Sonic Generations (360)

Okay, SEGA. You made Sonic. Pretty much all of his Genesis titles are among the best video games of all time. We get it. What you don't seem to get is that pretty much everything you've put him in after the death of the Dreamcast has been complete shit.

 It's painfully obvious that all you want to do is remake the old (actually good) levels that made Sonic great. Sonic Generations was off to a great start, even with the stupid plot, but why in the HELL would you only use ONE zone from EVERY game? I emphasize "every" because that's including the objectively awful Sonic 2006 and Sonic Unleashed. Because of this, literally only a QUARTER of the game is even in the same ballpark as "fun."

We start out 20ish years in the past, with the original Sonic (here on out referred to as "Classic Sonic") running around and doing...whatever the fuck else he did in his free time before he started battling gigantic eldritch abominations. Suddenly, Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks him. You're probably wondering what exactly the hell just happened.

Fuck it! We're cutting 20 years ahead to Sonic's birthday party! (So obviously he survived the attack in the past or he wouldn't be here in the present, right?) Steampunk Haunter shows up and attacks again, with Sonic wondering what the hell it is. Shouldn't he know? He saw it when he was his past self helping his future self fight it, right? He should know how this whole story turns out because he was already present when it took place- WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T USE TIME TRAVEL AS A DEVICE FOR AN EXCUSE PLOT.

Steampunk Haunter sucks everyone into black holes and puts Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber where they find a bunch of locations from their past adventures (or Classic Sonic's future adventures) all frozen in time and de-colorized. They discover that by running really fast through the zones, they can unfreeze them and rescue their friends who have been trapped inside.

So as I said, we get ONE zone from each major Sonic game, for a total of 9 levels with two acts each. This is where the bad design really sets in. You play act one of each zone as Classic Sonic, and it's the standard side-scrolling, spin dash "no homing attack" gameplay you know and love. Act two is played as Modern Sonic, and is in the 3D, gimmicky, stupid special attacks gameplay style. This means you will be playing 2D versions of designed-for-3D levels as Classic Sonic, and 3D versions of designed-for-2D levels as Modern Sonic and this DOES. NOT. WORK. It's the reason exactly FIVE of the EIGHTEEN total acts don't suck.

Everywhere SEGA has had to come up with original level designs, they fail horribly. If it's not 2D based on an originally 2D level, or 3D originally based on a 3D level, it's awful. And even then all the levels taken from the later games are crap across the board because THEY WERE CRAP TO BEGIN WITH. There's far too much reliance on precision jumping and the homing attack, ridiculous enemy placement, forcing the player to learn new special attacks as Modern Sonic, it's all just stupid! Seriously, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW SONIC CAN FUCKING WALL-JUMP NOW? (To be fair, there is a warning and offer of a tutorial when these new mechanics pop up, but I made the mistake of assuming they would be obvious and easy for someone like me- who has literally grown up with Sonic games- to figure out.) On top of this, some of the last few acts are insanely long. You know how in the old, good Sonic games, you had 10 minutes to get through each act, and most of the time you wouldn't need more than 5 or 6? GOOD FUCKING LUCK BEATING PLANET WISP IN LESS THAN 15, AND THAT'S IF YOU CAN QUICKLY FIGURE OUT WHERE THE HELL TO EVEN GO.

And that's not all. "Oh thank goodness," you think. "I've finally gotten through those horribly designed levels and can move on to the boss fight! That should be fun at least!"

NOPE. YOU GOTTA DO SOME CHALLENGES IN THOSE HORRIBLY DESIGNED LEVELS BEFORE YOU CAN GO TO THE BOSSES.

"Oh...okay. So what, I gotta beat the act with a tough, but reasonable time limit now or something?"

NOPE. YOU'RE RACING A COPY OF YOURSELF WHO'S NOT BOUND BY THE LAWS OF REALITY. HE FOLLOWS A SET PATH AT A CONSTANT SPEED EVERY TIME NO MATTER WHAT, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR MOVING PLATFORMS. AND IF YOU SCREW UP EVEN ONCE YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CATCH UP IN TIME TO WIN.

"Oh...well that was tremendously unfair, but I managed to beat it. Can I fight the boss now?"

NOW YOU HAVE TO USE CHARMY TO GET THROUGH THIS JUMPING PUZZLE!

"Who? Oh, the annoying bee guy...I see. That was painfully frustrating, but I finally got it. Boss time now?"

MORE PUZZLES! BUTTONS AND LASER WALLS!

