Sonic Fan Remix Demo Out

Sonic Fan Remix, the absolutely gorgeous fangame I've mentioned several times before, finally has a playable demo. Rejoice! And a bunch of you unbelievers thought it wasn't ever gonna be playable.

To download the demo, go to either the official site, sonicfanremix.com, or the helpfully provided mirror.

Here's a video if you wanna know what you're getting in to:

(If you're still having trouble finding a working download, check the description box to the above video at YouTube. You can also nose around in the Sonic Fan Remix thread at Sonic Retro. The discussion there is pretty lively, too.)

Now, my modesty has prevented me from pointing out the fact that I'm the programmer for Sonic Fan Remix. In fact, whenever I mention the game I tend to neglect that fact altogether. It just seemed to be kind of unfair to toot my own horn when it's the beautiful graphics that are the real heart of the game. I didn't want people who read too quickly to get the idea that I was somehow responsible for more than I actually was, which is just the programming.

However, it's probably common knowledge by now, so I'll take the opportunity to mention a few things about the physics.

There are a few minor changes from classic Sonic physics, which were intentionally made because we thought they were improvements. That said, there is still a fair number of unintentional glitches and unwanted differences. Getting everything to work accurately in a 3D environment is tricky! Rest assured, though, most of these issues are known and will be addressed in later releases. It is just a demo, after all.

But it's a damn good one! So stop listening to me ramble on and go play it already!

...Unless you're still waiting for it to download, in which case I'll happily regale you with the story of the time I was stuck in Carnival Night Zone. It was dark, there were over 8 minutes on the clock, and Tails - as usual, when things go bad - was nowhere to be seen...

Sonicky Trailer Goodness

A major Sonic news outlet may have already brought these to your attention, but if not, then you're in for a treat. Here are the latest trailers for Sonic Fan Remix and Sonic Megamix. I couldn't find a trailer for the upcoming Sonic Trail Mix, but trust me, it's nuts.

It's the physics that really sell it. *shot*

Elsewhere on the internet when this trailer was posted, there were inevitably a handful of comments saying how it looks better than Sonic 4. We appreciate the support, guys, but when you think about it that's really not much of a compliment.

Wow.

Stop and take a second to think about the fact that that's a hack of Starlight Zone. Truly an amazing achievement. In fact, the only thing bad about it is that it makes the rest of us look kinda pathetic in comparison.

When this made the news at Sonic Retro, one comment said this: "I don't like that much the graphics design". Send your eyes back for a refund, man. Seriously.

Let's Play Sonic the Hedgehog: The One Ring

I had a really great time watching this playthrough of my hack, so I want to share it here.

Playlist with all 19 parts

I want to give a big shout of thanks to 13th Nightmare (aka Horrormaniac13) for making this. I know I've scarred the poor man for life - he'll never be able to see an Orbinaut again without being gripped with dread. =P

The Nitpicker's Guide to Sonic Genesis - Part II

Hello again, Code Ninjas! It has been quite a while since Part I, but never fear - slowly but surely I will give Sonic Genesis the drubbing it deserves. Welcome to The Nitpicker's Guide to Sonic Genesis - Part II.

Code Flaw #002: The Demos Are Totally Nerfed

Original:

GBA:

The demo is completely different in the GBA version, and obviously much worse (Sonic is hurt twice, seems disoriented, and demonstrates less of the level). Why should this be? If we were uncharitable, we might chalk it up to the GBA team recording new demos which betray their underdeveloped skill level. However it is much more likely that the game is using the same demo data, but changes in the physics have thrown it off.

You see, the demo "movies" in the old Sonic games were not actual videos of the action - that would have taken up so much space it would have been prohibitive. Instead, the game itself is running, but with two changes: 1) the game resets when the player hits the start button or when 30 seconds have elapsed, whichever comes first; 2) the Sonic object isn't receiving input directly from the joypad, but from a chunk of data read sequentially from the ROM. This chunk of data was made by logging the button presses while someone played the level (for more information about recording joypad input "movies", see this post).

So, if the physics or level layout changes, the recording won't be appropriate anymore. It's as if your joypad were simultaneously plugged into two Sega Genesises (Geneses?), one of which contained a Sonic 1 cart, and the other, Sonic 2. You might be playing Sonic 1 beautifully, but anyone watching the Sonic 2 game will wonder why Sonic is suddenly acting like a drunkard. (They won't notice a difference in Tails' behaviour, though - wantonly flinging himself into harm's way is business as usual for him. =P )

The team who made Sonic Genesis should have recorded new demos after the physics were in place to avoid this issue. But, one can hardly blame them for not doing so; it would, after all, have involved playing the game, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody!

