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Yeah, I’ve heard of Sonic – he’s that little blue hedgehog with the sick looking sneakers and white Michael Jackson-like gloves who can run really fast and do cool stuff.
I’ll admit that I haven’t really been that much of a Sonic fan in all my years. The last time I played a Sonic game was on PC, and I can’t even remember which one it was. But I think it had Tails in it. Or maybe it was Knuckles. I don’t know.
I used to watch the Sonic cartoons though – those were pretty cool.
So I’ve proven that I’m not the biggest Sonic fan ever, so that should actually give me a bit of an advantage while playing this, seeing as I won’t be overly biased with it, hopefully.
But when NAG Online had a post up one day talking about a fan-made Sonic game, made using the Unity engine (what game isn’t nowadays, besides though made using Unreal Engine 3?), I was intrigued. And they nicely promised that it would be on the next NAG cover DVD – which it was (the December 2010 issue).
After I’d pretty much finished Fallout: New Vegas (got bored, started over with a new character), I decided to try this little demo out. And I’m all ready looking forward to the full release – if it ever happens, before someone slaps a C&D (cease & desist) on it or something.
As you see by the screenshots, the game is very beautiful when cranked up to its full graphical potential. And it gets even better when you fire it up. The trees sway in the wind, and the water sparkles in the distance. Rain pours down in the one level, and the effects are just grand to say the least. The animation then is superb. If you thought that Trine was a good looking game, then this one should please no end.
The trial version, or demo, consists of a fair three levels, based on Emerald Hill, which should be familiar to those who’ve played Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and the obvious point of the game is to try and collect as many rings as possible, and get through the level in the quickest time, all whilst dodging or taking out the flying, swimming, and and… rolling enemies of Roboland, or risk bumping in to one of them and spilling your well-earned rings.
I’ve read some negative comments surrounding the demo, with some claiming it to be too colourful. Well, it is – if you’re used to playing something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., or F.E.A.R., where the colour palette doesn’t really go beyond grey and brown most of the time.
There might be a few bugs in the demo, which is to be expected. One I came across was when I bumped into one of those springs which send you speeding up steep hill with ease, and Sonic died instead – forcing me to start the act from the beginning. This also happens on objects such as blades of grass or flowers, too, rarely.
So once again, I’m not the biggest Sonic fan out there, but if you are sceptical of this little demo being real, then you need to download it and play it right now. It’s available for PC and Mac. I personally would love to play the full thing, especially seeing as it’s a free download affair.
Download it:
http://sonicfanremix.com/
http://sonicresearch.org/sonicfanremix/
http://www.geenzo.com/sonicfanremix/SFRMac.zip (Mac version)