"Okay, I see you're trying to extend the gameplay experience, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Can I just fight the b-"

NO! PLAY MUSICAL TENNIS WITH VECTOR!

"Musica- What!? I don't- That doesn't even- Know what? Fuck you! I'm playing Sonic Spinball."

Okay. So let's say you complete the necessary challenges without putting a controller through a TV screen and make it to the bosses. Well, to sum it up: The first 2 are way too easy, and the last 2 are way too hard. Death Egg Robot and Perfect Chaos? Both immensely difficult final bosses in their respective debut games? Pushovers. You don't even go Super Sonic against Chaos. Also, his modernized design looks stupid. Why the hell does he have armor now? There was a high-definition version of him in Sonic Adventure's opening! Make him look like that!

And I don't know what the hell the Egg Dragoon came from (Sonic Unleashed, apparently) but FUCK THAT THING TO HELL AND BACK TWICE. It's a running boss fight with Sonic going constantly at full speed, so you have to boost to catch up. Unfortunately, while doing this he steers like a goddamn semi truck, making it effectively IMPOSSIBLE to get to Robotnik and damage him until the fight shifts into side-scroller mode and has you jumping over ice bombs. Because of the element of randomness to it, this fight can TAKE FUCKING FOREVER, only for you to fuck up when it's time to deliver the final hit and have to do the WHOLE THING OVER AGAIN.

Oh, but that's nothing compared to the final boss fight with Steampunk Haunter. It shouldn't come as any surprise that both Sonics use the Chaos Emeralds to turn into their super forms for this fight, and as per tradition, you need to keep collecting rings throughout the battle in order to stay super. This would not normally be much of a problem, except...

HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SEE THE RINGS WITH A BACKGROUND THAT FLASHY AND BUSY? YOU'VE GOT HYPERSPACE RAYS GOING THIS WAY, GEARS AND SHIT GOING THAT WAY, AND IT'S ZOOMED SO FAR OUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHERE YOU ARE HALF THE TIME. It doesn't even TELL you what you're supposed to do! Like at all! There is NO mention that all you have to do is catch up to the boss and keep boosting into his little orb thingy to damage him.

 The Sonic-switching mechanic is confusing and leaves you clueless as to what you're supposed to do even though the characters all told you a hundred times to use it. You spend 90% of the time trying to catch up to the boss only for it to go into side-scrolling mode, and the other 10% trying to get some goddamn rings so you can stay alive long enough to keep doing that! There is no point in switching whatsoever!

Also, do you know what a homing shot looks like? Don't worry. The extra characters will let you know. All of them. Every. Fucking. Time. It. Happens.

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"

"THAT'S A HOMING SHOT!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

"IT'S LIKE THAT SHOT CHASES YOU!"

"THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT!"

There is simply not enough good in this game to counteract all the bad. The early levels are enjoyable to play,  and they're obviously all visually impressive, but the story is stupid, the gameplay shifts so rapidly between fun/nostalgic and tedious/infuriating, the voice acting is annoying as fuck,  all the required extra challenges are such obvious padding, and the classic bosses are so dumbed down it's downright insulting.

If you want Classic Sonic gameplay, PLAY A FUCKING CLASSIC SONIC GAME because SEGA apparently has no idea how to do a remake anything even remotely resembling justice.

4/10

And no, I'm not touching Sonic 4 Part 2 unless it goes on sale for a fucking buck because SEGA still hasn't figured out that homing attack is NOT A GODDAMN 2-D MECHANIC. I don't care if it's a level-for-level, platform-for-platform remake of EVERY Genesis Sonic game. 

Dead Space 2 (PC)

Oh hey, I've got a blog that I haven't posted in about 7 months. Sorry about that. I'll make it up to my nonexistent loyal readers by reviewing Dead Space 2. Obviously the sequel to Dead Space, which I have previously reviewed.

Dead Space 2 picks up some time after the events of the first one. In the opening cutscene Isaac Clarke finds himself being questioned by some scientist guys on a gigantic space station. They go over what happened during the last game for expository purposes, and then Isaac wakes up in a straight jacket while all hell breaks loose aboard the station. That's right! Isaac's old buddies, the Necromorphs are back and wasting no time slaughtering everyone! Your main objective becomes "get the fuck out of here!"

