Preview: Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed (WiiU)

This preview has also been released (in a slightly edited form) on Shadowlocked, here.

The Mario Vs. Sonic rivalry hasn't quite died yet. Sure, they get along just fine at the Olympics, but when it comes to Kart racing, Sonic is still looking to take the top spot.

Between Mario Kart and its long list of competitors across console generations, the genre has become incredibly refined. At this stage, in order to remain competitive, innovation and bold statements are definitely required. In the light of Mario Kart 7, All-Stars Racing Transformed has done both of those things; and it succeeds! Mostly.

What makes the All-Stars Racing series stand out is its use of Sega history. While Sonic's in the game title, it's not all about him. Characters and courses are sourced from all places, with surprising additions. Transformed features a Skies of Arcadia stage (and Vyse as a racer), and raceways born from Panzer Dragoon and Afterburner, of all things. For more contemporary cameos, the Starlight Carnival stage from Sonic Colours is included, which is just as mind-blowingly colourful as the original.

Transformed makes itself directly comparable to Mario Kart 7 by having the vehicles (you guessed it) transform. However, while the hang glider and submersible in Mario Kart handled in manners similar to the basic car, the planes and boats in Transformed handle noticeably differently.

On paper, this makes a lot of sense. In terms of... let's say 'gamefeel', having each vehicle type handle differently is logical; a plane controlling exactly like a car would feel terrible. At the same time, having the handling of your car change severely in the middle of a race can be very off-putting if you're not prepared for it.

The previously mentioned planes are egregious for this. Developers Sumo Digital realised that, in a game designed for all ages, having total free-flight would end in wayward chaos. As such, you can turn on a 'guiding path' that creates a friendly green guideline in the flying sections. It's also somewhat magnetic – flying too far away from the line will pull you back on track. You can turn this assist system off at any time, but after using it for a while, the full plane controls gave me the piloting skills of a drunken madman. I hastily turned the guides back on.

Like any self-respecting kart racer, All Stars Racing Transformed has weapons – but interestingly, they aren't the randomised game-changers that they are in Mario Kart. Equivalents to the Blue Shell and the Lightning are nowhere to be found. This, personally, is a glorious, well-judged addition. While, in close races, a well-timed firework will get you into the lead, the person at the back can no longer effortlessly ruin the person in first place.

What they have to challenge the leader instead are stage hazards. On some courses, like Starlight Carnival, enemies from the source material will hover ahead causing havoc. On all stages, there will be a sudden swarm of bees at set intervals during the race. The person in 1^st place will have to deal with them, and poor driving at these moments can leave you fighting to hold position. While sudden, it never feels unfair – but having these obstacles be bees on every stage feels like a wasted opportunity for good theming. They could easily be ninjas on the Shinobi stage, or Rokkaku Police on the Jet Set Radio stage.

In terms of game modes, they've taken the time to go beyond the basic standards. There's the regular Grand Prix, versus modes, and battle modes – but there's also an extensive single player mode that acts as a sort of 'career', with race requirements, branching paths and challenge races. The challenge races are legitimately difficult, and are a great way to improve your skills in the game (don't know how to powerslide? Do the checkpoint challenge where you get bonus time for good drifts, and you'll learn fast). If you want to take things online, up to 10 racers can participate at once.

While there are additional functions that make use of the Wii U's assets, they're all rather incidental. That's no bad thing – labouring gimmicks into the control scheme would definitely hinder more than it would help. You can use the tablet controller as a steering wheel should you wish (you won't); the screen acts as a top-down map in single player, and your own personal screen in multiplayer.

It feels a little mean-spirited of me to continually mention Mario Kart while writing about a game that's legitimately solid and entertaining in its own right; but much of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed wouldn't exist (or at least wouldn't be so refined) without the context provided by Nintendo's racing series. That Transformed has managed to take that context and make it its own this is definitely commendable, though. Until Nintendo release Mario Kart WiiU (and trust me, they will), Transformed is looking to happily be your kart racer for the next generation.

N.B. After the article went up on Shadowlocked, I had an error corrected. Rather than butcher the paragraph to fix it, and addendum was placed:

Since writing this, I've been corrected about the weapons. There is actually an equivalent to the Blue Shell in All Stars Racing Transformed: the bee swarms. During my (short) time playing, I never found them in item rotation, so I took them as a stage hazard. That this isn't the case is actually a huge shame, though the reality makes a lot of sense. I'd still enjoy it if the bees were themed to to stage they appeared in, though.

