E3 opened today in sunny Los Angeles, California and if you’ve never been to the event the sheer scale is absolutely dumbfounding. There are people in costume everywhere, someone passing you a free energy drink on every corner, and the booths that the big players of the video game world have set up are beyond amazing.
The first appointment we had today was with Sega who gave us a hands on of their upcoming game Sonic 4 for the iPhone. The release is still TBA beyond “late 2010", as Sega seems very concerned with getting the game right instead of just throwing it out there like other recent Sonic games which have all been fairly mediocre going all the way back to Dreamcast Sonic games. Sonic 4 actually was a lot of fun to play, and as you can see from the video, shares quite a bit of the look and feel of classic Sonic games:
With both tilt and touch controls as well as the same amount of content found in the game on other consoles, Sonic 4 is really working up to be something special. I was cautiously optimistic when Sega announced the delay of the game, and it really seems like they’re taking their time to make a game that anyone who looks back to the days of classic 16 bit fast-paced platformers will enjoy.