So DS2 almost literally throws you right into the action, which is not really a bad thing. Recall my rant on DS1's lack of scariness because of how you can kill everything? During the opening of DS2, you're stuck in a straight jacket. It's a very chaotic scene, and it actually manages to briefly make the Necromorphs scary for a while. Even once you're out of the jacket, it's still a while before you get an actual weapon and get back into the routine of "SEE MONSTER, SHOOT ARMS OFF, MOVE ON."

Unfortunately, Dead Space 2 does still suffer from that problem once you clear the first chapter. It's a bit saddening, because it is very obvious that it's at least trying to be scarier than its predecessor. The fact that the game is set on a residential space station gives it some some fairly wonderfully disturbing moments (especially considering that you're witnessing a Necromorph outbreak AS it's happening, rather than just seeing the aftermath), but it's still mostly just jump scares.

If anything, the changes Dead Space 2 has undergone have improved on its already good action game qualities, rather than its few good (if any) horror ones. Isaac has much more personality (also a face) this time, and seems to be fairly good at voicing the player's own opinions of the situation at hand. For instance, stomping on an enemy several times in a row will result in Isaac grunting, "Argh! Die! Fucker!" Barely audible in most cases, but I thought it was a nice touch.

Spoiler warning begins.


Sadly, Isaac is the only character to get any kind of development. The crazy guy just gets crazier until you predictably have to kill him, and the badass chick just stays the badass chick.

 Even the main antagonist throughout the game is never seen in person until seconds before the final boss. Seconds during which you kill him in a quicktime event. You never even really find out what his problem was or why he wants to kill Isaac so badly. Unless I'm just really bad at paying attention.

In fact, the entire ending just seems to come out of nowhere. Suddenly there's a giant marker that Isaac and the crazy guy apparently helped build, all the Necromorphs getting near if causes it to start sucking them in, and Isaac's hallucinatory dead girlfriend needs to kill him to complete the process.  Or something. The characters call it a "convergence event" but nobody ever explains what that actually means or why it's bad!

Spoiler warning ends.

There are several new types of Necromorph this time around, in addition to most of the originals. Most interestingly at first are the Stalkers. If you hear their sound, get a good look at them, and your first thought isn't "velociraptors" then something is wrong with you. These bastards are different from the other Necromorphs and are actually some of the scarier ones in the game for the sole reason that they HUNT YOU.

They seem unnervingly smart until you get their pattern down. They will charge at you, then run and hide behind a corner, and peek out at you. "Ha! What a dumb creature! Giving away his position like that!" You might say, as you go around the corner to dispatch the beastie- OH SHIT HE'S CHARGING AGAIN! Before you know it, you're on the ground and he's run off to hide again around a different corner. Unfortunately they're actually not nearly as clever as their first ambush might lead you to believe. Indeed, that first ambush is the only time I was actually afraid of them. Once you figure out their simple pattern, it becomes all to easy to blast their legs off mid-charge and leave them effectively harmless.

Another new enemy is the Puker. You get exactly one guess as to what he does. Time's up. He pukes acid at you. However, the damaging effects of the acid are the least of your worries, since it doesn't seem to really hurt you all that much. The main problem you will face when going against a Puker is that the acid slows you down a lot. This can cause serious trouble when you're facing a group of enemies, and is the reason a Puker should always be your primary target. They also have probably the most gruesome Isacc-killing scene when you lose a grapple with one. (Incidentally, this was the only enemy I ever lost a grapple with despite seriously trying to win.)

Strangely, with all those and more additions to the enemy team, nothing has really been done to make the bosses more interesting. In Dead Space you had a boss fight in zero-g, one you fought using the ship's turrets, and even one that was completely invincible! Dead Space 2's bosses are all just "shoot the big glowing weak spot until it dies," except for one fight which is 95% cutscene until you get a "shoot the explody thing" moment. Definitely a step backwards.

Which is disappointing because one of the bigger steps forward is the new and improved zero-gravity mechanic. Instead of just pointing, clicking and jumping to another part of the room, Isaac can now freely navigate areas with no gravity using little jets on his suit. It's fantastic, to be honest. I loved the zero-g sections of the first game, but the parts of DS2 where you actually fly around in space are just mind blowing, and they could have easily taken advantage of it for a boss fight or two. Instead, you get a couple of admittedly awesome scenes of falling through space at high speeds and carefully maneuvering around broken sections of the space station. They're fairly intense, but still only really serve to push Dead Space 2 further away from the horror genre and into action territory.