Sonic Generations - Gotta Follow My Rainbow

Back in the days of the Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive, the idea of 'Mascot Platformers' were incredibly popular. Mario and Sonic were the kings of the genre, and their success introduced many imitators; most of them nowhere near as popular. Some may have heard of Sparkster or Pulseman, but you're an odd bird if you've heard of - let alone played - Awesome Possum (You're not missing anything if you haven't).

Moving on to the era of 3D games; Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter and Banjo Kazooie had entered the scene, and Super Mario was still going strong. Sonic the Hedgehog on the other hand had changed greatly with his foray into the 3rd dimension with Sonic Adventure, a point which die-hard enthusiasts of the side-scrolling experiences claimed was the point that Sonic had gone downhill. Today mascot platformers have largely disappeared, with Mario, Kirby, and Ratchet and Clank series holding out as the last bastions. Sonic has persisted through the ages, but the general quality of his games haven't managed to quite keep up with his peers.

More recently Sonic Team have managed to pull the franchise out of its funk with the bright and charming Sonic Colours for the Wii last year, and this winter they've released Sonic Generations - an honest attempt at taking the best of what made the old and new Sonic games fun, stripping away the additional mechanics that didn't work out, and wrapping it all up in a package that will get knowing smiles from fans of any age.

The set up is a complete throwaway excuse. A purple eldrich abomination made of purple fog and gears - the Time Eater - has ripped through Sonic's timeline, turning levels from his past into grey husks. This abuse of the time-space continuum also lets the Sonic of the modern day meet his younger self; shorter, chubbier, and (maybe thankfully) mute. Together they run through select stages of all the main-series Sonic games in order to get things back to the status-quo.

What this means in gameplay terms is that the game is bifurcated - half of the game is a smoothed-out, high resolution rendition of the 2D Sega Mega Drive style; the other half a tweaked and refined engine taken from Sonic Colours. Both styles of play are all about reaching breakneck speeds and good reaction skills, but the Classic Sonic stages are a lot more straight-forward in terms of controls than the Modern variant.
While this made the Classic stages easier to complete, they also felt a little less involved to me than the Modern versions. Modern Stages add in the ability to do aerial tricks, wall-jumps, and other neat acrobatics that feel incredibly satisfying when done correctly. All stages in the game have a certain rhythm to them that aren't easy to notice when playing for the first time, but as I progressed and retried a few stages, the quality of the level design became more apparent. That's not to say that all of the levels are great - late game stages Crisis City (from Sonic 2006) and Planet Wisp (from Sonic Colours) cause many deaths due to the level pitting the game physics directly against you. Even with the rest of the game's quality, these moments will easily wear your patience thin.

Aesthetically, Sonic Generations is a real treat. Not competing to bring about super-realistic environments, the developers focused on bringing all the stages to the current generation with as much authenticity as possible - and they definitely succeed. Green Hill Zone will be familiar to many, but when I started up the City Escape stage from Sonic Adventure 2 (The first Sonic game I ever played!), seeing how they managed to capture the feel of the stage without just copying the level wholesale brought on waves of nostalgia, and the widest smile.

The boss fights against choice final bosses from the series and against Sonic's rivals are both energetic and done with more creativity than I was expecting. The final boss, however, is lengthy and rather boring; a weak way to tie up the game. Just beating the game will only take a few hours, but there are over 80 Challenge Stages split evenly between Classic and Modern Sonic. They feature some interesting variations, and many are honestly a real challenge to beat. Those who like to chase after the highest ranks and full completion will find Sonic Generation a lengthier and more complete experience. But they might see some hair loss when they come to the hardest ones.

Sonic Generations is available on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC (360 version reviewed). Please note that the 3DS version of Sonic Generations is developed by a different team, and may differ wildly from this version.

Have You Played - Resonance of Fate

This article can also be found at the Yorker.

Japanese RPGs fall into some rather typical camps. There are the menu-heavy games like Pokémon and Final Fantasy VII, slow affairs where reaction speed isn't a focus; and action RPGs like Kingdom Hearts and Monster Hunter - where high-level play is all about putting your reactions to the test.

