My SAGE '09 Reviews

[BlazeHedgehog]

I did these last year for TSSZ News and I'm doing them this year, too. Though this year I am not alone - review duties are being split up between me and Paul.

Paul has not yet gotten back to me on who is reviewing what, but he said I get first pick, so...

Review #1: Sonic Robo-Blast 2

It’s kind of weird, in a way. After so many years of having just Green Flower, Techno Hill, and Castle Eggman, each level with nearly identical gameplay and not much variety, I had sort of formed this image in my head of what SRB2 was going to be like. I figured that those three levels would be represenative of what all of SRB2 would play like – that I would be fighting wimpy “Crawla” tanks for the entire game with only the most basic platformer mechanics. I am very happy to report that, thankfully, this is about as far from the truth as it gets. In the intervening years since SRB2’s last substantial singleplayer content update, the game has blossomed in to a fully-featured, fully-realized 3D platformer – albiet one that is running on top of a Doom source port that hasn’t been updated since 2004. You’d be hard pressed to know it, though: SRB2 does things that you would never expect out of Doom, and moves far beyond the features of its “Doom Legacy” engine heritage. Horizontally moving platforms, a feature impossible on the original Doom, are used as they would be in any standard 3D platformer. All manner of tethered and swinging objects are in full effect, and the number of new enemies is impressive as they are diverse: some enemies cannot be attacked from the sides, some cannot be attacked from above, some have specific states that make them invincible, and more. But perhaps most impressive is the sheer size of the levels themselves: I found myself frequently spending well over 10 or 15 minutes my first time through many of the new locales.

All of this, however, comes at a price: For as fun, expansive and colorful SRB2 is, you honestly get the impression that they’re often nudging against the limitations of their engine. (continue reading...)

[BlazeHedgehog]

Review #2: Sonic Nebulous

No beating around the bush, here: This version of Sonic Nebulous is broken to the point where the game can seem unplayable. Ironrind has added some new levels and modified most of the old ones in a way that makes it completely frustrating. At one point in the first level you encounter thorny weeds that will damage you if you touch them. However, thanks to the game’s dark color palette and the relatively small size of the weeds, it’s basically impossible to see them until you’ve already hit them, and even then it can be tricky to know what, exactly, hurt you. The game also has no qualms with filling the screen with five or six enemies at the same time, particularly the annoying hovering camera robots that like to dart around just out of your reach, only to bump in to you when you least expect it This only compounded by the game’s controls and numerous animation glitches, in which you’ll often find yourself jumping in to the air while stuck in your standing up animation, making you a sitting duck to enemy attacks. That’s if you’re lucky – at one point as Sonic I ran so fast that a ramp sent me flying outside of level boundaries where I got stuck in an empty room next to a boss fight with a boss that couldn’t kill me – my only option in that case was to reset.

Infact, my first three or four times playing the game would generally involve me playing until I either got too frustrated to continue or I’d get stuck somewhere thanks to a bug. Almost as if it was sensing my frustration, Nebulous would generously unlock the next level for me to play even though I hadn’t actually finished the previous level I had been stuck on. This continued for the first four levels or so, until... (continue reading)

I'll start the review briefs soon, I just wanted to go through some of the more substantial fangames first.

[Ironrind]

I am going to continue to remove many of the glitches, some already known and some I am now learning about. Yeah, those thorns have to go too^^ I'm really ready to let this project go so I'm not going to put that much energy into it aside from removing some of the major glitches and other needed quick fixes that make the game unplayable.

So basically, I'm not going to polish this game as much as I should, but rather, I'm going to save some time for some of my later stuff.

Anyhow, Thanks for the in-depth review, Blaze

[BlazeHedgehog]

No problem, Ironrind. Here's hoping the next release is cool. I have confidence in you!

I'm also posting to say that the review briefs have begun! On the chopping block: Time Twisted, Sonic Babies, STH3D, and more!

Sonic Time Twisted

Last year, I railed against a demo of this game pretty hard. A lot of things about Time Twisted needed tons of work; everything from the controls to the enemy placement to how the player took damage… it was an extremely frustrating demo, and its creator, Overbound, was a little devastated at what I had said. But, as I should remind entrants this year, I don’t say these things to be mean – I say them with the hopes that my advice will lead to the creation of a better game. The cool thing is, though, is that he got back up, dusted himself off, and produced this year’s Time Twisted demo, which is a dramatic improvement over what was shown last year. And, with three acts and a (rather clever) boss, it’s also one of the meatier demos this year, to boot. There’s still some rough edges that need to be sanded down (Enemies move a bit too fast and it’s far too easy to accidentally activate Time Travel when you don’t want to, for example) but the improvements Overbound has made since last year’s demo are impressive. (Continue reading...)