It's surprisingly easy to like the Dead Space series if you acknowledge that it sucks at horror and succeeds really well at action. Even if you're very easily scared, you'll come to expect all the jump scares they throw at you, but you'll still have fun desperately fighting off swarms of Necromorphs and running like hell after realizing you just fired your last plasma cutter shot. The story is a bit confusing and most of the characters except for Isaac are dull and forgettable, but Dead Space 2 makes some significant improvements on several aspects of the original, and  manages to be a fairly enjoyable game overall despite its few steps backwards.

8/10

10 Sequels That Are Better Than The Originals (2)

Yep.  It's time for the second part of my 10-part series-a-majig. Where I count down a list of sequels that are a million times better than the games that came before. So, what game will we be looking at this time?

#9: Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus (PC)

That's right, it's none other than the sequel to one of the stranger games to ever exist (but no less entertaining because of it), Abe's Oddysee!



...



You know...Abe's Oddysee!



...



By Oddworld Inhabitants?

You play a skinny blue alien guy who escapes a meat factory? Get shot at and eaten a lot? Any of that ring a bell?

You sorry excuse for a human being.

In Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, you play as Abe. A Mudokon slave in a gigantic meat processing plant called Rupture Farms. Rupture Farms is run by the evil cigar-smoking Glukkons who are in a panic because of falling profits due to dropping populations of the local wildlife they've been chopping up for their meat products. Molluck the Glukkon is the CEO of Rupture Farms and knows just what to do about that little problem. Chop up the workers!

Abe overhears their plan while working late at the factory, and is understandably a bit freaked out. Thus, the goal for the first part of the game is escaping from Rupture Farms and rescuing your fellow slaves along the way. You do this by utilizing the interesting "Gamespeak" function. Each of the number keys is assigned to a different phrase that you can make Abe say. 1 is "hello," 2 is "follow me," 3 is "wait," etc. When you come across a Mudokon, you alert him by saying "hello," then get him to follow you to a portal where you can free him. In most cases this is easier said than done, as getting them to said portals often requires navigating a multitude of death traps.

Abe also has the ability to chant. Chanting opens the escape portals, and allows Abe to take control of certain enemies, most notably the Sligs. Sligs are the security guards of Rupture Farms. They carry machine guns and will shoot you (and any Mudokons who happen to be following you) on sight. Fortunately, they're extremely vulnerable to each others' bullets. UNfortunately, another part of Rupture Farms' security involves floating orbs that painfully zap Abe whenever he tries chanting. Sometimes they can be destroyed, but other times the lack of chanting is part of the puzzle.

You get infinite lives, so you're free to experiment with each area for as long as you need. But be careful if you've recently rescued some particularly difficult Mudokons. If you die before reaching a checkpoint, they'll get reset and you'll have to do it again.

And again.

And again.

AND AGAIN.

AND AGAIN.

Even when you have a certain puzzle DOWN TO A SCIENCE,  you'll end up getting killed by your own carelessness inches away from finishing it and having to do it all over again five more bloody times. This is a TREMENDOUS pain in the ASS if you're going for all 99 Mudokons. Hell, it's hard enough just FINDING some of the little bastards. There's a secret area with 2 of them HIDDEN ON LITERALLY THE VERY FIRST SCREEN OF THE GAME. I'm talking the MINUTE you get control of Abe for the first time.

I never even beat the game without cheating until a couple years or so ago, and I still got the bad ending for not rescuing enough Mudokons. 

Everybody who's into video games always has that one obscure game that defined their childhood and nobody else had heard of. (Sure, we had Nintendo, SEGA, and all the other big titles, but these are different.)  Abe's Oddysee was mine.

So. We've established that the first game was already amazing to start. How does Abe's Exoddus manage to top it?

Well, it's about 3 times longer, to start. That's right. In Abe's Oddysee, you had to rescue 99 Mudokons. In Exoddus? There's three. Fucking. Hundred. And they're just as deviously hidden.

Abe's Exoddus, takes place minutes after the good ending of Abe's Oddysee. Abe gets a whack on the head following an accident and has a vision of 3 Mudokon ghosts, who warn him that ancient Mudokon burial grounds are being plundered by another Glukkon-owned company, Soulstorm Brewery. One of Soulstorm Brew's main ingredients is Mudokon bones, hence the grave robbing. The objective of the game is to rescue the rest of the Mudokon slaves and send Soulstorm the way of Rupture Farms. To do this, Abe makes use of quite a few new abilities.