Fixing The Problem In Your Own Hack

This issue with screwy demos isn't confined to Sonic Genesis. ROM hacks will have the same problem if the physics, controls, or layout are changed, even slightly. I encountered it myself when making Sonic: The One Ring, and needed to find a way to record new demos that would be compatible with the ROM. I've turned what I learnt into a tutorial and utility - go here for the complete story. See, I'm not just complaining about Sonic Genesis just to be mean - I'm using it to frame programming tips to help you guys out! Aren't I nice?

Well, not that nice since I'm now going to throw in a few freebie Bonus Flaws out of spite!

Bonus Flaw #003: Wrong Credits Footage

In addition to having broken demos, the "demos" seen during the game's credits are broken, too. But none so badly as the Labyrinth Zone one: this time, not only does the control movie not sync up because of different physics, it's totally inapposite because the wrong area of the level has been loaded!

The famous underwater section where Sonic is pulled through the tunnel by the current, catching on to the breakable poles and avoiding spikes, has been inexplicably replaced by some other region of the zone.

Bonus Flaw #004: Marble Zone Button Keeps Turning Up Like A Bad Penny

This is pretty hilarious. It's supposed to load different graphics depending on the zone ID, but they can't even get that right.

Bonus Flaw #005: Underwater Palettes Incorrect

Sonic and the Badniks don't look right...

Original:

GBA:

...but objects like doors and blocks fare even worse.

(And why does Scrap Brain Act 3 have such a horrible dark blue background? It's supposed to be a lovely, rich purple.)

Bonus Flaw #006: Missing/Incorrect Background Tiles

This flaw really does take the cake. This isn't a matter of not being able to properly port a complicated game's physics to a new platform, or something relatively forgivable. It's a simple matter of gratuitous incompetence and unconcern for the product.

Well, try to keep your lunch down, Code Ninjas - I know it's not easy after that rogue's gallery. Until next time!

Failures of Imaginary Perspective

The human brain has evolved an extraordinary set of software for grappling with its environment. Working with data from multiple sensory inputs, it constructs a highly detailed virtual simulation of our universe.

And it has the ability - perhaps unique in the animal kingdom - to simulate that which is not but might be: imagination.

Using both the experience of past inputs and a toolset of built-in intuitions, the brain makes thousands of little imaginative predictions all the time; to judge distance, calculate consequences of actions, or even "converse" with itself as a second entity. (Most of us have had imagined conversations with persons absent.)

The brain's software for imagining the physical universe (how objects will interact, etc) has been called "folk physics". You can think of these folk physics as a sort of video game physics engine: a recreation of real-world physics, informed by real-world data and accurate to a degree, but still imperfect.

Folk physics aren't quite perfect because the brain has evolved to cope with everyday situations. Our ancestors (and for the most part, modern humans) would usually cope with moderate distances, speeds, sizes, and timespans. When it comes to extreme and unfamiliar situations, the brain's intuitions cease to be useful. For example, at the atomic or astronomic scales, common sense is useless; without tools like science and mathematics, we'd have little hope of ever having a meaningful understanding of realms beyond the mundane.

In other words, the brain can't just grasp this stuff on its own - it needs a lot of help. For instance, great spans of time can be rendered on a graph as visual information. Only then, with the data in a format that the brain understands, can patterns be recognised and useful work be done.

But it's not just the ultimate extremes of our universe that cause the brain to trip up. Oftentimes things much closer to home, only a step or two away from the deeply familiar, can fool our imaginations.

Which brings me to the actual point of this post. Creators of stories have long made their tales exciting by having them take place right on the edges of our experience. In the early days, that meant unexplored caves and mystic forests, peopled by ogres, fairies, gods, and mythical beasts. Today, it means a plethora of science fiction "what ifs". "What if you could read thoughts?" "What if we met aliens?" "What if you could travel back in time?" "What if you could shrink down to the size of an ant?"

These concepts are always fun to explore. They are the best of the human imagination, still hungry to explore that which is not but might be.

Exceedingly often, though, there are catastrophic failures of imaginary perspective. Folk physics fails the storyteller (moviemaker, etc) miserably when they try to picture an unfamiliar perspective.

