“I am utterly convinced that the game is some sort of cruel trick”
You’ll notice we haven’t paid a ton of attention to the various previews surrounding Sonic Generations unless they have video or something new attached to them. But given his reputation among Sonic fans (and to an extent with Sega itself,) there is one opinion we will relay for your consideration–that of Jim Sterling, review editor for Destructoid.com.
Today, Mr. 4.5 afforded his thoughts from previewing the console game at PAX, and while it’s clear he is pleased with what he played, Sterling’s past experiences with the franchise give him caution:
[....] After playing both acts of City Escape, I am utterly convinced that the game is some sort of cruel trick. If the game is actually this consistently good when it releases, I fear it’ll come attached to an extravagant Saw-style trap!
[....]
I absolutely refuse to be excited for the game until I played the whole thing, but I can say that I’ve played four stages to date, and I’ve been confidently happy with three of them (I’ll need to play the Modern Green Hill Zone again to properly gauge it). The City Escape levels are plenty of fun, look gorgeous, and have been tightly designed. With everything else looking promising, this could be a good one, but I’m not willing to discount the fact that this is a big prank yet.
In contrast to recent console Sonics, Sterling also noted his approval in Generations for the modern portions:
Fenrir take my wretched soul, but I actually enjoyed the bloody thing. Sonic felt controllable in the 3D environment, didn’t take any cheap pitfalls deaths, had a homing attack that actually worked, and even the occasional shift to 2D perspective was enjoyable, with the physics feeling far more solid and nowhere near as “floaty” as Sonic Unleashed or Sonic Colors.
The full preview can be read at the second cited link above.
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Lol, I like this guy’s sense of humour. Sounds good though, if someone like him likes it, it must be doing something right!
Noone’s had a taste of the story though, and while the gameplay seems tight, I can’t say I have high hope for the story…
Not this guy again…
So wait. He even gets the feeling of the game and he still won’t praise it?………………………..KAY?
Why the funk am I laughing after reading this?! XD
I usually do not agree with this guys reviews (especially his harsh review of Sonic Colours), but I do agree with some of the points that he brings up in his reviews.
Oh God, not Jim Sterling!
Jesus, if even Jim Sterling thinks this game is shaping up to be good, it MUST be really good.
“Mr. 4.5″ …blahaha
Oh. Him.
Not this asswipe again,,,
@AM
You bet.
DAH HEARTSUFFER!
This guy is a Douche monkey. Even when he praises sonic he somehow manages to bad mouth him at the same time -___-
I just read the comments on that link in Jim sterling’s review and some of those retards were talking about the sonic cycle(which is incredibly stupid), they were saying that this game is a trap and that Sega is goin to troll us again. And one of the comments said that 90% of the time you can’t see the truck coming after you in the classic city escape. *sign* I wish I can punch people through the Internet
Here we go again. This guy gets on my nerves but the people who get on my nerves a whole lot more are the people who believe what this guy says and decide not to get the game as result without paying any mind to what other reviewers have said about this game. It’s pathetic they apparently don’t have brains. They’re just easily manipulated sheep. =/
I could give two shits about this guy. He can say whatever. I’m not gonna say anything until I play the damn game.
You do realize that Jim Sterling is a professional troll, right? Christ, he actually gets PAID to troll the likes of you. Man, there is no justice in the world…anyway, the mere fact that Tristan reported on the guy should be evidence enough of his troll status.
6/10, by the way, Tristan. Oh, and you seem to still be alive, that’s cool. Didn’t take too much damage, I hope? You know, I give you a lot of shit Tristan but I seriously do hope your home didn’t take TOO much damage from the hurricane. I know it fucked a lotta people up and…
….
…wait, where was I…oh yeah…Sterling.
Kids, please do yourself a favor and don’t get asspained by this guy and take what he says with a spoonfull of salt. He’s a fat, British…(er…less…British?) version of Yahtzee. Hah, man, Sterling WISHES he could be Yahtzee. And I don’t even LIKE the guy!
Dunno who this guy is but name sounds familiar.
If people dislike him so much yet he calls the game pretty much good then I just see it as a good sign since you’d OBVIOUSLY expect him to make a douche of himself either way right? =)
Besides, I really don’t see how this game can fail. The levels all look fun and I can actually finally say this. But some of the level designs look as great or better as the designs in SA1 and SA2. Modern City Escape is at least on par if not better level design. Only thing missing are the fure slanted streets you run down and long stairways with the red rail in the middle. For the most part it looked nearly explorable even with room to run around (giving an Adventure feel to Modern Sonic). And this is the first I’m hearing of Modern Sonic not feeling “floaty” and being easier to control conpared to Unleashed and Colors. That alone is something significant to me as Unleashed/Colors’ movements felt kinda stiff for adventurous roaming around. =)
I hate Jim Sterling’s opinions. He can piss off, even if he loves the game.
this guy its not funny i don give a shit about his opinion he critics sonic and thinks that he is funny because of that but he is not
Haha, this article’s tagline had me expecting the worst. Nice twist.