You can chant to control nearly every enemy you encounter, barring the presence of an anti-chant orb. The vicious monsters that tried to eat you in the first game? You can use them as weapons now. And you can also control the Glukkons themselves! They even have their own Gamespeak commands. (Abe can also chant to take possession of his own farts.)

The cutscenes are also more character-focused than the previous game. There's a lot more voice-acting, and the dialog puts this game in my Top 3 funniest games to ever exist. (Right up there with Psychonauts and the Portal games.) Oddysee had an overall fairly dark story with a few little jokes here and there. Exoddus is pretty much the reverse of it. Less dark, more dark humor.

Oh, and the Mudokons have feelings now. Sad and angry ones won't follow you unless you give 'em a pat on the shoulder, but slapping them will drive the sad ones to suicide and the angry ones will fight back. Crazy ones need to be slapped or they'll keep running around like idiots and waking up any nearby Sligs. There's also the blind Mudokons, who will keep walking in a direction until you tell them to stop, regardless of any present dangers.

And, of course, they improved a number of game mechanics that made the original game a right pain in the ass. You can now speak to ALL Mudokons on the screen by using the "All o' ya!" command. So instead of painstakingly guiding each Mudokon to the escape portals, you can lead an army of them! If you die shortly after rescuing them, there is no longer any need to worry about doing it all over again, because there is now A QUICK-SAVE FEATURE. This option may easily be the best addition ever.

Graphics and gameplay-wise, Exoddus is actually not too noticeable an improvement over Oddysee, but in this case, all the subtle changes and improvements definitely make it a worthy sequel.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC)

 I suppose you remember my Dead Space review, where I had this to say on the subject of what makes something scary:

"Scary is being all alone with no weapons in a dark room hiding from something that is actively trying to murder you. Scary is hearing that thing moving around and having no idea whether or not it is even near you until you step on its toes."

Well, it turns out there is an entire game based on that EXACT concept, called Amnesia: The Dark Descent. That's right. There's a horror game that's ACTUALLY SCARY. And not just for 10 minutes like Silent Hill 2.

Amnesia is played in a first-person perspective, and involves solving puzzles, finding journal pages to regain your memory, and dealing with horrifying monsters while trying not to go batshit crazy. (Think of it as H.P. Lovecraft's MYST.)

The catch? You can't fight. At all. So if you something sees you and starts chasing you, you're pretty much fucked if you turn around. So you hide in the dark. But if you stay in the dark for too long, your sanity drops and makes the controls and screen go all weird (among other things). If you look at the monsters for too long, sanity drops. If you witness paranormal events, sanity drops. If your sanity drops too low while a monster is looking for you, it becomes more likely to find you.

Prior to playing, I had heard a great deal about how terrifying the game is. Of course, given that I've heard a great deal about how terrifying a lot of things are, only to be met with severe disappointment, I can be forgiven for my initial response consisting solely of the word "psh," followed by an explanation of how just about nothing is capable of inducing a legitimate fearful response in me.

A short time later, I downloaded the demo from Steam to see what it was all about. Sure enough, it was pretty much what I expected. Generic horror cliches and jump scares. The atmosphere is very reminiscent of Silent Hill though, very dark with occasional otherworldly sounds.

You are a man named Daniel, who- for some reason- has given himself amnesia, and awoken in a mysterious castle. Luckily, Daniel's former self had the foresight to leave messages explaining the situation, and ordering you to find and kill a man named Alexander. Pages from Daniel's diary are found throughout the castle, and explain more about how Daniel  came to be in this situation. Entering certain areas also triggers flashbacks as Daniel regains more of his memory.

For the most part, as I mentioned, the castle is extremely dark which takes a toll on Daniel's sanity. You can find tinderboxes here and there that allow you to light candles, torches and other sources of light. This has the advantage of keeping your sanity up, but each tinderbox is single-use and may be needed in the future, and turning on lights makes monsters able to see you easier. Additionally, you have a lantern, which provides a portable source of light for areas that have no candles or the like. The lantern runs on oil, though, so you need to use it sparingly or it will run out at the most inopportune moments.

I slowly made my way through the demo, up until a certain point. At this certain point, the game went much darker than normal, and the hallway inexplicably became flooded with about a foot of water.

"Oh, please." I said. "Water? Really?" No sooner had I whipped out my lantern and begun to step toward the nearest flooded room when I heard splashing that was most certainly NOT coming from me. I turned around and saw large splashes in the water....moving...TOWARD ME!?  Yes. I was being chased by water-dwelling monster that was FUCKING INVISIBLE.