We've all seen movies where spaceships make noise as they fly by; cartoons where characters can breathe and talk in space without spacesuits; or even movies where the most fundamental of all physical laws - the speed of light - is waived (either for the needs of the story or out of sheer ignorance, it's hard to be certain). This latter faux pas was commited by a Star Trek movie ("Generations"), of all things:

from chuggnutt.com

Point: In what is probably the worst production/science gaffe they could possibly make, Soran launches his missile from the planet towards the sun (to blow it up, remember) just as the Nexus is nearing. Immediately the sun darkens and explodes. Do you see what's wrong with this picture?

The sun should not have appeared to change for at least 8 full minutes. Not even counting the time it would take for the missile to reach the sun — let's suppose it has warp capabilities, to get around that issue — the light (and gravity) from the sun can only travel at the speed of light. And since they were on an Earth-looking planet, which is 8 light-minutes away from the sun, then that means there's no possible way the sun would appear to darken immediately—and the gravitational effect on the Nexus would be similarly delayed.

Huge, huge blunder. Somebody (preferably the writers) should have been fired for that one.

So much for Star Trek's reputation of scientific accuracy!

I've also noticed that there are glaring oversights just about any time a character is depicted as shrinking. In "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" (I find it embarrassing to admit I've ever seen this movie), the shrunken kids tame and befriend an ant, which behaves like a large dog. To the diminutive human characters, the ant is the size of a large animal, and so the screenwriters have it behave as one - growling, whimpering, munching food out of the children's hands. Later, it even shows loyalty, sacrificing itself to protect its newfound friends! The writers seem to forget that the ant is not actually a large animal, it just appears large to the newly shrunken humans.

Of course, "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" is a comedy, and can be excused. However, there's another big problem with just about every "shrunken" sequence I've ever seen - and it's a little harder to notice at first.

When you watch the wind blow through the trees, or stalks of a tall grain crop, they sway smoothly and slowly. But if you watch grass, even in a light breeze, it snaps back and forth super-quickly. This is because, of course, the distances involved are so much smaller.

If you were a shrunken, centimeter-high character on a lawn on a breezy day, you wouldn't see large majestic stalks of green grass waving lazily above your head. You'd see them bending double and flashing back and forth almost faster than your eyes can follow. It would be like the worst hurricane footage you've ever seen. It would probably be too overwhelming to cope with. It's understandable why this has never (to my knowledge) been depicted on film.

Also, you wouldn't see the breeze ripple its way through the blades, either. With every gust, all the grass would react in almost perfect unison. (A 10mph breeze can play through almost 15 feet of grass per second.)

So, next time you watch a movie with an unusual view-point, watch for failures of imaginary perspective. You might be surprised.

SAGE Advice: Part 5

Here comes the final part of my series on SAGE 2010. I apologise now to the remaining games I didn't get a chance to review.

Sonic 1: SAGE 2010 Edition

ROM hack of Sonic 1 by Cinossu

Visit the Sonic 1: SAGE 2010 Edition Booth!

This hack of Sonic 1 is more than just that - it's actually a proof-of-concept demo for the new Retro Channel at Sonic Retro.

The idea is like a modern evolution of the Sega Channel. By playing in a special emulator, you can upload data such as achievements, scores, and time attack times to the Retro Channel database.

It's still in its infancy, though, and there are a lot of technical issues to sort out. But that doesn't stop it from being one of the geekiest, coolest ideas I've ever seen.

Seeing the Sonic Retro logo at the beginning (with randomly chosen little sprite vignettes) gives me a pang of excitement. Wouldn't it be cool if we were fast heading towards a world with a "Retro Team" that develops quality hacks like this one that will work in conjunction with Retro Channel? It's probably nothing more than my fanboyish dreaming, but I'd love for that to happen. Needless to say, they'd be my favourite developer - Sonic Team would be left in the dust (I say that as if they haven't been already. =P)

Now, I couldn't get the networking features to connect, so I just played the game to ogle at the technical changes. Each Zone and Act is accessible from a cool playable menu with pushbuttons and warp rings. All your stats are saved to SRAM, making time- and score- attacking possible.

There's also a nifty Boss Rush with music by Tweaker that can't be missed.

My Advice: Even if you can't connect to Retro Channel, this is worth playing. If you're a hacking nerd like me, it'll be quite a treat to check out all the classy changes that have been.

Sonic 2: Retro Remix

ROM hack of Sonic 2 by Thorn & DNXDelta

Visit the Sonic 2: Retro Remix Booth!

