Team Sonic Racing - GamesCom Impressions

[Marco9966]

3 minutes ago, Jango said:

IMO, the orca should be a playable character. That's an idea I can get behind. If a Boo and a Chomp in Mario Tennis can, why not the infamous orca?

Why not the Sonic Heroes giant alligator too?

[Jango]

It's not iconic enough. Make the Death Egg playable then we're talking.

[Red Hot Jack]

Team idea...

Sonic Man (speed)

Pelé the beloved dog (tech)

Orca (power)

Don't forget about Pelé, he's too important.

[Jango]

Real talk tho', a spin-off kart racing would've been the perfect opportunity to use all this humor in its favor. You guys played or at least saw gameplay of Lego Dimensions, right? What Travellers' Tales did it with the Sonic Pack was brilliant. Awesome and funny stuff. Self aware humor and inside jokes. Not just "memes" like the Sanic t-shirt in Forces (sigh), but real fan-service and clever references. 

The Sonic's Twitter page is clearly aware of the inside jokes about the franchise, and they pass this image too. So why not use it in a spin-off game? 

[Marco9966]

25 minutes ago, Silent Jack said:

Team idea...

Sonic Man (speed)

Pelé the beloved dog (tech)

Orca (power)

Don't forget about Pelé, he's too important.

I want Norman !! #BRINGBACKNORMAN

[Scape]

Team Rose

Blaze (Speed)

Silver (Flight)

Amy (Power)

Team Chaotix

Espio (Speed)

Charmy (Flight)

Vector (Power)

Team Borrowed-Time

Mighty (Speed)

Ray (Flight)

Big (Power)

[MetalSkulkBane]

7 hours ago, Silent Jack said:

Team idea...

Sonic Man (speed)

Pelé the beloved dog (tech)

Orca (power)

Don't forget about Pelé, he's too important.

 

6 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

I want Norman !! #BRINGBACKNORMAN

 

7 hours ago, Jango said:

It's not iconic enough. Make the Death Egg playable then we're talking.

 

Don't even joke like that! Sega will listen and we all know what's next!

(But if Sega was smart they would put a GUN Truck. Come one, it's already a car. Preferably with chainsaws)

[Red Hot Jack]

Big should have driven the GUN truck, since he appeared in City Escape as a cameo. Big the Assassin.

[Guest]

I'm really not enjoying the aesthetics of Ice Mountain. I think it'd look a lot better without the Volcano - the saturated blue ice in the foreground with burnings yellows and reds in the background is just too jarring for me and tbh it looks a hot mess. I think they should have just capitalised more on the Ice/Freight Ship concept. The whole "Fire and Ice" twist just doesn't work for me - I'm probably just being salty cos Ice zones are my favourite and I don't like them being conflated with fire.

Also not encouraging that nobody on the team appears to really understand where the zone comes from. The guy on the IGN video said it's Ice Cap from Sonic Advance...? Uhh.

[StaticMania]

Ice and Fire is the most contrast to ever contrast the seven seas...

It'll never look bad when thought is put into it...

[cakito123]

8 hours ago, sa19 said:

I'm really not enjoying the aesthetics of Ice Mountain. I think it'd look a lot better without the Volcano - the saturated blue ice in the foreground with burnings yellows and reds in the background is just too jarring for me and tbh it looks a hot mess. I think they should have just capitalised more on the Ice/Freight Ship concept. The whole "Fire and Ice" twist just doesn't work for me - I'm probably just being salty cos Ice zones are my favourite and I don't like them being conflated with fire.

Also not encouraging that nobody on the team appears to really understand where the zone comes from. The guy on the IGN video said it's Ice Cap from Sonic Advance...? Uhh.

I don't really enjoy this too

For what I could see and play in the latest years, Nintendo "came up" with that concept and applied in Mario Bros U, 3D Mario World, and in Donkey Kong TF like it was something really cool and creative and I always thought the concept of fire and ice never really evolved from the initial idea of "lol wouldn't be funny if there was lava at an ice level?" to something that really made sense design-wise. The concept didn''t actually did well in any of the games I mentioned (at least Ifor me), and for what I've seen up until now, STR isn't doing it great too.  

[Your Vest Friend]

For one it was present in Galaxy before those Mario games (as Freezeflame Galaxy). For another, the idea is even older than that; there's Hailfire Peaks from Banjo-Tooie, and I doubt Rare invented that idea. 

[Multikaris]

Well, about orcas, what if Ahklut makes a cameo in the game? And what about the humpbacks from Unleashed?

[Red Hot Jack]

Joking aside, I do hope they fix the graphics, I won't judge until we see footage of Street Market, because in some screens it looks rather nice, but some of them look horrible, some background 3D models in particular, the screens may be outdated though, I don't know, we''ll see.

Wisp Circuit and Ice Mountain look quite good, and they also play well in my opinion. Because Ice Mountain changes scenery a couple of times with the volcano thing and the boat with the Orca, there are some interesting obstacles in the boat section, plus I noticed various alternate paths. Now Wisp Circuit I love, in particular the graphics look vibrant even though simple, and I like the track idea, it's a tree that you are racing around, there are a lot of drifting sections, the road is divided into 3 paths, and there are some loop de loops and and boost pads (the infamous boost pads), even though no obstacles since it's an early stage, presumably. I don't see a situation of panic... yet.

