping for the former.

But at the same time, Sonic needs something to bring it up to date. A game with exactly the same atmosphere as Sonic 1's GHZ doesn't fly too well in the current age. Sonic 2 has aged better, but still has some dated elements. Sonic Advance 1 I personally really think got the closest in terms on an old skool style game but with a more contemporary edge, Rush also made a real effort to be contemporary but unfortunately I feel it resulted in a more disposable feel to the game. Getting that balance right is a challenge in itself, I suppose.

 

So that needlemouse site... I tried to whois it, but everything came back unknown. Did I fuck up, or can someone confirm it's real?

 

B-but... I loved Sonic Rush and genuinely thought it was a good game. :<

Hey, didn't mean to offend. I had thought a majority agreed that the Werehog gimmick hurt the title in immeasurable ways. Certainly not enough to make it awful, but enough to, well, downgrade the title considerably.

And as for playing it... I actually never finished it. I found myself enjoying the speed stuff enough to play through the Werehog stuff just to get there - to a point. Once I reached Chun-nan, I found that the camera and impossible-to-measure speed made the game stupid hard for no reason. I got a bit further than that only to hit at least what felt like a ton of Werehog levels in a row followed by an inability to access the next speed level because I didn't have enough medals, so I had to go back to Chun-nan only this time my speed stats made the level virtually f*cking impossible to finish let alone medal hunt in. At that point, it wasn't fun so I turned it in used.

I will admit a lot of Sonic Unleashed worked. But in the same token, a lot of it didn't. This thread isn't about that either, so I apologize for even bringing it up.

 

I'm waiting on this as well. Who discovered it and how?

 

My optimism just shot down a good 25% of what it just was an hour or so ago.

Is it really, really that hard to at least try and create decent 2D graphics for this game? I mean, don't get me wrong—that's some pretty 3D and all that, and I've said several times that a Superstars Tennis-esque Green Hill Zone would be awesome—but I still can't really get the same "Sonic" feel in 3D. I mean, it's hard enough to even imagine the old 2D physics engine looking and feeling the same in 3D...

Are they really bringing things back to the basics, or are they just trying to make a 3D Sonic Pocket Adventure? Because believe me—I'm all over a 3D Sonic Pocket Adventure; I just hoped they would try a little bit harder to capture that classic feeling—brilliantly drawn, surreal cartoony art that enthralls the player with bright, appealing colors and awes you with how absurd it is to imagine it existing in reality.

I guess this is all going to come down to seeing some actual gameplay footage, but this definitely disappointed me a bit.

I agree. Everyone likes Green Hill Zone's 25th incarnation every time it comes out, but it really would be nice to see a truly inspired take on the old classic level cliches instead of the same tired checkered pattern. There is a lot more potential out there that hasn't even been explored yet; there's plenty of room to innovate while staying very true to the classic principles. That's what the old games did, and I see no reason—other than a lack of ability, of course—why this game can't do that as well.

 

Probably discovered through random typing in the address box.

Found a bit more info, though, through an alt Whois site. The domain registrar's info is hidden through the nameserver - Dreamhost. Seems the domain is registered to "needlemouse.com Private Registrant, a Happy Dreamhost Customer" located on "Associated Rd." in Brea, CA.

Though here's a bit of info that gives it credibility - domain was registered on August 21st. No one knew about it then.

Here's all that info.

 

Animating is a bitch bro.

Also

 

I'm well aware, but you'd think that the potential outcome would be worth the extra effort. Guess not!

Seriously, the laziness excuse has got to go. Yeah, animating takes effort, but that's why the results are so beautiful and appealing. If you half-ass the process, expect a half-assed product. There's a reason why nobody saw any legitimacy in the excuse that the Werehog was put into Unleashed because it would take too much effort to model enough levels to create a game that was just as long with daytime levels.

It's the effort that counts; if they aren't willing to put anything in, then they shouldn't expect a solid revival in their franchise.

 

I honestly don't know what you're complaining about. Yes, it's the same old checkered pattern, but take a closer look at the landscape in that concept shot.