Paul's SAGE reviews from yesterday are here, for those interested.

[BlazeHedgehog]

More review briefs. Sonic Zero Remastered, Ashura Dark Reign, WTFlame, Shadow 2, and Super Sonic Knockout.

Ashura: Dark Reign

Another day, another 3D Sonic fangame – except in the case of Dark Reign, what we have on our hands here is actually pretty impressive. Rather than pick a crusty old engine like DooM or Build, Dark Reign sets its sights on the considerably newer Unreal Tournament 2004 engine, and as a result, probably has the highest visual fidelity out of pretty much all 3D Sonic fangames today. If all it had to worry about was graphics, that would be fine – but Sonic in 3D is a difficult subject to tackle. Perhaps it’s my fault, then, that I played Dark Reign with a gamepad, because I found the controls to be a little weird. They’re somewhere halfway inbetween Sonic Heroes and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, with Sonic being a little too heavily effected by momentum for my tastes. The game can feel like it’s borderlining on uncontrollable, and the level design demands a degree of precision that I had a difficult time managing. There should also be something said about the tone of the game... (continue reading...)

[Cstyler]

lah-blah-blah using the Sonic Worlds code-base blah-blah-blah

It is not Sonic-Worlds powered game, okay?

[Vexus]

I'm surprised that the SSK review didn't delve into anything I could really work on apart from "its really hard", especially because it sounds like you didn't play the Tutorial (Maybe this means I should force the Tutorial on first time players, like in Sonic Heroes).

I guess that just means I need to get more levels sorted out so I can spread the difficulty curve... and of course make the game a tad easier.

[ila]

Hey guys, just a reminder that reviews are one opinion out of the whole internet, just putting it in perspective in case you get a no so stellar review.

[BlazeHedgehog]

It is not Sonic-Worlds powered game, okay?

Hm. It feels like one. I guess that's a compliment, then!

[BlazeHedgehog]

Since the numbering of my reviews ended up weird, I ended up basically talking about 12 games in the span of only 7 reviews.

We have: Gemini, Mettrix, Megaman TT, Sonic Whirlwind, Zeta Overdrive, Mecha Madness, and Cooperationation. Project Darkness, Sonic Adventure 3, Sonic the Gizoid, and Sonic Universe Adventure also get mentions, though probably not in the way their creators would hope.

Sonic Mettrix/Megaman: Triple Threat

Like last year, these games are more of a tech demo for Stealth’s E02 engine. These releases come hot on the heels of news that E02 now works on the Playstation Portable and Nintendo Wii. Given the popularity of Damizean’s “Sonic Worlds” code-base, one would think that more people will start checking out what goes on under E02’s hood, now. Not only could fangame producers utilize some of the most pixel-perfect-accurate Sonic physics in all of fangaming, but they could do it on Windows, Mac, Linux, the Wii and PSP, all at the same time. Mettrix this year comes with a brand new level, “Bronze Lake Zone”, and it’s nice to finally see something besides the same Shining Isles level we’ve been seeing for years. Showing the range of E02, Megaman TT is just as accurate to the physics of the SNES Megaman games as Mettrix is to the physics of the Sega Genesis Sonic games, and I was genuinely disappointed that there wasn’t more of Triple Threat to play around with. With Taxman’s RSDK possibly never being released publicly and ProSonic playing catch-up, I really hope more people play around with E02, because it has the possibility to produce some amazing results (nudge nudge, Sonic Rebirth).

(continue reading...)

[Candescence]

I hear Damizean might be porting Sonic Worlds to the “ Construct” engine…

Funny you should mention that - he is. Well, just the 360 movement engine, to my knowledge, the incomplete version he made and showed off in the Construct chat worked very well. I actually intend to intergrate it into Aria of Destiny, if anything, it'll allow me to use loops and make Sonic's movement more accurate, so that's a plus (it could do wonders for Metroidvania level design). Aria itself is the only fan-game at SAGE to be made in Construct (and someone remarked that it could be a poster-child for Construct usage in the fan-game community).

BTW, Construct isn't an engine, it's a game maker, but even in its 'beta' state, I like it way more than MMF and Game Maker, besides its event system, it has some nifty features that I don't think MMF and Game Maker are capable of. Also, it's free, open source, and the devs are awesome people, I should know, I see them regularlly on the chat.

Anyway, nice reviews, I certainly don't disagree with 'em.