[jgcatindig]

I was looking for it! 

On 8/23/2018 at 7:34 PM, Pawn said:

I actually really like Blaze's car, looking at that video. The ears are odd, but they aren't really noticeable from behind. It looks like it was based on an old Rolls Royce Phantom (it even has a "Spirit of Ecstasy" - the mini statue - at the front of the bonnet), which is appropriate given her status:

 

[NezumiVA]

What we really need is a playable accordion man. When he gets the TSR equivalent of the all-star power-up, all of the stage music turns to an accordion cover.

[Marco9966]

9 hours ago, NezumiVA said:

What we really need is a playable accordion man. When he gets the TSR equivalent of the all-star power-up, all of the stage music turns to an accordion cover.

We need the gambler mother and the twins who are trying to travel (SA1) 

[D.K.]

On 8/26/2018 at 12:58 PM, Jango said:

IMO, the orca should be a playable character. That's an idea I can get behind. If a Boo and a Chomp in Mario Tennis can, why not the infamous orca?

Because you'll throw a hissyfit if the orca's design isn't completely rebuilt from the ground up.

[Red Hot Jack]

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2018/08/team-sonic-racing-the-gamescom-preview/

Dreadknux's impressions on the press demo. Talks about Market Street. The are still framerate issues in that demo, but things got more stable as the race progressed, it was a bit choppy though. Doesn't talk about graphics, but says the track design is indeed interesting, with various gimmicks and obstacles and routes. Nice! Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I'm glad there is someone who doesn't attack the game when we only saw bits of it (for now).

[Meta77]

No one has attacked the game.  saying a game looks bad from what is currently being run is not attacking. That's like saying kh3 footage at e3 was horrible but unlike this was good. Besides the audio issues

[Red Hot Jack]

I don't know, I think people attacked the game because they judged too early. I remember when we first got the Big footage in Ice Mountain, and said "looks bland, it's just ice"... when we basically saw a shitty footage of a couple of seconds of the track. Now we've seen the stage has a lot of scenery, a volcano and boat section with an Orca. Just saying.

Plus I don't like the idea that Sonic can't have its own spin-off apparently, even more so that the other SEGA franchises are shining again, no one is replacing them with Sonic characters, Streets Of Rage is getting a new installment, Shenmue I and II re-released with Shenmue III for the future, Wonder Boy got a remake, etc.

[Jango]

11 hours ago, Silent Jack said:

I don't know, I think people attacked the game because they judged too early. I remember when we first got the Big footage in Ice Mountain, and said "looks bland, it's just ice"... when we basically saw a shitty footage of a couple of seconds of the track. Now we've seen the stage has a lot of scenery, a volcano and boat section with an Orca. Just saying.

Plus I don't like the idea that Sonic can't have its own spin-off apparently, even more so that the other SEGA franchises are shining again, no one is replacing them with Sonic characters, Streets Of Rage is getting a new installment, Shenmue I and II re-released with Shenmue III for the future, Wonder Boy got a remake, etc.

Is "deja vu" that is called? Because I fully remember this same little talk about Forces. And we know how it turn out, don't we? I still think the Ice Mountain track looks bland and boring, far, reaaaaaally far way from being as exciting and vivid as any Transformed track. 

No one's saying Sonic shouldn't have a spin-off, it had plenty over the year, in fact, it had MORE spin-off games than main series ones lately. It's just that this one isn't good. It had no right to be looking like this knowing the developers behind it. Unless Sonic Team has more power over this game than we though.

[Red Hot Jack]

11 hours ago, Jango said:

Is "deja vu" that is called? Because I fully remember this same little talk about Forces. And we know how it turn out, don't we? I still think the Ice Mountain track looks bland and boring, far, reaaaaaally far way from being as exciting and vivid as any Transformed track. 

No one's saying Sonic shouldn't have a spin-off, it had plenty over the year, in fact, it had MORE spin-off games than main series ones lately. It's just that this one isn't good. It had no right to be looking like this knowing the developers behind it. Unless Sonic Team has more power over this game than we though.

I knew somebody would use the Forces example as an argument... and it's not working. It's a different case, I mean, every game is a different case, but here you've got different developers, Forces was a fiasco because there was a lack of talent in the team, Mania was a success because it relied very heavily on the past without making Sonic progress or go further, fans generally hate new things, they are scared of it. This game tries to do something new, but to be honest not everyone likes this idea for a racing game, I get that, but I believe the gameplay has a lot of depth and the tracks seem solid, I think it will be fun for me. 

TSR has good developers working on it, it can be the chance that Sonic finally has a good spin-off of its own, without being an All-Stars crossover or with Mario, I didn't like Zero Gravity or Free Riders, the only good one was Riders 1 for me, and the other Sonic only racing spin-offs were in the classic era, and they were quite lackluster IMO.