@Renzy For the full calculation of the percentage of the truck chase, look below
From the GC City escape video:
Total Level time – 3:07
1st truck – 1:02 – 1:15 [13 sec]
2nd truck – 1:23 – 1:28 [5 sec]
3rd truck – 1:36 – 1:56 [20 sec]
4th truck – 2:17 – 2:23 [6 sec]
5th truck – 2:34 – 3:04 [30 sec]
13+5=18
18+20=38
38+6=44
44+30=1 min 14 sec
1:14 = x
3:07 100%
Conversion from time values:
74 = x
187 100%
187x = 7400
187 187
= 39.5%
So the truck not chasing you is 61.5% of the time. Real statistics, huzzah!
Please for the love of GOD don’t let Jim Sterling review this game, anybody else would be better than him… even Hilary Goldstein.
Sorry Raggtime, but Mr. Goldstein left video game journalism to peruse other interests.
I could care less about Jim Sterling or Destructiod. Not because of Sonic, its because I’ve never had any interest for Desructiod anyway.
He’s going to end up giving the game a terrible review and a low score.
Let’s face it, this is the same guy who spent an entire 2010 summer praising the everlasting shit out of Sonic Colors preview after preview (rightfully so) just to post a bullshit review that lists numerous “problems” that sound like problems that he SHOULD’VE NOTICED IN THE SEVERAL DEMOS HE HAS PLAYED.
August 2010-”I love the Sonic Colors demo. It controls fluently and has great level design.”
November 2010-”I’VE BEEN TRICKED!!111 The controls are floaty to the point of unplayability, and entire game looks like it was designed by monkeys!11″
I could also bring up his even more terrible Sonic 4 Episode 1 review in comparison (“The physics are fine, you whiny bastards.”), but I’m tired of wasting my time with this guy. As soon as I took a glance at his Sonic Colors review, I said “Oh fuck you!” and never visited his website again.
The man obviously has different taste than I do if he wasn’t very pleased with Colors, which is understandable, not everyone enjoys the same things. But I wouldn’t take his opinions at face value because of this difference. I love the idea of a Saw-like trap, I love Saw. Maybe he’d enjoy games (and the rest of his life) more if Jigsaw put him to the test.
@ Darkgomugomu: You sir, have just won the Internet.
This guy needs to get a life. Seriously
@Darkgomugomu: Holy shit, MATH!!! Can… not… com… pute… *explosion*
I hate that he’s allowed, for some reason or another, to be the only guy on that whole site (or metacritic reviews rather) to shittalk something when he really loves it (Or hates it, whatever) and be a generic fucking shithead that’s the likes of 4chan and is the guy that does the SEGA related stuff on that site.
I don’t care if it’s “why he’s so kewl :3″ or the fact it’s a character and that’s why he’s entertaining. Stop trying to be a ‘character’ and just be yourself: make it work for you and not like you’re trying to be edgy. That’s why people that take shit that Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation says seriously are the worst kind of people: the same for people that take what Jim Sterling says as fact are just as bad.
This guy is terrible and all his fans should feel terrible.
I know I’m being unecessary and picky here… but it’s a trigger for my ocd here. ><;
@superskeetospro
"I could give two shits about this guy."
@QuietGuy92
"I could care less about Jim Sterling or Destructiod."
Based on the context of what you two were saying, the phrases would be "I couldn't give two shits about this guy" and "I couldn't care less about Jim Sterling or Destructiod."
It was pointed out in an article once that many people get these kinda phrases wrong.
But the reason behind it is because you already care SO little about this guy that you "couldn't care less" than you already do. :3
Please don't shoot me… 0_0; lol
You know, you guys are saying he’s gonna give it a low score, but when you’re saying that it sounds like you missed the parts where he’s calling it a cruel trick BECAUSE he actually likes it and is skeptical. Doesn’t that mean that the game as a whole may continue the trend and kick his hater ass!? XDD
So what if he gives it a good score? Heck, for a hater a decent score would even be amazing. If he gave it a decent score, that means in the normal world it’s about 10/10 or something. XD Gotta learn the language. =P
The problem is not with Sterling (although he is ignorent and narrow minded) the problem is that these review sites are highly biased. When one reads a review from most of these sites we are only getting the point of view of one person. It is as useful as reading the comment box. Perhaps games should be reviewed by more then one person; it should be reviewed by a fan of that franchise, a person who knows the franchise and has played a couple of games in the franchise, as well as a person who has no (or extremely little) prior experience with the game’s franchise. They should also take points from commenter reviews into the main review. This way a single person’s bias will not cause the game to become overrated or underrated.
@AM
That’s why it’s helpful to READ the reviews rather than just looking at the arbitrary number. Most of the time you get a fairly level-headed overview of things, so even if you disagree with certain opinion-based aspects of the review, you still get a decent picture of what the game is like, which is the PURPOSE of a review in the first place.
Sonic Colors WAS floaty. Whether that’s game-breaking or not is a relatively personal thing, but it’s not like it was an outright lie. I read reviews to get more information on a game, not to see what someone else’s opinion is.
I still konw the game is going to be one of the best no matter what anyone says.