This is a pretty thorough hack of Sonic 2 that makes it into almost an entirely new game. There are two modes: Classic and Adventure. Adventure Mode involves all sorts of Emerald hunting, missions, and level unlocking, which I'm a sucker for, but I didn't have time to play it in depth. What I did do, though, was fun. Anyway, I'll be looking at Classic Mode only for this review.

Well, we've got our obligatory green level here. The new art is a little grainy, and also samey. The repeating blocks all look like they're at the same depth, causing it to look boring, but also making the gameplay confusing. It's hard to always tell what you can pass through, behind, or in front of or not.

We've got some new moves for Sonic, too. There's a wall jump, homing attack, and even an expertly recreated version of the trick system from Sonic Advance 2, which I have to say is mighty awesome. All of this works very well and it's fun to use the controls.

Unfortunately the level design is poor. It's like a bad mix of Sonic Advance 2 and Chaotix. You keep finding yourself zipping along, only to come to a stop, or fall through a passageway, or get bounced into a blocky area that impedes your flow. It's also fairly easy to get lost.

Some fangames, like Sonic Axiom, or Sonic: Time Twisted (see below), have level design that works very well. I'm not entirely sure what the secret to good level design is, but I think one aspect is that the designer needs to be aware of the screen. As they draw the Zone, they need to constantly be thinking about how the material they're adding is going to be presented to the player. How is it going to be revealed onto the screen? Will the player see where they need to go? Is there enough interest present in any given frame? How can we surprise the player? What kind of visual cues can we use to encourage certain player behaviour? The two games I just mentioned seem to have this kind of thing in mind.

Sonic 2: Retro Remix, however, much like the two games I compared it to (Sonic Advance 2 and Chaotix) seems more like you're playing a map than a Zone. As though it was all splodged onto a big canvas by someone who understood the overview, but had no concern for how it should feel to play through it as it scrolls onscreen incrementally.

So, for all the content here, the level design mars things pretty badly. Playing the Zone gives me a sort of empty feeling, like I'm not actually doing anything.

I've seen trailer videos, though, with amazing speedruns of the Zones. Perhaps the Zones are just too finetuned, and I have to play them "right" in order to properly enjoy them. Either way, I think they need work.

The later Zones actually fare slightly better in the level design department, or maybe I was just getting used to the style. I particularly appreciate the snow level - it's both pretty and fun.

My Advice: Don't get me wrong, Sonic 2: Retro Remix is in no way bad. In fact I quite like it. The ported musics are really good (I especially like the third Act of the first Zone), and the Zones are fast and exhilarating when things are going well. You should definitely play it.

Sonic: Time Twisted

Game made by Overbound in Game Maker

Visit the Sonic: Time Twisted Booth!

I've seen this game around since I first encountered the Sonic community several years ago. It's notable as a solid Game Maker Sonic fangame, and for having Sonic CD-esque time travel, albeit streamlined to only 2 different eras.

This demo's level, Perplex Puzzle, has extremely well conceived level design, and has quite a handful of different gimmicks and moving platforms types - some of which are even unique to the past or future. It's amazing the difference that this makes - suddenly you feel like you're playing a true Sonic game, with echoes of Sandopolis, Marble Garden, or Tidal Tempest, and not a mere tech demo made up of blocks.

There are branching paths, hidden rooms, and nothing feels like it's just been thrown together or unnecessarily repeated just to pad things out. The enemy placement is fair and reasonable, plus the enemies themselves are cool. One is a snail that leaves a slime trail (quite a cool graphical effect, to be honest), and another is based on this guy from Sonic Triple Trouble. Actually, a lot of the level design reminds me favourably of the latter two Game Gear Sonic titles, mixed with Sonic CD. Importantly, it's genuinely fun to play the Zone.

The music is really nice, too - it has the Sonic CD vibe, which fits really well, but it also reminds me of one of my favourite game soundtracks, that of Pushover for the SNES. This is fitting, considering that the Zone is a perplexing puzzle!

It's not perfect, though. The art style, while vibrant, consistent, and technically proficient, at least for this Zone uses too many conflicting primary colours. The future is all green and purple, while the past is all blue and orange.

I'm guessing this was done because Tidal Tempest has a similar look, but it confuses the eye and makes some of the gimmicks you're supposed to interact with (the pull-switches and doors, for instance) difficult to make out. Some of the object sprites, like the shield and the springs, look a little flat and unfinished. Also, the water doesn't change the colour of what's submerged, which reminds me of the lazy PC port of Sonic CD.

