SEGA E3 ’10 Preview: Sonic Colors and Sonic the Hedgehog 4

Sega had a massive presence this year at E3, with a lofty sum of the Seganian Army dedicated to five upcoming Sonic releases that have been, should be, and will be receiving some props and attention for putting Sonic back on the fast track that he had strayed ever so far from in the past few years. The Sonic games present at Sega’s E3 booth this year were Sonic Colors – one for the Wii and one for the DS, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, the Kinect title Sonic Free Riders, and also a port of the Dreamcast favorite Sonic Adventure for XBLA and PSN. I was able to get some hands-on time with Sonic Colors for the Wii and Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1.

Sonic Colors

I went into Sonic Colors actually eager to try out a console Sonic game for the first time in quite a while. The teaser trailer released pre-E3 for its announcement was brief, but had an extremely catchy tune that I was dying to hear more of, not to mention a set of interesting new alien creatures called Wisps that gave me a nostalgic surge for some reason because they instantly reminded me of chaos, which I’d love to see brought back into a future Sonic game. (Hint hint at Sega: Creating a Sonic Adventure 3 for Xbox 360/PS3 would be my ultimate dream Sonic game…)

Sonic Colors is definitely headed in the right direction off the bat by not drowning us in any gimmick routines or crazy premises like Sonic and his werehoggery. Sonic Colors takes up a style that I think a lot of Sonic fans will appreciate in the way that it carefully mashes up 3D gameplay with 2D elements and gameplay, and much familiarity.

The alien Wisps are scattered all over the levels and act as power ups to collect. The yellow one for example will give you the power to drill through dirt areas below you and you’ll go into this 2D style screen where you control Sonic on auto-drill, collecting rings or discovering secret areas, until you zoom out of the dirt. The music also changes to a really fun electronica bass-style when you waggle the Wiimote to use the yellow Wisp. Another one I found allowed me to quick dash and defeat a row of enemies instantly. When you find a new Wisp, it’ll replace the one you have on reserve so don’t hoard your power ups!

While Sonic Colors is definitely headed in the right direction to rebuild the Sonic franchise — being able to jump and then use combo homing attacks again felt great –  it’s still admittedly not perfect. With a title declaring “Colors” in its name it certainly would also benefit from a high-definition shoe shine it would be able to get if it were on the 360 or PS3. And the voice, though ignorable, telling you “Awesome!” and the rest of the comments the voice makes when you can use a Wisp definitely kind of grated on me a bit. I might be able to do without him.

You can check out a gameplay video below of one of the levels that was playable at E3!

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

Sonic fans are not as hard to please as Sega seemed to have thought for the last few years: a pinch of new with a metric ton of familiar is all it’ll take. Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is pretty much all that and a bag of chips. Obviously Sega has really listened to the swan cries of the hardcore fans with this one. To the core this felt like a genuine old school Sonic title. It felt  almost like it was nabbed straight off of the Sega Genesis and given an HD spit-shine sprinkled atop it’s sprints and spins.

Honestly, Sonic 4 has the loops, bumpers and spin dash action he’s known for and the homing attack also makes a nice return. What was nice to see was the good variety of branching paths that was always responsible for the high replayability of the older Sonic games. And most importantly, you’re fast. Hella fast. The speed is back and at just the level you missed, needed, and craved for far too long from the fan favorite fuzzy blue hedgehog.

The demo I played at E3 had a set of four levels: three areas and a boss stage. Unfortunately Sega has yet to pin a price point on the upcoming downloadable escapade nor reveal how many stages we can expect from the full release. All I can tell you is that it will most likely (from what we’re told) be followed up by an Episode 2 of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and that it will release on both the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network towards the end of 2010.