Initial reaction: RUN THE FUCK AWAY! RUN! HOLY SHIT! RUN! RUN! RUN! OH GOD, WHY IS THERE A GATE IN THE WAY WHO PUTS A GATE IN THE MIDDLE OF A GODDAMN HALLWAY OH SHIT I'M BEING EATEN BY SOMETHING I CAN'T EVEN SEE! WHAT THE FUCK!?

And then I died. At which point the game's death screen helpfully pointed out, "STAY OUT OF THE WATER." No shit. So there's boxes and stuff you have you jump to in order to not get eaten alive by the invisible water monster. Easy enough. I'm certainly not going to make the same mistake agai-

*Splash*

WHY CAN'T I JUMP ON THE BOX!? SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! IT'S RIGHT FUCKING BEHIND ME AND I CAN'T GET ON THE BOX!

And that was the most heart-stopping moment in the DEMO. Running like hell up to a box and realizing you can't jump onto it. (You have to jump on the smaller one NEXT to it first.) The demo ends shortly after this area.

Realizing that a game had just effectively given me multiple heart attacks without resorting to jump scares and horror cliches, I hurriedly purchased the full version, eager to continue the experience. (On sale on Steam at the time for about $10.)

I was not disappointed. At all. On several occasions I had to take off my headphones to find out if the terrified, heavy breathing was coming from me or Daniel.

As a game in itself, it's actually fairly decent. There's reasonably challenging puzzles and fetch quests, and I needed to consult a guide a few times near the end to figure out just what to do, but the final encounter was severely disappointing. I know it's unreasonable to expect a massive boss fight in a game that has already firmly established itself as a "run and hide" sort, but something involving more than 3 mouse clicks would have been nice.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a surprisingly good game with one or two minor drawbacks. Every bit as terrifying as I had been told, which is certainly a first, and overall very entertaining to play.

9/10

BRB

PORTAL 2.


NEXT GAME REVIEW WILL PROBABLY BE AMNESIA OR SOMETHING. BYE.

Sonic The Hedgehog 4 (360)

Yep. I'm finally reposting a review from my DA journal. Word for word, copy/paste. Because I am lazy and wanted to update without actually putting any thought into a new review.

Quite some time ago, I posted a comment somewhere (it was either Halolz or the Escapist forums,) detailing a single course of action SEGA could take to earn my universal forgiveness for the travesty that is every Sonic game to come out since Adventure 2.

I said that they could remake Sonic 3 & Knuckles with current generation graphics. I would even allow the addition of some of the Loads and Loads of Characters they've crammed into the series as unlockable extras or something, so long as they didn't go overboard.

Less than a month after I said that, SEGA announced NOT S3&K, but SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4, a direct SEQUEL to S3&K. Not only was it a direct sequel to the greatest Sonic the Hedgehog game to ever exist, but it was to have similar side-scrolling gameplay, level design, and a cast consisting solely of the blue hedgehog himself and his arch-nemesis Dr. Robotnik. Not so much as a two-tailed fox more. Cue jaw-drop and a fan-girlish squee the likes of which would not be heard again until Portal 2's announcement.

Initially released screenshots and videos looked good. Maybe a bit TOO similar to the games whose honor STH4 is meant to restore, but I'd let it slide. Some of the original badniks even got pretty awesome graphical upgrades!

Fastforward a bit to unveil SEGA's first mistake of what was to be many. Two words: "Episode. One."

4 zones. That's it. Sonic's "triumphant return" is even shorter than his FIRST FUCKING GAME, which you can buy from the Wii shop channel for HALF THE PRICE.

Needless to say, my response to learning this was "well fuck that!" And so I forgot all about Sonic The Hedgehog 4 for a while.

NOW. For Christmas this year, I received an Xbox 360 (and a few other games, but that's neither here nor there.) Aware that there was a wide selection of downloadable games available from the marketplace, I decided to check 'em out. Among them, I saw STH4, which reminded me that the game existed.

So I got it.

After a few hours, I began to wish I hadn't.

The graphics are great, so it has that going for it. The backgrounds blend in and move nicely with the rest of the stages, which themselves are very well drawn and colorful as a Sonic game should be.