[Tracker_TD]

4 hours ago, Silent Jack said:

I knew somebody would use the Forces example as an argument... and it's not working. It's a different case, I mean, every game is a different case, but here you've got different developers, Forces was a fiasco because there was a lack of talent in the team, Mania was a success because it relied very heavily on the past without making Sonic progress or go further, fans generally hate new things, they are scared of it. This game tries to do something new, but to be honest not everyone likes this idea for a racing game, I get that, but I believe the gameplay has a lot of depth and the tracks seem solid, I think it will be fun for me.

I’ll take “missing the point” for £200!

Mania was a success because it was good, smarts. Solid level design, physics that worked, adding to the Classic formula with Mighty and Ray, plus the new stages and added utility of the drop dash. The main criticism of Mania across the board was that it didn’t have all new levels - it’s just that the past levels were designed so well in Mania that in the end it was forgiven somewhat. That’s not indicative of fans being scared of “new things,” that’s indicative of fans being able to recognise that “new” isn’t inherently better. (Though still recognising that entirely new stages would’ve been great) 

Which brings us to TSR, which is new but looks to be a considerable step down from Transformed for an array of reasons. Even without the comparison, as far as Sonic spin-offs go it isn’t doing anything particularly interesting (I.e. the lacklustre roster choice and limited array of locales) - it’s just ASR with a questionable at best team gimmick and a drop in variety from sticking to solely Sonic (exacerbated by the limited locale choice and roster). You can’t even really play the “but it’s Sumo!” Card, because it’s been established it’s a completely different team to the past games. It’s “Sumo” alright, but technically speaking Forces and Generations were both “Sonic Team” - what actually matters is the people involved, not the company name.

It feels like you’re steadily running out of reasons to defend this game, so weird shots at Mania and making up conspiracies about Sonic fans being scared of “new things” (have you been under a rock for the Green Hill meme?) is your current bet.  And that’s... kinda sad. There’s legitimate things to defend TSR over, but “MANIA CONSPIRACY!” isn’t one of them. We’re essentially back to the logic that got that Fire N Space person ridiculed a few pages back. If you want the actual reasons people aren’t liking how this game is coming along, try reading their posts instead of branding any criticism an “attack” or anyone who does so “grumpy”. 

[Red Hot Jack]

2 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

I’ll take “missing the point” for £200!

Mania was a success because it was good, smarts. Solid level design, physics that worked, adding to the Classic formula with Mighty and Ray, plus the new stages and added utility of the drop dash. The main criticism of Mania across the board was that it didn’t have all new levels - it’s just that the past levels were designed so well in Mania that in the end it was forgiven somewhat. That’s not indicative of fans being scared of “new things,” that’s indicative of fans being able to recognise that “new” isn’t inherently better. (Though still recognising that entirely new stages would’ve been great) 

Which brings us to TSR, which is new but looks to be a considerable step down from Transformed for an array of reasons. Even without the comparison, as far as Sonic spin-offs go it isn’t doing anything particularly interesting (I.e. the lacklustre roster choice and limited array of locales) - it’s just ASR with a questionable at best team gimmick and a drop in variety from sticking to solely Sonic (exacerbated by the limited locale choice and roster). You can’t even really play the “but it’s Sumo!” Card, because it’s been established it’s a completely different team to the past games. It’s “Sumo” alright, but technically speaking Forces and Generations were both “Sonic Team” - what actually matters is the people involved, not the company name.

It feels like you’re steadily running out of reasons to defend this game, so weird shots at Mania and making up conspiracies about Sonic fans being scared of “new things” (have you been under a rock for the Green Hill meme?) is your current bet.  And that’s... kinda sad. There’s legitimate things to defend TSR over, but “MANIA CONSPIRACY!” isn’t one of them. We’re essentially back to the logic that got that Fire N Space person ridiculed a few pages back. If you want the actual reasons people aren’t liking how this game is coming along, try reading their posts instead of branding any criticism an “attack” or anyone who does so “grumpy”. 

Mania worked because it was a safe bet, and Sega didn't even realise what they had in their hands until the release, but I don't see what's special about it, it's yet another return to roots, only this time done well. Why can't this game be the same? I see good ideas, that Mania didn't have because there were barely any ideas, even most of the gimmick were recycled, like Oil Ocean act 2, but it was a good game, I'm not complaining about Mania but there is no hype about it. There isn't any hype in this game either, but can we agree it's not a Forces disaster because there are talented people to work on it?

Also, the Transformed card, you shouldn't play that, comparisons don't work for a number of reasons in general, even then the gameplay is still more fun here, more... incorporated into the core of racing than transformations, but I have to admit I enjoyed ASRT and it had plenty of content, so I think it's a better game, just not for my tastes.

Even then, you shouldn't try to ridiculize somebody because he's trying to defend a game, that's not really nice, I'm sorry if I wasn't nice myself and I called a lot of people grumpy and cynical, but I haven't seen people so aggressive when Mania wasn't released yet, I still think fans are aggressive towards the games, Mania can be the exception that confirms the rule. So I was trying to do the opposite and bring a new view on Mania, that it isn't a gift from God, and that TSR isn't a disaster like Forces.

But in the end what I think is that we should accept each other's opinions, as we can't change them. We should accept each other because we are all Sonic fans, that's my goal.