The Sonic Generations Review Topic

[McGroose]

I wasn't hating on them, I was just pointing out that people in the Sonic fanbase tend to hate on IGN for being what it is.

I wasn't directing that at you, but to people in the Sonic fanbase who keep on saying IGNorant.

[Milo]

IDC about the review itself, I'm just happy that IGN gave it a 8.5. I'm also actually surprised nobody mentioned it got an Editor's Choice label.....although I disagree with sound and (definitely) graphics, I kinda hoped that they would give it a 9.

I think the most surprising thing for me was this. In the comments section, a troll comment appeared saying that they should kill off the series.

The comment was later flagged for review and people are actually defending the franchise. o_o

Check it out in the spoilers below:

This comment was flagged for review.

- what are you smoking? they finally nailed what Sonic needs to be for a new generation and you think it's time to call it quits? It was time to call it quits a couple years ago when there wasn't a good Sonic game in years and years... but now that they finally put out a great one, it's time for MORE!

idiota...

- haterz gonna hate

- Ever since Sonic Colors, after all these years, I think that Sega has finally found the holy grail of not making Sonic suck. So, now that Sonic is getting back on track you say that they should kill the series?

- I'm not even a big Sonic fan, and still I could tell you're obviously trolling. Please, find more productive uses of your time.

Not to mention that people still can't believe that finally a good Sonic game (not counting Colors) came out.

EDIT: This is pretty much what I've seen here people saying about the review and/or score.

Edited October 29, 2011 by Zinos

[Ferno]

Why does IGN get all this damn hate?

[Komodin]

An 8.5, huh? While the review score is nice, I guess, both the video and written reviews themselves leave a lot to be desired.

[Neon]

Sonic 4: SONIC IS BACK BABY!!

Sonic Colors: The first truly modern feeling sonic game...

Sonic Generations: Now we're ready to love him again.

Next Sonic Game: Is this finally a good sonic game?

Edited October 29, 2011 by Neon

[Crazizzle]

I don't hate IGN in specifics...video game sites just make me cringe in general. 90% of them can't even write like a professional, and they don't use descriptive language. It's basically "like", "hate", "annoying", "perfect"...

That's a separate topic, though. Good to see a nice score. I'd point out that, as hardcore Sonic fans, the game might be a 9 to us. I got ripped for that last time, though. Good stuff.

[Neon]

Destructoid just made an article on Sonic Generations' high pre-order count. Jim said that the review will come out before the game's launch.

Link to the article.

Sonic Generations is out on November 1 and all signs point toward a promising little game. We'll have our review before the game's launch, so make sure to check it out. It's going to be worth a read.

Will it be positive? Well we'll have to wait...

Edited October 29, 2011 by Neon

[Crazizzle]

inb4 0.5

[sonfan1984]

Huh, I'd thought a lot of people canceled their pre orders when Silver was announced. I guess not that many of them.

[NintendoSoul]

"And we're ready to love him again"

Again? A lot of Sonic fans have always loved Sonic, classic or modern, while acknowledging some games as being terrible. The actual score was higher than I thought it would be, but the reviewer seems to like making assumptions.

[Crazizzle]

The game has too many shitty friends, like Sonic and Classic Sonic. I want pure Omochao game play!

[Ferno]

Jim's gonna give the game a 7.9 just to troll, callin' it now.

[Sami]

I dislike the IGN review because he barely explains anything he says and just mentions his complaints as if reading off a checklist. This is a problem with the entire style of reviewing he uses, not with the fact that he gave the game a slightly lower score than I feel it deserves, and not with the fact that his complaints come off as completely arbitrary to me, as if he's simply clinging onto negative stereotypes Sonic's garnered over the years his games were shit. Allow me to go into more detail:

... and if you love Sonic's modern, vocal fueled soundtrack, um... why.

• First off... what vocal fueled soundtrack? To my knowledge there's one song that could be described as vocal-fueled, and that's Escape From The City. If "Up and down and all around" is supposed to count as "vocal-fueled", we might as well stop here.
  
• Why does this constitute sound getting a 7? Personally, I don't think disliking one song in a game with multiple dozens of tracks warrants a three point drop.
  
