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Gamescom 2011 Superpost: Sonic Generations, Mario and Sonic 2012

Of course we didn’t forget about Gamescom currently going on in Germany, sporting new demos for all three versions of Sonic Generations as well as a new demo for Mario and Sonic’s latest (friendly) battle to the death.

Courtesy of forum member TimmiT, we have a few more details about changes in the games along with extra gameplay videos including a full run of Modern Sonic’s City Escape. With all the tasty morsels of media beginning to spill, we advise not watching the videos if you want to keep the gameplay unspoiled.

SONIC GENERATIONS (360, PS3)


The demo on hand was the most expansive one yet, featuring both styles of Green Hill Zone and City Escape. It even included a shiny new title screen (seen above, courtesy of Sonic Scene) with both Sonics posing out of the logo with their fingers waggling. While TimmiT was unable to give the Green Hill Zone levels a try, he gave plenty of attention to both City Escape stages. One of things he noted for the Classic level, and certainly backed up by plenty of video since E3, was that as the GUN truck rampages and destroys sections of the level, new paths open up for Sonic to take, keeping the notion of multiple paths in classic stages alive and running.

As for modern Sonic, he took issue that the level’s current weakness is the truck chase at the end. While exciting that the truck includes saw blades this time, the whole scenario amounted to just holding down the boost button and maybe sidestepping a few times to avoid the saws. In other words, it suffers from typical Modern Sonic chase syndrome as seen in Unleashed and Colors. The level itself does begin similarly to its original counterpart, but soon breaks off in a completely new direction, and if you listen closely in the video courtesy of Gaming Clerks, you can even hear that Escape from the City had a few additional new lyrics, allegedly from Sonic’s Adventure series theme It Doesn’t Matter, added just before the loop point.

However, problems are still present in the PlayStation 3 version of the demo, where it feels that there is a latency issue between pressing a button and Sonic responding on screen especially when compared to how responsive the game is on the Xbox 360. We can only hope this is resolved before the game launches.

As a final note while waiting for his turn, TimmiT noticed that Omachao is now present in Green Hill’s stages, serving as the help system for the game.

Please, try to keep your latent anger sustained.

Sonic Generations (3DS)

Present at the show after a bit more time in the oven, the 3DS demo included the Green Hill stages and Launch Base boss from the E3 demo, but further included Mushroom Hill’s stages for both Classic and Modern Sonic.

Compared to the breadth of information the console version generated, the 3DS is meager in comparison. TimmiT noted that for the most part, Classic Sonic’s version of Mushroom Hill is a 1:1 duplication of the original Mushroom Hill Act 1. A sign of laziness or an attempt to better understand the original level design by DIMPS? You decide.

However, TimmiT noted that Classic Sonic’s gameplay felt much more refined from DIMPS’ last endeavor in Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, noting that Sonic didn’t come to an immediate halt if the directional button was let go and that he doesn’t uncurl when going airborne rolling, which should make the purists out there a little happier. You can check out gameplay by N-Life of the stage down below.

As for Modern Sonic, I’ll let the man speak for himself:

“It’s Sonic Rush. Sonic Rush is a game I enjoy more when replaying the stages so I can find the alternate paths (which this stage seemed to have plenty.) If you like Sonic Rush, you’ll like Modern Sonic in this game.”

Not surprising in the least, but always good to know.

Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Wii, 3DS)

(phew) That title alone is enough for a 100-meter dash. We admittedly haven’t been giving this one much love here despite the franchise being a runaway hit for both Sega and Nintendo. And while both companies try to spin it off that the two are friends who love competition, the facade melts away in a torrent of rage 20 years stocked up.

Or so Takashi Iizuka’s view of older fans would imply that thought. (That is called a cheap plug, folks.)

Regardless, the two mascots are bringing their teams under the shadow of Big Ben to once again determine who the most athletic is in a celebration several millennia young. Joining classic Olympic events of track and field events include badminton, synchronized swimming and equestrian sports.

But in usual Mario and Sonic fashion, the boring realistic events give way to whimsical dream events. While the discus event requires flinging discs as far as you can in reality, a dream event discus event has the four competitor jump on top of the discs and soar through the environs of Sonic Adventure’s Windy Hill stage, soaring through ruins, tornadoes and the wild blue yonder collecting rings and slamming into competitors.

The trailer released for Gamescom certainly implies we’ll see more dream locales such as satellites in space via Super Mario Galaxy, the bustling skyscraper scape of Sonic Heroes’ Grand Metropolis, and even the odd coloring book nature of Yoshi’s Story.

With all three titles set to come out by November globally, the time is ticking down until Sega hits the finish line and gold presses all these titles for your consumption. Thanks to Gamescom, how do you all feel about what you’ve seen so far?

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40 Comments

  • Reply

    I am so freaking excited!!!

  • Reply

    Dare I say it, i’m even excited for Mario and Sonic & The Olympics. Geez, you give the guy a couple of decent 3D Sonic titles and suddenly i’ll buy anything.

  • Reply

    Wish someone could’ve gotten ahold of the audio for the game, but nonetheless, loving the 3DS version a little more now. As for the console versions, my hype has become so high that it has become my twin.

    • Reply

      Never mind that comment. Someone did get ahold of the Act 1 audio for dem mushrooms! 8P

  • Reply

    Awesome. WHile I’m not sure if I’m fond of City Escape’s Modern music, the stage itself looks great. Other than being almost completely different in terms of layout :V

  • Reply

    Hey i’m suprised, how come you guys still have not uploaded the new seaside hill and rooftop run screenshots? I thought you guys would of.. They are on the official SEGA website.

