After a number of critically panned modern 3D games, SEGA decided to take the blue speedster back to his roots with a side scrolling 2D game that plays like it’s straight from the Genesis era.
Shown on Wednesday at E3, the demo for Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 was playable on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.
Playing the Wii version, it becomes apparent immediately how this game attempts to mimic the style of the SEGA Genesis/Master System era Sonic games, with intro screens and sounds that all remind the player when Sonic was at the top of his game.
The problem with this is that the Sonic in this new game just can’t move quite as fast as his forbears, giving the game an awkwardly sluggish feeling at first.
Despite this things still get up to a decent speed and manages to play smoothly with loops and springs that send you flying and even a honing attack that helps deal with the enemies that like to pop up out of the side of the screen.
This new Sonic looks to show promise. Here’s hoping SEGA come crank the games speed up a notch before its Fall release date.
