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SONIC WILD FIRE
Nik: I think this was my favorite of the three Sonic games, simply because it was something new. I'm not sure how I feel about the plot, but the demo barely went over it. So I'll just talk about the gameplay.
For Sonic Wild Fire you hold the controller like an NES controller. Tilt the remote to the left to go left and tilt the remote to go right. Hold the 2 button to decelerate because you're constantly automatically running and let go to jump. That part is kind of annoying at first. While you're in the air you can target enemies, then shake the controller up and down to attack. You collect fire orbs to charge up your power. If you have enough, you can boost through the level, also by shaking it towards you and away from you rapidly. Think Shadow's Chaos Control in his game.
What worries me about this one is if this one will be a replayable game, or a novelty game that won't last very long. Even if this could be funner than the Xbox360/PS3 Sonic game and Sonic Rivals combined, it could just be for a few hours. Then it'll be shelved forever. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Gareth: We waited in line for what seemed like an hour to play this. By the time we'd gotten to the front I was already sick of seeing Sonic the Hedgehog and wanted to move on. Fortunately the game was entertaining enough to keep my interest when I started playing. The demo begins with a brief tutorial on how to control Sonic. It definitely strays from the traditional style of previous titles. For one thing, Sonic is now always on the move. The game is entirely on-rails and all the player has to do is guide Sonic left/right and jump to collect items and bash badniks. Steering the blue fuzzball is performed by tilting the Wii controller left and right, and jumping is executed by hitting the "2" button. Sound overly-simplistic? It's not. It's actually, in my opinion, exactly what 3D Sonic should have always been. The advantage of being on-rails is that the game is fast. Very fast. And the camera issues made famous by the Sonic Adventure series are no longer a factor because the camera is completely controlled by the game and doesn't have to compensate for random player movement. Oh, and while on the subject of the camera, it does a great job of keeping track of the action. It swoops up, around and down behind Sonic to get the best perspective of what's coming, and vastly enhances the game's sense of speed.
"Why is the game called Wild Fire?", I asked while waiting for the 100th person in front of me to play. As well as the mandatory ring collection featured in every Sonic game, Sega has scattered the environment with small balls of fire that can be grabbed by touching them. As they're collected, the meter in the bottom right fills up. Once you've acquired a certain amount (which thankfully doesn't seem to be an awful lot), the meter will flame up and Sonic gains the ability to perform a Wild Fire speed boost. And, uh, wow. Emphasis on the word "speed" there. It didn't really seem to have any effects on the gameplay itself, but it was amazingly cool to watch. And that's enough for me.
The level featured in the demo was kind of a coastal Aztec world. Your standard Sonic romp. Graphically, it was interesting. The stage was detailed enough, and the Sonic model looked great in motion, but we couldn't really agree whether it stacked up to the rival systems' Sonic titles. I think in a technical sense, it may have fallen slightly short, but artistically, it trumped them. It somehow managed to find itself looking better than the other titles while at the same time using less graphical muscle. The fast-paced nature of the game probably had a hand in that, since the player has less time to sit and admire (or not) the scenery.
Bad news though. The game had a few problems. Some of which were the same famous glitches seen in every 3D iteration of the Hedgehog's history. For one thing, I often found myself passing through some obstacles, and getting stuck on others, and because the game has Sonic constantly moving forward, it could often prove difficult to get off and away from an object. The Wii's motion-sensing also seemed a little off for certain tasks. It was fine for guiding Sonic left and right while zipping across the stage, but executing a homing attack, which involves shaking the controller after jumping, didn't always register and Sonic would just land back on the ground. Often somewhere you didn't want to be. It didn't happen enough to spoil the game or anything, and it's still pretty far from release. Hopefully they'll clear the bugs up. If they do––well, even if they don't - I'm sure Wild Fire will be by far the best 3D Sonic title yet.
Desiré: Every Sonic game is made for someone with A.D.D.. While graphically it's cool, just running around getting rings and doing very typical Sonic things isn't my style.
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