• Before arguing that maybe he didn't like the soundtrack in general, let me point out that he specifically says "The new arrangements for the game's iconic tracks are awesome". Taking an adventure to Google for a minute, I can see that "awesome" literally means "Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear" and "Extremely good; excellent". Now, if I remember correctly, the subtitle for 9's on IGN is "excellent". If sound dropped an entire two points from that because of one song, then as I said before, we might as well stop here, as the reviewer is clearly completely incompetent.
  
• "But Dissident! He didn't like the voice acting either! That warrants a drop in score!" Well, yes. It does warrant a drop in score. However, he never specifically says what he doesn't like about them; he merely casually states that they are "70% less annoying". As a consumer looking for a reasonable review to base my opinion off of, this offers absolutely nothing to me. Why is the voice acting bad? It isn't hard to explain. If one were to ask me what I thought about Sonic 06's voice acting, I could quickly tell you; "The tones used by the characters barely ever match the situations they're in, everyone's practically screaming all the time, and the voices sound incredibly forced on almost every single character. Tails sounds like a girl, Knuckles is always angry, Shadow has lung cancer, and so on and so forth". It isn't hard. On top of this, you have an entire game's worth of dialogue to demonstrate your point. If I want to say that Shadow's voice sounds forced, I'll show the clip of him shouting "DON'T TOUCH IT!". If I want to say that Tails sounds like a girl, I'll show a clip of him talking. Tones not matching the situations? "EEBLIS TRIGARR!!!". This way you can easily convey your opinion as the reviewer, as well as offer the viewer something to base his/her opinion off of.
  
  
  

  Essentially, half the game is Sonic 4, while the other half is Sonic Colors

  • It's fine that these comparisons don't make any sense considering the differences in level design philosophy and controls between Classic Generations and Sonic 4, and Modern Generations and Colors. No, seriously. I don't expect him to be informed on details that specific (despite it being extremely clear by one glance that there's an enormous difference between this and Sonic 4). What I do expect is for him to back up his opinions, which he doesn't feel the need to do. Tell me why Classic Generations is like Sonic 4. Tell me why Modern Generations is like Colors. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are the differences large or small? So far this guy's doing a pretty shit job of making me understand his thought process.
    
    

    Both types of levels are fun, and your preference will likely depend on the year you were born and if you even remember Sonic before he could spindash.

    • What makes Classic Sonic "fun"? Explain, please.
      
    • What makes Modern Sonic "fun"? Explain, please.
      
      

      The old school platforming and the more modern, almost racing game levels fit together nicely.

      • How so? No answer, of course.
        

      You'll fight familiar bosses and rivals like Perfect Chaos and Metal Sonic. They're fun, but they feel a bit lackluster compared to boss battles of the past, and the overall epicness of the game.

    [*]You're using the word "epic" wrong, chap.

    [*]How are they fun? What makes them fun?

    [*]How are they lackluster compared to past bosses? Name a few bosses to back up your point.

    [*]What "epicness"? You never mentioned the word before, so I don't have a clue what you're talking about.

    ...also Challenge missions for each world that mix up the gameplay. Most are cool, but some of them, usually the ones starring Sonic's dumb friends, are annoying.

  [*]What do they do to mix up the gameplay?

  [*]What's cool about them?

  [*]How are some of them annoying? What's so annoying about them?

  [*]HERP DERP STUPID FRENDZ

  And then he ends with a summary, so I'll do the same. Brevity is what kills the review for me, and likely many others. We aren't dissatisfied because he didn't give it a 9, but because we learned absolutely nothing about the game. All I learned is that some missions are annoying because they have dumb friends and that the controls aren't very good because the controls aren't very good.

  If this post comes off as whining coming from an idiot kid from a daycare center, then I don't know what to tell you. I expect more from something that's sole purpose is to sway my opinion.

[McGroose]

Well the main thing wrong with IGN's review is that I think he showed a bit to much fanboism and his personal opinions which affected the score (At least I think)

Keep dat shit out of mah reviews.

[Crazizzle]

Dissident, you just floored me. Killer post.

That's what frustrates me about gaming journalism. It's so...empty and based on shallow opinion with little reason or objective criterion. As a writer, it's extremely obvious.