The first Zone, Splash Hill was a joyfully nostalgic breeze through an Green/Emerald Hill remake/mashup. Or it would have been. If not for that FUCKING homing attack mechanic SEGA decided would be a good idea to implement in a 2-D FUCKING GAME. FUCK IT, FUCK IT, FUCK IT! Not only does it randomly lock on to everything you DON'T want to jump toward, but it essentially adds a double jump that moves you forward. This can be kind of handy in a very select few areas, but it makes the rest of the game a great deal HARDER when you're not used to it because you've been playing, say...every OTHER 2-D Sonic game. (Remember the fire shield from STH3? Imagine doing that involuntarily every other time you want to make a precise jump.)

Also, I hope you're not a fan of Sonic's speed, because you certainly won't be doing a lot of running in this game. What's that? A Sonic game that takes the focus off of running really fast? Yeah. I was shocked too, but every time I managed to get up to full speed, I ran smack straight into one of the badniks SEGA cleverly placed on EVERY stretch of land you'd otherwise be capable of using to run really fast on, and lost half my rings. With another hearty "fuck that!" I restarted the act, expecting I'd be smart enough not to make the same mistake, keep my rings, and actually make it to the Special Stage.

NOT SO.

This EXACT SAME incident occurred no less than 4 more times in different areas around the FIRST. FUCKING. ACT. I know collecting the Chaos Emeralds is supposed to be a challenge, but GOD DAMN! I can't even hold on to enough rings GET to them! (The Special Stages themselves are ironically not all that special. Basically exactly the same as the ones from STH1, only you control the rotation of the stage rather than Sonic himself. I know this because I've managed to get into one ONCE. Also you're on a ludicrous fun-killing time limit and have to collect rings to open gates.)

The other zones are more of the same. You have the clone of Casino Night Zone, the clone of Labyrinth Zone, and the clone of Metropolis Zone. I thought this was supposed to be a sequel to Sonic 3! Why are we going back through zones from Sonic 1 and 2? They even have all the same enemies! There is not a single new badnik design to be found!

These zones, while very visually pleasing, and effectively appealing to one's sense of nostalgia are considerably terribly designed. Aside from the enemy placement and lack of Hedgehog-suited terrain I mentioned earlier, SEGA decided to add fucking PUZZLES to the stages. WHY? This is SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, NOT MYST, SEGA!

The took Labyrinth Zone, the second* most evil and unforgiving Zone in Sonic history, and made it EVEN MORE hard and unforgiving to the point where it's not even fun to play through anymore, it's just a chore! Why am I lighting torches? Why am I moving walls around? Why did I run out of time while doing this crap? WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I JUST RUN REAL FAST!?

And what. THE. FUCK. IS WITH THE LIBERAL USE OF INSTANT-DEATH PITS? I had 20 lives going into the Casino Zone. I lost 15 of them in ONE absurdly wide instant-death pit spanned by Mega Man-esque platforms-that-appear-and-disappear. Either make the platforms stationary, or put something under them to land on. Using both is just begging for an I Wanna Be The Guy comparison. That's just one example. These fucking pits are EVERYWHERE.

Even the bosses for this game are just rehashes from the first 3. You've got Robotnik's classic ball/chain, his pinball death machine, his "I run away while the water level creeps up absurdly fast," and his...whatever that thing is where he makes all the little copies of himself. These bosses have very slightly modified moves, but it hardly makes them any more difficult than they originally were. (Except Labyrinth's. The addition of moving smashy walls after the toned-down creeping water part is an admittedly welcome challenge.)

The final zone consists of a boss run with a few further changes. Namely, the smashy walls from the Labyrinth boss seem to be a lot more smashy. Annoyingly so. To the point where I lost my remaining lives and gave up for the day.

SEGA is trying. They have the right idea. They just don't seem to know what the hell to do with it. Kill the homing attack, kill the puzzles, tweak the terrain, and it wouldn't kill 'em to add some originality to the mix. I know we wanted a new Sonic game to be closer to the originals, but this is pushing it.

As it is, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 gets a 5/10

*#1 is Metropolis, and #3 is Carnival Night.

10 Sequels That Are Better Than The Originals (P1)

Well, I'm back. By which I mean my computer's working again and I have access to Photoshop and all the images I wanted to use for this post.

My original plan was to make a simple Top Ten list (expanding on one I sent in to GameFAQS a while ago) and post all of these in one go. But I realized that even while I was trying to keep each entry relatively short, it still would have been quite a bit of reading.

So I figure I'll get some more updates out of the idea by posting them as a 10-part ongoing thing.

So. Without further not getting to the point...Leko presents...