 

Resonance of Fate (End of Eternity in Japan) is... neither; and that's what makes it an interesting experience - it's a game all about stylish and acrobatic gunfights that the Wachowski Brothers would approve of, but strangely the focus is on tactics and planning ahead.

The game takes place on Basel - a city within a mechanical skyscraper. Like all good stories about dystopian industrial futures, there's a stark rich/poor divide, and crime is rampant. The player is in control of three mercenaries - Vashyron, Zephyr and Leanne - completing town requests so they can get from day to day.

Beyond the initial setting concept, the plot matters very little. Developers tri-Ace (Responsible for Infinite Undiscovery and the Star Ocean series) are known for putting together visually and mechanically stunning games - but their storytelling has a lot to be desired. I've you've ever watched much animé (Or hell, if you've played a story-driven JRPG in the last decade) the roles the protagonists play is something all-too-familiar. Vashyron is the strong, responsible adult with a streak of lechery; Zephyr is filled with teenage angst and a mysterious past; Leanne is naive, demure, and still not quite sure why she puts up with the other two idiots she spends her time with.

Fortunately, Resonance quickly puts the narrative on the back-burner in favour of the gunfights. Battles are, in a word, complex. Fights deal in two kinds of damage - Scratch Damage caused by machine guns, and Direct Damage caused by handguns. Winning fights revolves around wearing down the enemy with Scratch Damage, and then sealing the deal with a Direct attack. While not too difficult of a concept, it then introduces Attack Charges, Hero Actions, Critical Conditions... at which point I was very much lost, and was relieved to find a tutorial mode hidden away.

Resonance, therefore, is like the Anti-Chess - hard to learn, but much easier to master. Once the explanations are laid out in front of you, competence soon follows, which is a great feeling - the first time you successfully take out a room full of enemies by doing an impossible leap from one side of the room to the other by flinging about 20 grenades is an incredible thrill for yourself and anyone watching.

It then becomes a game of one-upmanship - Resonance will put you up against enemies that know how to hide their weaknesses and terrain that puts you at a disadvantage, and you'll think long and hard about a method of attack that leaves your team unscathed. The battles reward spectacle - properly executing the more stylish attacks lets you keep up the flashy moves, and saves you from damage.

That's not to say the game is easy, however. Executing a manoeuvre poorly may lead to having one of your party members surrounded - and consequently riddled with bullets. Like any RPG you can flee, gain a few levels and come back, but clever use of cover will save your hide way more often than having extra health.

A game that largely survives on spectacle is something that I could be scoffed at for recommending, but Resonance of Fate puts you in control of the action, supplying a feeling more tangible than a cutscene, and a bigger sense of satisfaction when you do well. Not everyone will have the patience to learn all the ins-and-outs of the combat, but those who like fighting games or strategy games will get a kick out of this.

Resonance of Fate is available on the PS3 and 360.

Character Design: Weighing in on Women Protagonists

This article can be found at PixelxCore.

Like all media telling a story, characters in video games require detail and definition - especially player characters. It's not just the gameplay mechanics that make up your digital avatar; exploration into interesting costume design, back story, dialogue/voice acting and even animations go towards making your avatar identifiable and worthy of emotional investment. It's what puts Nathan Drake miles apart from Duke Nukem when mechanically they're just means to an artillery.

However, the range of backgrounds in video game protagonists is still rather limited, when compared to books or film. While there are all different kinds of 'noble hero' characters (often falling into the majority demographic of straight, white and male) - differing in body type and personality; minority protagonists are a lot more uncommon. A black player character is rather anomalous - and have fun thinking of 5 or more protagonists who aren't straight.

Having recently observed the problematic train wreck (link is NSFW) that was Duke Nukem Forever, and the recent decision to have the female version of Commander Shepard as the main face of Mass Effect 3, I feel a lot more aware of women in protagonist roles. While they're not uncommon (an RPG without any kind of woman party member would be incredibly strange); whether they're handled well and varied is another matter.

Samus is one of the most-cited examples of a well-handled woman protagonist in games - the game design video series Extra Credits loves to cite her as an example; but I don't necessarily feel her portrayal is so cut-and-dry. In her original appearances, the hints to Samus being female are few and far between (I remember a lot of people surprised at finding out Samus was a woman - including myself).