Oddly, I kind of like Nintendo Power still...if only because they still try to be professional.

[Dark Qiviut]

Dissident explained the huge issues in the IGN review very well, and something that's actually plagued many IGN reviews in general for quite some time. The score may have bigger weight, but we're currently criticizing the context of Jack DeVries's review. Score means diddly-squat to critical thinkers if he literally doesn't back up what he likes and doesn't like. He makes claims, but doesn't explain the context. Why are Sonic's (awesome) friends "dumb"? What makes the Modern and Classic gameplay "fun"? How is the Classic gameplay positively comparible to Sonic 4: Episode 1? EXPLAIN! Positive, negative, whatever, that's REALLY bad journalism; and I write essays for free on here.

Because he's paid from a major gaming conglomerate to write them, they should hold up to a much higher standard as to what to write and explain the scenarios. Plenty of the IGN reviews fail to reach that standard of quality writing, and that's insulting to us writers. This is one of the plenty of the badly written reviews that fall onto this pile.

An opinion doesn't guarantee freedom from criticism, especially if you don't back it up. He has a right to express his opinion. But as a result of failing to argue his points succinctly and clearly, WE have a right to say his opinion sucks in return (and I, too, am a big supporter of this game).

Edited October 29, 2011 by Dark Qiviut

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Jesus Christ what is wrong with some of you? IGN finally gives a Sonic game praise and you nit pick the shit out of everything they don't like. They finally say that Sonic is back, and something they don't like is suddenly a blasphemous outrage? I think some of you need to chill out.

The problem, as so many of the others before me eloquently (or not) put it, is that they may have given Sonic Generations a good score, but their reasoning behind most of their points in the actual review are poorly written and have little to no detail as to WHY they dislike/like something. Also they have a tendency to fall back on overgeneralization and stereotyping to cover a game, so they never judge the game on its own merits.

Example: Sonic's friends are annoying; WHY? Is it because of subpar voicework? Did you dislike the way the characters interact? Did the AI of the characters intefere with the side missions?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

If this post comes off as whining coming from an idiot kid from a daycare center, then I don't know what to tell you. I expect more from something that's sole purpose is to sway my opinion.

If anything, you've swayed quite a few readers here yourself after dissecting the shit out of how shallow IGN's review, if not reviewers in general, can be.

[LATER BUDDY]

The part that bugged me in the review was when he said something along the lines of "clunky controls." Which if they are, all the power to ya, but don't show the clip where you forgot to drift the corner and ran into a wall when explaining this. It's like dishonest representation.

[HUNTER297]

And maybe we will focus on important things? Like nobody noticec that Shadow has Rings and boost gauge in upper left corner of screen durning battle.

[Voyant]

Dis is like some kind of...weird 15 year old Sonic Fan Prodigy from teh future.

[NintendoSoul]

Jesus Christ what is wrong with some of you? IGN finally gives a Sonic game praise and you nit pick the shit out of everything they don't like. They finally say that Sonic is back, and something they don't like is suddenly a blasphemous outrage? I think some of you need to chill out.

It's because he failed to explain any of his criticisms in a way that made any sense. What we got was a high scoring review meant to basically act as a shield for his lack of context and reasoning.

[Scar]

Jesus Christ what is wrong with some of you? IGN finally gives a Sonic game praise and you nit pick the shit out of everything they don't like. They finally say that Sonic is back, and something they don't like is suddenly a blasphemous outrage? I think some of you need to chill out.

Same way you, I and many of us needed to chill when Sonic 4 Episode 1 got good reveiws. There is something wrong with the things that Jack DeVries wrote. Not the number. I'm happy with the number. I'm dissatisfied with the 2 pages worth of meaningless, empty and contextless words.

[Cephrien]

I don't think any of you actually CARE about the review. I think you just want IGN to eat shit.

[SilentDoom]

I don't think any of you actually CARE about the review. I think you just want IGN to eat shit.

Where the hell did you get this from? Did you even READ any of the comments people have been posting? We care very much about the review, hence why we're disappointed that the review was poorly written. I don't hate IGN at all, I just want them to write reviews where they actually back up their points and not write two pages of (for the most part) worthless text. For professional journalists that get paid to do this, this is simply unacceptable.