    • Reply

      Server can get a little testy when uploading photos, especially the amount they released. I’ll try, but I can’t make any promises.

  • Reply

    Nice to see they made Mushroom hill Act 1 so….exactly the same, except sexier. Not digging the how the walls went from an ovally pattern to a oval rock look, I guess it is just for giggles.

  • Reply

    If loving this is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

  • Reply

    It Doesn’t Matter?! 0A0

    …somebody get the full Modern remix. NOW.

    • Reply

      THIS. WITH VIGOUR.

  • Reply

    I’m mostly interested in this game because it’s coming for Wii so I guaranteed I can play it, though it’ll probably will be the very last one “had Sonic 4 Episode 2 been canceled or not released on Wiiware”!

    watching the girls swimming, I really don’t see how Mario fans actually find Peach and Daisy attractive at all, while Amy and Blaze look by far better IMO!

    • Reply

      I think it stems from the fact that they’re the only HUMAN females in the game (not counting Rosalina who isn’t in this game and Pauline who’s only limited to the Mario vs DK games)

    • Reply

      all 4 of them look pretty ugly to me

      • Reply

        lol I like when people use the term “pretty” ugly XD

  • Reply

    Sorry, had a fan-seizure there.

  • Reply

    Just another 2 1/2 months…

  • Reply

    I was able to play Green Hill Zone, I just chose not to. There were other games at the show I wanted to try and I was more interested in giving City Escape a try.

    • Reply

      TimmiT, are you still at Gamescom? Maybe you could get us a rip of the Modern City Escape music? Even one with in-game sound effects would be great.

      • Reply

        Even if I was, it would be impossible to do this. The people that made the 3DS videos with direct-feed sound used the headphone socket on the 3DS to record it. You can’t do that with console games.

  • Reply

    When I got S&K I didn’t know how to spindash so them vines made me get a time up. Now these kids get button prompts to let them know what to do? >:C I coulda used a button prompt in Carnival Night act 2, sega

    • Reply

      A bit off-topic mind you.

    • Reply

      Whoa…we were BOTH thinking back to Carnival Night? 

      Yeah…makes you kinda hate the modern generation a gamers…

    • Reply

      IF Carnival Night Zone gets into one of the version, they’ll probably not tell us how to use it just to be pricks

    • Reply

      oh how I hated that CNZ platformer 🙁 stuck in it for so long and luckily my sister, who knows nothing about video games nor even like them, found out how to get past it by chance, and I was like “the fuck? all I had to do is press Up and Down?” lol.

      • Reply

        UP … AND DOWN?! WHAT THE F *time up*

  • Reply

    In a word, wow.

  • Reply

    Funny, really didn’t read any complaints about control and camera (aside from response on PS3), so they work fine, right?
    I’m a bit nervous. I hope the Modern stages to be controllable, exciting and give good hours of play and replay (didn’t watch the City Escape video, for spoilersake). Playing Mushroom Hill one more time like this must be awesome… But knowing it will be the same thing is somehow……… meh… Hope i’m wrong.
    Oh and, yes, I always thought that the time given to complete the game is somehow too short for what they’re promising. Maaan, i’m worried a lot, to tell the truth. >.<

  • Reply

    Just a general challenge to those of you like me: When the game comes out, let’s see how much of the level we can complete without boosting. Sure to ramp up difficulty a bit.

    • Reply

      That was a fun challenge in Sonic Unleashed. It really changed the dynamic of the levels.

  • Reply

    Did anybody try to listen to the Mushroom Hill remix through all the clutter? I dig the way they used the organs for the intro and throughout the song. As for the level itself, as said by someone else, the distinct oval pattern is gone, but I still like the way it looks. Can’t wait for Modern footage!

  • Reply

    Please tell me they arent using the original design of mushroom hill like they did with green hill and luigi riding a horse is awesome

    • Reply

      YES! Yes it is.

      That images alone makes we consider getting the craptastic Olympics game

  • Reply

    It’s really unlikely anyone noticed, but in the second verse, they sing the words “got to live and leaaauuuurn”. I think it’s a really nice effect. They do the same with “only one thing to doooouuue”.

    • Reply

      Yeah they did that to go with the Endless Mine bit.

      SEGA, if you don’t put Lava Reef into Crisis City, I will be slightly less impressed than I already am (can’t say I’ll hate it cause it’s impossible to)

      • Reply

        I don’t get the idea here. I’ve never played Crisis City on Sonic 06, but what connection does Crisis City have to the Lava Reef music?

        • Reply

          I didn’t mean the music specifically.

          I mean Crisis City is kinda one of the fire sections of Sonic 06 (along with Flame Core, unless I’m forgetting another stage) and Lava Reef is the fire stage for Sonic & Knuckles, so I think it’d be ingenious if they incorporate elements into Lava Reef Zone into Classic Sonic’s Crisis City. That COULD include the music I suppose.

  • Reply

    So Omochao talks when you run into him now, huh?

    Certainly didn’t talk at all at Boom when I was playing.

    • Reply

      Maybe they turned Omachao off for the demo. You know how fans feel about him/her/it

      • Reply

        This is actually the case. Much like the hint system in Sonic Colors, the hint system here can be turned on and off.

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