She's cool, capable, and her battle armour doesn't fall into the stereotypical design flaws of having 'boob-plate', or an exposed midriff. On the other hand, she comes across as incredibly personality-deprived. While the very early games get an excuse in a lack of scope in animation or dialogue, with the suit on, Samus may as well be a robot - though once the suit comes off, she is suddenly svelte and sassy.

The rendition of Samus in Metroid: Other M is much worse, though the approach is different. Samus is much more notably female in her animations without sacrificing her armour style or fighting prowess. On the other hand, the attempt at giving her dialogue ended up veering wildly from what minimal original characterisation she had - suddenly losing some of her 'lone wolf' attitude, and a ham-fisted attempt at creating character relations with her commander instead came across as supplicant to a fault. My personal favourite rendition of Samus would be her appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The game's story mode is without dialogue; meaning Samus' personality is portrayed entirely through her actions, and it's handled quite well for something arguably throw-away.

Beyond Good and Evil was a very interesting game with disproportionately little advertising and press; it tried a lot of things to make itself unique - stealth segments, hovercraft racing, photography, a well-rounded female lead... wait, what's this?

Jade stands out as my personal favourite example of a great woman protagonist. It manages to straddle a thin line of a character having markedly (though socially assumed) feminine traits, but those traits not being the driving force behind everything she is. She has a motherly trait in her taking care of orphans, she wears make-up, and she is by no means unshapely; but her practical fashion reflects the action-oriented work she does, she's a charismatic leader without relying on her figure, and she's sure of herself and her goals. Her partner characters are both male (one of whom ticks all the buttons for 'brave masculine protagonist'), but they both treat her with respect (though could you imagine what the gameplay would be like if they didn't?). What stops Jade from being perfectly well-rounded is her lack of flaws. Hyper-competence is almost always going to be a factor of a playable character; but Jade's actions and interaction are unwaveringly 'the right thing to do'; somewhat ironic, considering the game title.

BG&E reminds us that the key to great characterisation is not avoiding all tropes that are part of a stereotype; but using those aspects in conjunction with other, maybe even contrasting elements to bring about someone well-rounded and likeable. Just don't be afraid to add character flaws.

Bayonetta has been incredibly divisive as a character among critics. Some find her openness about sexuality and her determination to do things only on her own terms progressive; others notice the extreme pandering to the male gaze, and find the lethality of her sexuality to ring hollow. An interview with the director, Hideki Kamiya, clears up most of my suspicions - many aspects of Bayonetta's design have been brought forth from the turn-ons of some of the design team, and Hideki's creepy stance on women (to which Bayonetta would not be the first victim...).

Design-wise, this has lead to Bayonetta being very specifically designed as fetish-bait. As her clothes are made from her enchanted hair, whenever a Wicked Weave attack is performed (which will be often, if you're playing well), her clothing gets a lot skimpier. Her proportions are entirely inhuman - accentuating legs and waist with a tiny head - why would you need to be looking at her expression when you could be looking at her ass? Everything is delicate and feminine, from the lipstick-shaped lock-on reticule to the way the damage Bayonetta takes results in explosions of rose petals and butterflies. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that direction, but its inclusion feels condescending, like nothing else would suit a woman in an action role. (It's something that also has me worried about Lollipop Chainsaw...)

On the other hand, someone on the design team realised that the character would be dead in the water if she remained nothing but a long-legged sex doll; and the gameplay and story make a good attempt to keep the pandering to a less-pervasive level. During combat, the camera is barely focused on Bayonetta herself - the game takes its battles very seriously, and is designed so attention is drawn to incoming attacks and vulnerability animations, not gyrating witch-butt. The attacks and taunts designed for showing off are actually incredibly unsafe, and the game has no qualms about sending a swift death your way if you mess about. The storyline has surprisingly little dialogue-focus on Bayonetta's assets and attitude (the camera angles do the dirty work instead), and gives Bayonetta as a character the room to grow a little. By the end of the game her attitude of selfishness and hedonism has opened up into something more caring, without losing her independence.

It feels as if the character of Bayonetta in the game and Bayonetta in cut-scenes were designed by two different people. The silent sexy dancing of the credits and against other female rivals lie in stark conflict with the flippant foul-mouthed stance she takes almost everywhere else. There have been hints at a sequel from Platinum Studios - hopefully they'll find something more to do with Bayonetta's character beyond her sexuality and love of violence.

