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Sega hasn't had much to say, so far. Their booth space occupies about a third to a quarter of the area devoted to Sony or Nintendo. Many high-profile, recently-announced games (Dororo, Kunoichi, Shining Force) are absent. Others, like Altered Beast, are relegated to a short and uninformative video loop.
It's entirely possible that Sega is keeping all of the interesting stuff locked up until tomorrow, the last day of the show. We'll see, we'll see.
The one obvious standout, as I believe most of the IC staff will concur, has got to be Sonic Heroes. I didn't know what to expect from the game, given how... uniquely underwhelming Sonicteam has been, for the last two years or so. It seems that Naka has been legitimately busy, though.
If the rest of the game lives up to the demo, I feel it's safe to proclaim Sonic Heroes perhaps the best Sonic game ever designed. It is what I wanted from Sonic Adventure 2. It is what would happen if Treasure were left at whim with the Sonic license.
This is the most flexible, clever, promising, and downright enjoyable game that I've seen come out of Sonicteam. It's really that simple.
The level design is straight out of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with a splash of the best elements from each Adventure game -- including the extensive rail segments from SA2. The controls are responsive. The camera doesn't seem evil. The presentation is flawless.
Then we hit the Treasure reference. Taking a bit of a cue from Chaotix, the player controls a tag team of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. One character is in the lead, while the other two follow. The X and Y buttons (in the Gamecube version; adapt as applicable to the other two pads) are used to swap in one of the secondary characters to the leader role.
Each character has his own unique set of uses; Sonic is by far the speediest, and has his homing attack from the Adventure games. Knux is strong, and can glide. Tails can fly. Where things get really interesting is where the characters begin to interact. Knux can pick up the balled Sonic and Tails, and affix them to his hands for a stronger punch. He can also throw them at distant enemies. When gliding, all three characters lock hands in a skydiving position.
As Sonic, you run, spin-jump, and bounce through the levels at a satisfying clip. When you hit an obstacle, switch to Knuckles -- but keep running. Punch, but keep running. Switch back to Sonic, and back into high gear again. You come to a high wall. Switch to Tails; fly up. Switch back to Sonic. Keep running.
Basically, you've got all of the advantages of all of the characters, all at once. The entire game appears to be built around this central conceit, making the levels just plain fun to play. The mechanics tie everyting together. They address all of the problems in the Adventure series, and retain all of the best elements.
The game feels fresh. It has a bunch of energy. It's focused. It's well-considered. It feels as Sonic should feel, only moreso. There is exactly nothing wrong with this game, so far as the E3 build can show us.
Just to make me feel even more peculiar, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is actually pretty interesting in its own right. I find its gameplay more than a little difficult to quantify in any meaningful way. Again, I didn't know what to expect before I played it. Now, I've got to say that it seems to work. I don't know why it works, but it does.
As with Sonic Heroes, Hatcher is clever, well-planned, charming, and just plain enjoyable. It feels good to play. So far.
So, Sonicteam is... apparently still viable as a designer. And how. I'm surprised, and I'm more than a bit relieved. This is exactly what Sega needs.
I'm not sure if they need Vectorman. I admit readily that I just don't understand what's intended with this game. The build that I played is supremely early, and I suppose it deserves credit for being as tight as it was on such short notice. Dom from Megatokyo informs me that the build I played is the result of a mere six weeks of development. Even if I didn't enjoy a second of my experience, that's still damned impressive. If they put in another ten months of the same effort, this game might turn into something really neat.
Right now, I hate it. We'll see where it goes, however.
The new Headhunter is kind of rough. Even graphically, it doesn't seem much more advanced than a late-era Dreamcast game. After having come off of the likes of the PS2 Castlevania game and Silent Hill 3, it's a little jarring to see character models contort in the way they do here. The battle system is beyond awkward. The camera can be strange. The enemies are stupid. If this is an early build, then fine. I assume this to be the case. I hope so.
Even as the demo bores and frustrates, it still gives me an interesting vibration. I get the distinct feeling that what I'm playing is not necessarily representative of the finished game. There seems to be... more. While not an especially large project, it seems obvious that someone cares about the game. I'm curious to see how it will turn out.
There honestly isn't much else to say about Sega, at the moment. I assume that Tim is going to touch on F-Zero; as impressive as it might be, that's far more distinctly his thing than mine.
Eric-Jon Waugh
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