Spunky's Soapbox

Hey, everyone, Spunky here. I seem to have way too many opinions on video games so instead of putting them all in a seperate thread, I figured I'll just share them all here, and anybody who cares can read them and respond. Anyone who doesn't can just avoid the thread entirely. Anyways, I thought I'd start off by talking about the 3DS. Nintendo seems to like introducing new things to gaming rather than just improving upon what is already there. They like to innovate, and the Wii and the DS are two important examples of that. Now, Nintendo is going where no gaming company has ever really (sucessfully) gone before. They are introducing 3D gaming with their new system, the 3DS. Now, my first thought when I heard this was, well, how is this thing going to work? Is it going to run on magic? What makes it work? I am very pleased to announce that you will not have to wear cheesy 3D glasses to play a 3DS game. I don't know how, but it's 3D in a way that you don't need to where anything to get the full effect, and I for one am glad. However, I am a bit concerned about the whole concept. The motion for the Wii and the touch screen for the DS are both great, but many games tend to make too much effort to force the player to use them. I am really hoping that the 3DS isn't like that. Allow me to explain. The 3DS gives players an added sense of depth while playing a game. I think that's really cool, but if it ends up being like the Wii waggle controls where you're forced to use them in situations that don't warrant it, (did Nintendo really need to make you tilt the Wii remote in order to control rolling balls in a Mario platformer? No, they did not) then I will be dissapointed. For example, if they tack on some minigame where you need to use the depth to do something, and it doesn't make the game fun, then that's no good. However, if Nintendo uses this properly, (and I have confidence that they will) then 3D could be very cool.

i hear ya spunky and i agree... check this out though. i'm 3D lol watch out i'm poppin' out at ya OOhhh shit.

Jomadx wrote:

i hear ya spunky and i agree... check this out though. i'm 3D lol watch out i'm poppin' out at ya OOhhh shit.

OOOOH MAH GOD!!!

Oh, it's not real. Okay then, I feel much better now. For a second there, I thought I was done for. Getting down to business though, I got something that I really want to talk about, and it's... Sonic related. Now, I talked about this on Newgrounds and, well, the results were... this:

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1189776

Um, yeah, not good. But I don't see why there's so much confusion and hate here. Yeah, we've all seen the Sonic cycle, but both Sonic Colors and Sonic 4 don't seem to have the telltale signs that other Sonic cycle games are plagued with. Sonic 4 features no new characters, and Sonic is the only playable one, not to mention that there are literally no new gimmicks in the game- it's classic Sonic, just like people wanted, right? And as for Colors, yeah it does feature power-giving aliens, but something tells me that they're a whole lot less crappy than giving Sonic a sword or turning him into a *cringes* werehog.

So what's the deal? Well, I think that with Colors, people see that it's 3D Sonic and freak out immediately, and I can kind of see why. The third dimension hasn't exactly been nice to Sonic. But the fact is, 3D Sonic games are not bad because they aren't 2D. They are bad because of too many gimmicks and too many playable characters. Well, so far I've only seen Sonic as playable and the color-based powers just seem like cool power-ups rather than game breaking concepts. So on the other hand, I do think that if people would just take an honest look at the game, they'd see that it could be a good thing. After all, it is supposed to be Sonic Unleashed, minus the werehog, and isn't that what players wanted?

Lastly, Sonic 4. What can I say about Sonic 4. Well, how about that it's Sonic 4? The sequel to Sonic 3 and Knuckles? The one that fans have wanted for years now? So what's there to panic about here? Well, the answer is nothing. I have seen a lot of gameplay of this game, and there is nothing to panic about. To me, the game looks great. It's classic Sonic at its finest. Things like the color of Sonic's eyes and the fact that the bad guy is now called Dr. Eggman really shouldn't matter. They're small details, and really shouldn't take away from the game. Now, many people have pointed out that the new "homing attack" has been added to the game. Well, I say that if you don't like it, you don't use it. After all, it has been stated by the creators that it is not an absolute must. You can beat the game without it. Finally, the issue of being a downloadable game in episodes. I actually don't like this. I feel like I'd rather wait for the whole game to be on one CD than to have multiple episodes. It'd flow better, it would have more content and it would be much easier to buy. However, this should not ruin the game. After all, being downloadable doesn't actually affect the content of the game at all. My only concern is that not enough people buy it and Sega goes "Oh crap!" and doesn't make the rest of the episodes. The fact that they're releasing the game in small, lower-priced chunks tells me that they're not very confident that people will buy it, no matter how good it is. My only response to this is that if you're a true Sonic fan that really just genuinly cares about the franchise, you'll get Sonic 4. And if you do, you'll enjoy it.

Shown below is some Sonic 4 gameplay, plus the new Sonic Colors trailer.