Dead Island turned out not to be a game where children are thrown out of windows in slow motion. It did turn out to be Borderlands meets Left 4 Dead, which is enough for some people. But to go up against Left 4 Dead, consideration needs to be paid to the playable characters. The protagonists of Dead Island are not all equal in their skills, so coming up with something compelling will be required to make someone who relies on a single weapon type an attractive choice. Purna gets the longer straw by being the firearms expert; but to justify that ability, they make her a hardened ex-cop. The entirety of her character is summed up in a 2-minute biography; and the set-up is interesting. They bring up some very hefty ideas, the role of women in police, the arrangement between social classes, and an especially unusual reference to how modern Australia can treat aborigines; a topic rarely brought up in general media, let alone video games.

However, it feels like they take those raw concepts, and come out with something a lot angrier. With a past like the one Purna was given, bitterness is bound to be expected, but here it's resulted in the polar opposite of the 'extra-feminine, demure and pure' stereotype - a 'cold, rage-fuelled uberfeminist' stereotype which, in practice, ends up being just as tasteless. It still boils down to an easily dismissed character, not because she's weak, but because she's too aggressive, her power being focused not on her self and in her own abilities, but in hating others, and particularly in hating men. The biography does not outright call her man-hating, but the game mechanics bear more information.

One of Purna's abilities is called "Gender Wars", which allows her to deal bonus damage to male targets. A little off-kilter, but the punchline comes in when, in the initial release of Dead Island on Steam, one purchaser decided to look at the game code, and found that the code named the ability as "Feminist Whore". Whoops. Developers Techland since altered the code in later releases, and put out a press release saying that the coder who wrote that part of the program would be reprimanded; but it makes me wonder how deeply the attitude of 'Purna the Feminist Whore' was entrenched in the design process for the character. Like with Bayonetta, the intents and attitudes of the creator are hard to separate from the finished product, even if alternate interpretations are less problematic.

The scope of character design is massive - the potential for protagonists in games is just as large as in novels or in films, but it will take a concentrated effort from games designers to acknowledge the potential for minority player characters in their work; and well-rounded characters in general. It's not impossible to form an empathy with a character who isn't the same gender, race or sexuality as you, so tailoring character design to demographic majority would be outdated and unnecessary. However, creating an identifiable player character in the first place can be a very demanding task, so the popularity of games where the looks of the protagonist are chosen by the player makes sense. Women are getting a wider and more balanced representation as the heroes of video games; though the number of them that end up in DD Breastplate and bikini-mail need to be worked on.

Summer Backlog: Bayonetta

I collect video games as a hobby; in a way, I do this more than actually play them. It's a bad habit, but not one unique to me - you wouldn't have to look far to find someone who hoards DVDs or books or music (I'm guilty of that last one too), but eventually you collect more than you consume, and you create the dreaded BACKLOG. The ever increasing mountain of media that you know you want to work through, but looks increasingly more daunting as you add more to the stack. How on earth will I juggle all these games around work or university? But since my summer holiday has started, I have the free time to work my way through some of my collection.

I started Bayonetta ages ago - last October when I moved in with a house mate who owned a 360. It was a game that I had followed from its announcement to its release - and I finally had the opportunity to take it for a spin. The game had pedigree - its production staff having worked on some of Capcom's greatest action titles of the PS2 era (Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry, Okami) - and Bayonetta promised to refine those sensibilities into the purest essence.

Bayonetta's premise is a rather ridiculous one. Bayonetta is an Umbran Witch, a clan of magic users forever waging war against the Lumen Sages for control of Heaven and Hell, all outside the notice of us ordinary humans. It seems Bayonetta is a key piece in the Lumen Sages gaining control; so they send an army of angels after her. The angels are monsters - all white porcelain and gold banding on the surface, but fleshy and hideous underneath their façade, ranging from lowly bird-like minions to two-headed dragons the size of cathedrals. Fortunately, Bayonetta can defend herself using her enchanted hair (which also comprises her clothing - so when the hair attacks her clothing gets skimpier. Oh dear), and pistols attached to her hands and feet. What this results in is some incredibly bizarre but very fluid combat.