The idea of this may seem a little redundant. After all, isn't a sequel supposed to be better than its predecessor? Well, yes. But very few actually are, and some turn out to be even worse. 

The intent of this list is to highlight 10 examples of sequels that I feel completely outshine the game that came before. Sequels that are so much more than a simple number tacked on to the original title.

I will now begin.


#10: Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku II (GBA)

Yes, yes, I know. It's a game based on a pre-existing franchise, so of course the original sucked ass!

But MAN did Legacy of Goku suck ass!

Imagine the first Legend of Zelda with Goku in place of Link. Now imagine it slower and clunkier. Imagine the enemies aren't knocked back when you hit them, but rather they stay within attack range and continue hitting you for much higher damage at the same time. Imagine you can't tell important items apart from the background, and  that the very few sound effects the game has are ear-bleedingly terrible.

Congratulations. You've imagined Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku.

 It's a basic adventure game that actually does a fairly decent job of condensing an entire 1/3 of the Dragon Ball Z story (From Raditz to Frieza) into a few hours of gameplay, but that doesn't mean a damn thing when that gameplay is absolute crap.

You've got your standard leveling system where you get stronger by beating up enemies, but there's really no way of telling of how strong you actually are. You level up several times before it simply says "YOUR STRENGTH INCREASED," and the only way to measure how high your strength is is to count how many times you need to punch each enemy. The enemies themselves have no health meters, nor any indication that you've actually done any damage at all to them until they drop dead.

And when I say "no indication," I mean NO. INDICATION. They don't flinch when you hit them. They don't make any sound. And most annoyingly, they DON'T FUCKING MOVE. This leads to numerous situations where you're literally standing on an enemy's toes, hitting him while he hits you. You will lose ridiculous amounts of health fighting the most common enemies.

BUT WAIT! DOESN'T GOKU HAVE ENERGY ATTACKS? LIKE RANGED ONES EVEN?

Yes. But they suck. What a shock, right? You can run from an enemy until they stop chasing you (usually about half a screen's worth of distance) and hit them with an energy blast. Unfortunately, doing this is like trying to knock over a Jenga tower with spit wads. It'll come down eventually, sure. But it takes FOREVER. The famous Kamehameha wave has embarrassingly short range and isn't even worth charging because if you're in range to hit your target, your target is in range to hit you. And he will. There's also the much more useful Solar Flare, which temporarily stuns enemies based on how long you charge it.

You can restore your own health by using herbs and Senzu beans, both of which blend annoyingly well into the background unless you know what you're looking for. The herbs could easily be mistaken for bushes, and the beans are about 3 pixels big.

I would go so far as to say that its only redeeming quality is that the chibi character sprites look awesome, and even those get massively improved in Legacy of Goku 2!

Speaking of which, Legacy of Goku 2 is EVERYTHING the first game should have been.

It continues the story from where the first one left off to the end of the Cell arc, but it seems like it goes a little more in depth than the previous game. It gets more from the story without resorting to an obnoxious number of unnecessary side-quests. It still has them, but they're not so obviously being used for padding.

The art is improved, the sprite animations are smoother, the combat is improved, the save system is improved, the leveling system is improved, everything about it is just better. But if I talked about EVERYTHING that was better, you'd be reading a short novel here. So I'll get to the most important points.

Enemies actually react when hit, and a number appears above them showing how much damage you've done. This means that not only can you better understand how strong you are, but you can actually keep beating on an enemy while approaching him if you carefully time your punches.

As you level up, your stats increase. Rather than just YOUR STRENGTH INCREASED, you have 3 stats: strength (how much damage melee attacks do), power (how much damage energy attacks do) and endurance (how much damage enemy attacks do to you.)

Also, THERE'S MORE THAN ONE PLAYABLE CHARACTER. Which makes the game's title a bit inaccurate, but still! Not only that, but EACH character has their own special energy and melee attacks. Piccolo's Special Beam can go through multiple enemies, Gohan's Masenko acts somewhat like a grenade, Trunks's Burning Attack stuns enemies like the Solar Flare, etc. Saiyan characters can also go into Super Saiyan mode, which increases their stats and speed until their energy meter runs out.

If you're already familiar with the Dragon Ball Z storyline, I suggest skipping Legacy of Goku and going straight to Legacy of Goku 2. If not, I suggest looking up a summary online and THEN skipping to Legacy of Goku 2.

(There is also a 3rd game in this series called Buu's Fury, which further improves the gameplay, but it's not as big a jump in quality as between the first two.)