I like the Sonic sprite, though, apart from some issues with the eyes in a few of the frames, and the balance of borrowed to original art is also respectable. None of the repurposed elements look out of place.

The game has a fair amount of bugs and incompatibilities. The Zone Clear sequence is particularly unpolished - which is fair enough, this is just a demo. But at one point it triggered during the Zone when I was nowhere near the end, and then froze up the game! The music didn't play on my machine, either, so I had to manually run it in a media player as I played the Zone. The Time Travel transition also showed up as video garbage - and my system can handle Game Maker and surfaces just fine, usually.

Those glitches aside, though, the engine - a modified form of Sonic DASH - is a lot more playable than in most cases. There are a bunch of obvious problems that stand out to someone like me who's studied the originals so carefully, but to the average player there's nothing here that will frustrate you so much you won't be able to finish the demo.

My Advice: This is definitely worth checking out. It's much more polished than the previous demos of the game I've played, which promises that Sonic: Time Twisted will only continue to improve in the future, too. If you like well-thought-out Zones and platforming gameplay (like me), then this is one to watch.

Visit SAGE!

A Happy Announcement!

A few days ago, Overbound - the creator of Sonic: Time Twisted - asked me if I'd like to join the project as Lead Programmer, and make the game's physics and engine even better. I was flattered that he proposed this, and also excited to lend support to a promising Sonic fangame, so I jumped at the chance and said 'yes'.

Now, some of you may also know that I'm currently working on putting together a Unity engine for Sonic Fan Remix. How can I juggle both projects? Well, the truth is, I already am - as I code for SFR in Unity, I'm also working on my Game Maker Sonic engine. When things are going tough in one, I can switch to the other for a breather.

So, though nominally I am now the "Lead Programmer" of STT, more accurately I'm still just working on my Game Maker Sonic engine as I have been doing. However, now I'll be keeping Overbound posted on progress, and STT will be the first game to use my engine when it's done.

By the next SAGE, you're almost assured to see a demo of STT that we'll work to make better than ever. Be there!

SAGE Advice: Part 4

This time we'll be looking at some 3D fangames at SAGE, as well as some that are more heavily influenced by "Modern Sonic".

Sonic Adventure 3

Game made by Acidhead Games in Game Maker

Visit the Sonic Adventure 3 Booth!

I wish I could give this game a proper review, but sadly it's buggy as hell and I can't control it. Sonic doesn't seem to be able to run forward properly.

What I can see of the presentation, though, is underwhelming at best. No Sonic game, not even a 3D one, should have to have mouselook. It screams 'I've re-textured a basic FPS tutorial' not 'worthy follow-up to Sonic's last hurrah on the Dreamcast.'

My Advice: Who knows - if the controls work on your system, you might get something more out of it than I did. But I don't really see the point. I can't even say 'Great effort, guys!' because I'm most emphatically not a fan of 3D Sonic fangames. Why, exactly, would you want to repeat Sega's mistakes? Sonic works in 3D about as well as it does as an interpretive dance.

Sonic 3D

Game made by Zykov Eddy in EDuke 32

Visit the Sonic 3D Booth!

Well, this fares slightly better. I can at least control it. But again we have mouselook, which just feels wrong. Worse, since it's the only way to turn (the WASD controls allow only strafing), you have to always have one hand on the mouse. But of course, jump is mapped to the spacebar! Oh joy, we have to run and jump with one hand, while looking around with the other! It's far from the optimal setup, and isn't conducive to Sonic gameplay at all. Jumping on enemies or items is supposed to be the central action of a Sonic game, but here it's a tedious chore - like in most 3D versions of Sonic.

My Advice: In the end it feels like the poor man's version of the much better Sonic Robo Blast 2. I find it a shame that - perhaps in some attempt to be "impressive" - people are compelled to make 3D games like this. When most major studios can't get it right, what hope do you have? I'm all for quixotic perseverance in the face of the odds, but this is just silly. Maybe I'm just being closed-minded here, but does anyone actually have fun playing projects like this, or are they just glorified tech demos?

Sonic NXT

Game made by Altheboss in Game Maker

Visit the Sonic NXT Booth!

You know what? This one is horrible, too. I don't know if I'm just in a bad mood, or if these 3D and "Modern" fangames just suck (but I have a vague idea which it might be).