Honestly, even though I wasn't very confident with the high-octane, no mercy action of the Devil May Cry series, I was able to take to Bayonetta with great ease - and caught a glimpse of that gameplay perfection they had touted. Bayonetta is a complicated game. Almost every button on the controller is a separate tool of destruction - controlling the titular witch as she caves in the faces of her angelic aggressors; and you're expected to know how to put all of them to best use, or die trying. And I did die - many, many times. I started the game on Normal difficulty, but that still required my full attention, learning both what I could do and how my foes functioned. When I 'got it', the game looked wondrous, my character weaving in and out of her enemies, dealing deadly blows left and right. Though more often than not, I faltered, leading to a pummelling, and a trip to the Game Over screen.

Even though my death count was steadily racking up, the game just kept me coming back for more. Even if the combat wasn't my forte; the game's visual set pieces - from a city in France being destroyed by waves of lava, to running up and down the sides of a moon-lit tower, to being flung through the air, fighting atop a slab of pavement wrenched from the earth. Every location looked and sounded stunning; overriding whatever frustration I had regarding my failures.

That was until the first Difficulty Spike. About halfway through, the game starts throws the meanest enemies in the game at you, Grace and Glory. At that time, I was in no way ready to take these guys on - my tactics were sloppy and my reaction speed just too slow. 15 deaths later and I had resigned. Too headstrong just turn the game down to easy and continue - I left the game in the dust and went to other endeavours.

Fast-forward to this summer, where I'm talking with fellow gamer Aryn, and I find out that he'd long ago beaten Bayonetta - even on Hard! "Show me your ways, oh teacher!" I said, and we sat down to play the game together. The experience drastically improved. Having not played for months my skills were rusty - the stopping point from before was no easier, but with advice and encouragement I got beyond that; and got to see the meat of the game.

While the detailed combat system is the crux of the game, it's broken up by some rather welcome changes in gameplay styles, echoing classic games in Sega's history. Ploughing down an motorway on a motorcycle echoes Super Hang-On, and riding on a commandeered torpedo, shooting down enemies amusingly references Space Harrier (along with some nauseating barrel-rolling that definitely wasn't in the Sega Mega Drive original).

As I neared the end of the game, I did a little research into the production of the game, and found something interesting, but a bit worrying. The game's director, Hideki Kamiya was the man responsible for Bayonetta's 'lethal sexiness' character design. It's presence was original and very well integrated, but at times this decision felt like something far less than feminism. Certain scenes (thankfully never story or gameplay-related) dropped all pretence of capability and class, and went straight for the Male Gaze. It never felt 'sexy', just awkward. If I was living with my parents or had a girl as a house mate, I could see myself as being too embarrassed to play Bayonetta.

It's a damn shame that such a wonderfully crafted game, the try to best example of the Hack 'n' Slash genre, is marred by something so objectifying and honestly rather sad. As I finished off the game's final boss and played through the ending sequence, I was elated to have finished such a difficult game, and wowed by the awesome stylishness of the ending sequence. Even the start of the credits had bonus battles to take on; but then my reward for finishing the game was poledancing. Sigh.

Bayonetta is entirely worth a play for anyone who likes action games, and even those who aren't confident with the genre can burn through the game on Easy – but I can't help but feel bad about promoting something with such rampant sexism in its design.

This article can also be found at The Yorker.

Vision Issue 211

Note: My articles were a good deal longer, but ended up being compressed to fit the guest article on the page. Thing is; I didn't save the extended versions. I'm a idiot! =D

Reach For the Stars Tonight - Sonic Colours (Wii)
The modern gaming era has not been kind to Sonic. Depending on whom you ask, some will say the day the blue hedgehog appeared in 3D was the day the Sonic franchise died. Though you could argue that Sonic in his Sega Genesis days was far from perfect (but offered a certain polish the later games lacked); recent games have undeniably been dancing around a general theme of "enjoyable, but mediocre".

So when Sonic Team's newest project - Sonic Colours was announced at last year's E3 - the responses of Sonic fans and regular gaming enthusiasts alike were just that little bit tepid.

Previous Sonic games had generated a large amount of hype in the developmental stages; often claming to recapture some of that elusive game design magic the Genesis games were said to have; but upon release smacked of disappointment and missed opportunities. This happened with such regularity that the process was dubbed by fans as "The Sonic Cycle".

