racketboy.com

Every year, a new Sonic game is announced. I am cautiously optimistic. I watch videos of it, read an article or two, and think, "Hey, maybe they'll get it right this time." I wait for the reviews to come out. The reviews are poor. I don't buy the new game.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who goes through this process. SEGA need to find some great designers, and just let them do their thing. Great games can't just be squeezed out in under a year by weary workers. Sure, SEGA is doing just fine money-wise, but they just aren't the same company from the Dreamcast days, and they won't be remembered fondly.

But that's just my ugly rant. I think this is pretty funny. An insignificant blog post from 2006 actually summed up Sonic Unleashed rather well. The comparison of the werehog to Dhalsim was good too.

^^^

Same here. But as he said, and as I've come to believe at this point, Sega is just cashing in. The quality games coming from them like Mad World are created by outside studios and published by sega. Internally they pump out garbage like Sonic and Iron Man.

Either way, rabid Sonic fans (the ones who complain that the 3/10 reviews aren't fair or are "biased") keep buying this crap, and so Sega keeps making it. If kids keep buying Pet Gerbils 3 Expansion Pack they'll keep making them. Same deal here, to put enough resources into sonic to create a quality good game would be pointless when sega makes bank on every half-assed game they ship out, no matter what older gamers or reviewers say.

Turn your eyes to the fans (the few noncreepy ones) because they're making sonic games that are better than anything Sega can churn out.

Cashing in on Sonic isn't a new thing for Sega. Look at the Genesis years. There were four Sonic platforming titles on the Genesis, while the Mario franchise had two (with one coming at the start and the other coming at the end). The difference is that when they were doing it on the Genesis they had a nice 2D platforming engine that underwent minor tweaks each revision. Nowadays they seem to still have no clue how to do a Sonic game in 3D, so they cock it up every iteration.

there are many points of interest in these articles. what i took away from it is that...

one, sonic is stale and has been stale for a long time. even the developers are tired of trying to cash in on the mascots great name.

two, ben did not need share conifidental information with the entire internet but his opinions were still very valid and needed to be heard so some change would be made.

three, it sounds like to me that sega has taken some of the things he said to heart and are trying to pursue new game paths that make both consumers and developers more happy and creative.

in the end i am glad he shared his thoughts and i am glad sega ended up having to hear them because of the attention they got.....