Got to stay positive
@ChaoticFox
I guess you CAN do that. Tho a lot of people I know seem to go to the reviews to see what people’s perspective of the game is to help them see how well or badly the game is received as it is a reflection on how good or bad the game is. The odd part about it is this is the main reason people do so even when they disagree with most reviews anyways. lol
For me, I go there I GUESS for information, but also just to see if those traits about the game really bother anyone or if people like it. It helps me try to predict if I will like it or not. (Not necessarily determine, just guess. lol)
I think AM is right about one thing tho. Multiple reviews would be helpful. If one person reviews the game and considers it bad, it’s not fair because what if everyone else liked it? Then the game ends up having a low score on the site unjustly and it makes the game look bad, especially to those who haven’t played it yet. To those who have… well you know a lot of Sonic fans will just follow whatever they see. O_O lol Of course if the game is good then a lot of people will still enjoy it regardless, but it’d be nice if the game had a good review for a change. XD But that’s what the fans are for I guess. And that’s why there’s so many reviews right? =D idk XD
@sonicfan94
I’m with ya!
This game looks awesome so far. And hey, it’s inspired by a ton of games from the past, more than half of which were well-received games. So I guess I shouldn’t be suprised. 6 or 7 of the 9 stages are from well-received games that we will be playing in the style of the classics and Sonic Colors which were also included in those well-received games as well-received gameplays. So if we’re playing mostly stages from good games, and we’re playing them in 2 good gameplay styles, what are the chances this game can flop? They’ve been working on it for a while, so they’re slim. At least for me anyways. =D
@Foxboy
When it comes to reviews, the only opinions that interest me are the opinions of those who shares my views and tastes. So I generally don’t put much stock in what some random reviewer thinks about a game, unless I get the impression from the review that we enjoy the same kinds of things.
When this isn’t the case, I read multiple reviews to see what facts end up being repeated across the board… this provides a much broader perspective. Even if a game gets a lot of awful reviews, if every review attributes most of their low rating to “a poor story” but still praises the gameplay, I’m not really going to care about the overall score, because I think story is the least important part of games. But if I have 10 people saying “the framerate sucks and there are glitches galore”, then that’s no longer a matter of opinion.
At the end of the day, I don’t care what other people think about the things that I enjoy. I just read reviews to get an idea of whether there’s any specific details about a game that will hinder MY enjoyment.
@ChaoticFox
Wasn’t saying you couldn’t watch/read it for that reason. They’re open to the public to view for whatever reasons you want. :] But basically you’re saying you don’t really care about reviews themselves, which is cool. You’re more interested in the details they’re referring to in their reviews. =p
Yeah that’s why I was saying that the reason AM probably said what he did was to refer to a better system for getting unbias scores and representation of the game itself. Like you, there are a lot who may not care and still enjoy the game since the only opinion that matters in the end is one’s own. But this is probably referring to the score thing which some ppl care about just for the heck of it. It’s like a game. They just want their team to have a high score. XD
If a high score were the ultimate goal, I’d still put more of the blame on Sega than the reviewer, no matter how biased they are XD
Jim: IT’S A TRAP!
Srsly though wtf. He likes it, but refuses to recommend it because of his bias against Sonic. Even the haters aren’t gonna hate looking at this, and that really is something, but they might bring up that bs Sonic Cycle even though it’s already broken thanks to Unleashed, 4 to an extent, and the magnificence that is Colours.
Have you seen the first comment? That guy is just a freaking retard!
@CF: Nomatter how bias they are? Then that would be an illogical blame. o.o
@Bob: It’s funny that it ended on that game because it also started on that game as well. lol I hadn’t heard of the “Sonic Cycle” before Unleashed. It was probably caused by Sonic 06 except… at that time ppl were praising Secret Rings. (At the same time, Secret Rings was also the first game I heard ppl say Griffith was improving as Sonic’s voice. That grew with the release of Unleashed and then Black Knight. The trends are startin to make me wonder if there’s something fishy going on. lol)
I don’t know whats worse, the fact that he gets paid for this shit or the fact that he commands a vast legion of ignorant sheep
I love how the mere mention of this guy’s name elicits such rage from Sonic fans that even unexpectedly positive remarks from him are met with nothing but unwarranted and blatantly melodramatic displays of hostility. Jesus, some people need to learn to chill the fuck out XD
I know right? o0 Don’t you find it ironic too, considering a lot of the fans do the same thing? (It’s like they’re complain how the games aren’t doing so well… but then hate on someone else who thinks the same thing.)
You can see it one of 2 ways.
1: He’s a jerk and I don’t like what he’s saying about this game even if it’s good.
2: He’s a jerk and even HE likes this game so far. This game must be awesome.
Seems like more ppl are going for number 1 than number 2, which is awfully negative. No one wants to be positive anymore. >:[
Wow, I’m sensing a lot of butthurt from you guys. I love Sonic, BUT I’m heavily biased against it, and it looks like this guy’s in the same position. After playing a game like Sonic 06, right after playing a game like Shadow the Hedgehog…right after playing a game like Sonic Heroes…you can’t blame the guy.
But Yahtzee is and will always be the greatest reviewer of all time.