Now that Sonic Colours has been released into our anticipating - yet wary - midst; I can say with relief that it's finally a solidly-made and fun to play Sonic game. Which doesn't sound like overwhelming praise; but it's definitely a good step in the right direction.

This time around Sonic has gatecrashed a gigantic outer-space theme park; created by evil genius Dr. Eggman. Refusing to believe that his long-time rival has actually turned over a new leaf; he finds out that among the rollercoasters and ferris wheels is a plot to capture alien life-forms called Wisps - who hold the secret to an incredible power source.

As cheesy as the plot is; it results in a game that relishes in not taking itself seriously. The planets the theme park's made up of are vibrant and expansive (an aesthetic lovingly lifted from the Mario Galaxy games); and utterly breathtaking to dash about in. There's nothing like tearing around Sweet Mountain - a planet made entirely of cake, gingerbread, and oversized doughnuts - while the jazzy, upbeat soundtrack accopanies.
When it comes down to gameplay ideas, Colours has that covered too. Stages frequently switch between speedy into-the-screen dashing and slower, more methodical side-scrolling. Some levels require more planning and forethought to complete in one piece; not to mention a decent score.

The Wisps also add to how the game handles; certain colours of Wisps transform Sonic to allow him shortcuts. The Cyan Laser ricochets off enemies and through wires; the Yellow Drill plows through soft ground and underwater; the Green Hover serenely drifts you to high-up areas; with more powers besides. It's a great system - experimenting with your Wisps rewards you with collectables and adds longevity to the game; as does the intentionally retro Co-Op mode, complete with chiptune music remixes of the soundtrack.

As for downsides, Sonic's floaty physics can make him hard to control initially, until you get the hang of things. The game's intentionally childish nature make some cutscenes overly camp. Many deaths can occur from an awkward jump, or a Wisp power not working as intended; which can be frustrating. But persevere - Sonic Colours is well worth your time. The Sonic Cycle has been broken.


Nerds only? Not really...
"I'm such a nerd," he said as we sat in The Courtyard, both of us munching on burgers. "I've spent so much time playing Pokémon HeartGold; my house mates totally don't approve."
I blinked in surprise. I wasn't expecting the conversation to turn to video games. Outside of a certain crowd, bringing up gaming often feels like some kind of filthy taboo.
"I get what you mean," I replied. "Ever since Fable III was released, I've just burned so much time on it." An awkward pause hung in the air; and a puzzled look crossed his face.
"What's 'Fable'?"

Maybe I expected too much - even if he did self-profess to be a "nerd"; it's now cool to identify as one - whether it's true or not. I guess we have Scott Pilgrim to thank for that. It sounds incredibly pretentious to assume that only a special few can discuss your hobby; but despite the best interests of many, gaming (as compared to books or movies) is still something of a niche interest. And that's just a little bit unfair.

Enthusiasm for a film you've watched or an album you've listened to - even when the listener hasn't - isn't a conversation breaker; but an attempt to discuss a game can often be swatted aside with a "Sorry, I'm not into games," leaving the conversation cold, and the speaker feeling like more than a bit of a loser.
It might be something of a pipe dream to picture a world where games are treated socially the same way as any other media (though let's not get into a "are games art?"-type discussion here, they don't end well); but there has to be a solution we can use.

Firstly, it's up to us gamers to talk about interesting games. No one is going to care about your World of Warcraft raid, nor know what "Kill:Death Ratio" is. If talking about different games assists in you discovering new genres or old classics - so much the better.

Secondly, all you non-gamers out there: please don't run a mile when someone brings up their PS3, or new favouite game. We're sharing it because you might find it interesting! If it's something new to you; take comfort in learning something new about pop culture.

Finally, it's down to the game developers and producers to release interesting games to play. Call of Duty: Black Ops is a good game, but it has little in the way of discussion scope for people who haven't played it. Remember when The Sims was a new phenomenon? There was near infinite potential to chat and laugh about the TV Drama-like events that the game offered - and it was so accessible that near everyone played it.

So take my advice - be proud of your hobbies and interests, if they're as worthwhile as you feel they are; others will take interest. And please don't feign 'gamer-cred' by calling yourself a nerd. It's a bit embarrassing.