Aside from the borrowed graphics that are copy-pasted in the least imaginative of ways, the physics are also terrible. I bounced around in here for a good half-minute.

These springs bounce you right into a big solid thing. Helpful.

And the red spring to the left of here isn't powerful enough to send you further up this slant without stopping (you have to use the Spindash). Of course, in any decent engine it would be. It's almost as though the level design doesn't want me to play it.

Well, I'm happy to oblige it.

I do sorta like the Zone intro, though. Meh.

My Advice: This is way too broken to be any fun, and everything in it is recycled. Skip it. It's telling that the fangames that seem the most heavily influenced by the more recent Sonic games are also the worst.

And, yes, that's Tails with four tails. Saints preserve us.

Sonic Phoenix

Game made by LH_The_Hedgehog in Multimedia Fusion

Visit the Sonic Phoenix Booth!

Well, we've got a single act demo here, it appears. There are all the usual "Modern Sonic" suspects: boost, homing attack, Egg Pawns, wall jump, QTE's - the works.

Unfortunately there are also all the bad things about "Modern Sonic", too: treacly acceleration (PROTIP: Sonic is supposed to be fast), run-run-run-trick-run level design, and awful butt-rock music (though the Zone theme isn't terrible).

It has more polish than some similar attempts I've seen, though, I'll give it that much. And I like that it detects your ToD ("Time of Day") and changes the Zone's ToD accordingly.

My Advice: It's not totally unplayable (which means it stands out in today's group), but there's nothing that makes it fun. Though, compared to Shadow the Hedgehog 2 from last year, there's just no contest.

Well, they get props for blowing up Washington, I guess.

Wait... what? Now it's NY? I'm confused.

Sonic and the World Rings

Game made by A.J. in Multimedia Fusion

Visit the Sonic and the World Rings Booth!

Well, now it looks like we might be getting somewhere. This game makes an effort in the presentation category, and it's quite interesting for it to use double-tall resolution like a faux DS game. The title also suggests more thought has gone into storyline than if it was called "Sonic, um... 3D!".

Unfortunately, the storyline - taking a page from Sonic Rush Adventure - is told in a very unappealing way. (I also feel compelled to complain about the lazily coded message boxes, with words that type out only to jump to the next line after spilling over the right edge. It's not that hard to fix.)

We've also got a bottom-screen Tails bitching at Sonic (complete with grating voice clips), and an entirely pointless (and compulsory!) tutorial. 'This is how to walk left and right!' Honestly, would anyone dare to include something so banal if Dimps hadn't led the way?

Truly, Dimps poisons everything (to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens). Some more of the lovely Dimps-isms we're treated to here include pointless unskilled tricking to fill a boost meter (with the attending boost gameplay), death pits, bland Egg Pawns, and rooms full of bland Egg Pawns. C'mon, people, unless you're making a tongue-in-cheek parody hack, please aspire to a higher level than Dimps!

It gets worse. The level "plays itself", full of boosters and springs and rails. The homing attack (called the "Exact Attack") is awful - for some reason Sonic instantly transports to the enemies rather than zipping towards them. Ugh. There are also homing attack chains, which is a particularly brainless brand of gameplay. The few times Sonic is on solid ground it seems to be nothing but an exercise in running nose-first into crates. Has it really come to this?

I might be able to praise the original way that they handle the wall jump (continue to hold the jump button and alternate pressing left and right), but unfortunately, while it may be creative, it's terribly unintuitive and for that reason doesn't work as well as if they'd just left it alone.

Scattered throughout the Zone are bungie cords (you know the kind; first introduced in Green Forest from Sonic Adventure 2, and rehashed ever since), but they don't actually bungie (at least I couldn't get them to). They just stretch out until Sonic dies. Thrilling. I tried tricking, jumping, the "Exact Attack", spamming the directional keys... if this is some attempt to out-barrel the barrel, it's working.

My Advice: There's a more playable game here than the others we've just looked at, and the presentation is held to a slightly higher standard. If you can jump over the bungie parts (and if you fail, at least you seem to have infinite lives), there's a Sonic Rush-y bit of fun to be had. But when the Zone art and music is directly lifted from the Sonic Rush series itself, you're better off just playing those instead.

Visit SAGE!

Sorry this group was all duds, basically. I also apologise if my assessments are short and overly repetitive. I'm pretty swamped at the moment and I don't have time to be as brilliant as I'd like to be.

Next time, though, you can look forward to another gem! =)