Organic as fuck, curves up the ass, very alive and very different from what we normally see from a Sonic game.

 

Bizarre. Very, very bizarre. It doesn't really tell us anything though. I'm starting to think it could very well be legit because of the date it was registered and the domain sharing the same name as the Project itself.

I think the idea of seeing the same basic, simple level designs from the 2d games of old is what everyone was really expecting. The layouts are insanely stylized and as you said, very curvy. Tweaker also mentioned exploring new ideas that haven't even been unearthed yet, which I completely agree with. They should be trying to aim for more elements that capture the old school feel of the games instead of recycling things that work. Seeing the same checker patterns isn't a terrible thing, but a bit more variety here and there isn't asking for much really.

At first they looked a bit TOO stylized and a bit shoddy for a Sonic game, but I'm starting to think this is another "reinvention" of said 2d roots. Probably won't be a carbon copy of the classic games, but it will most likely play identical to them.

You know something this is actually a GOOD thing, it pretty much means we finally got our goddamn pinball physics back, I can actually see Sonic curving up into a ball and just letting loose all over the place again.

Please let me be right.

EDIT: Another thing, since this looks to be 2.5d and using 3d models, this could actually end up as a retail disk after all.

 

Organic and alive, I agree. But it just doesn't look that good. Maybe the problem is that it's on a black background... I'm too lazy to shop in some crazy colorful background, but as it is it just doesn't look appealing to me. Certain games have this look which screams "PLAY THE FUCK OUT OF ME!"

Mario games get this look right down. So do games like Geometry Wars and Super Stardust HD. The legacy Sonic games did too. Those renders? Not so much in my opinion.

 

I'm going to go ahead and hope that they're monitoring reactions to that - not necessarily through us, but through other gaming sites, as I guarantee you NeoGAF, GameFAQs, GameSpot, and the other usual suspects are going to pick up on this just as fast as we did - and are using those reactions to help guide the game.

And if you wonder why Sega would even bother, look at my post a couple pages back about the nostalgia market. In order for them to really succeed with this - and I think real success with this title would not only be profit but also earning back lost credibility for the series - they need to bow to the needs of their demographic. We are their demographic now - the ones who played these games in the '90s and want to play it again how we remember it. The guy even said that their demographic is us - the ones who feel Sonic's quality and gameplay has slid too far from its roots.

The ball's in our court, gentlemen.

Personally, though, I like the concept, and think that when we see everything put together, it'll look like what it should look. Those platforms will probably look 100% different when given a Sonic-style background and some land to connect them.

 

Well, once again, I agree—it's a huge step ahead of the kind of stuff we've seen in previous games. I guess I'm just trying to expect SEGA to live up to the initial hype they're trying to put out; which, while unrealistic, should make our expectations very clear of what would make a real revival of the classic Sonic franchise.

If they can't handle the heat, they shouldn't get in the kitchen. I'm likely going to enjoy this game in more than one way, but it's a dick move to hype the thing up as a classic game and then shoot it down with more modernized Sonic bullshit.

 

I really don't think Sega would rely on someone like Dreamhost for an official site dedicated to a mascot. My guess is it's a fan site and you're all freaking out about nothing.

 

Sorry I missed this when posting my initial thoughts...

No no no no no no no!

This does not qualify as "HD". Just because it's rendered at 1920x1080 does not mean these graphics are in any possible way high definition in my opinion, especially if you compare the work hours for say, Oil Ocean Zone's tiles, and those... things... that have been slapped together in a 3D modeller.

It's just laziness, pure and simple. The S2HD project has shown how to do actual HD graphics, you make very high resolution tiles, thats how it should be done. At the very least, make the textures look detailed or something! Another example I can think of is pingus, which is very much a sort of Lemmings-in-HD type of game.

Why must polygons be used for everything now? What is so wrong with using beautiful two dimensional artwork? Hell, what about at least pre-rendering the graphics, like in Rollercoaster Tycoon or the Emerald Hill corkscrew.

*sigh*