Sonic is back. Today of course is Sonic's 20th birthday. The hedgehog hasn't been doing so well in recent years. After a lot of lacklustre games, Sonic Generations is Sega's makeup present to fans. Sega has managed to achieve what they never could, a game that actually plays like the original.

You get blown way back to the past in the demo. Sega has included the first act of the game; a reimagined Green Hill Zone as "Classic Sonic."

You'll notice some major changes from Sonic 4. The jumping mechanics and speedy rolls are back in their full glory. No more lead lined physics thanks to the new Havok engine.

Generations is a little faster paced than Sonic 1 but the basic gameplay remains the same. The emphasis is more on platforming than raw speed this time around. That's how a Sonic game should be. Run a bit, platform a lot, jump on robots, repeat.

The graphics look absolutely spectacular. Though not a big leap from Sonic 4, things are more squared off this time around. Overall, it just looks better than past games. They've finally got the 2.5D visuals to perfection. One minor issue is frame rate and resolution. You can tell Sega has capped it to 30 frames per second. Sonic can actually outrun the frame rate at times in speedier areas. This causes bad motion blur at times. It's also locked to 720p. There's really no reason why they can't bump it up to 60fps at 1080p. Maybe they will when game gets released in November.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the demo. My only issue was how short it is. I would have liked to see at least one "New Sonic" level included. At least it's good to see that Sonic is finally back in true form. This will be a day one buy for any Sonic fan.

Hurry up and get the demo off XBLA and PSN. It's time limited and will only be playable for the next 20 days.

Score: 8.5 out of 10

What works
-Classic Sonic returns in true form
-Good platforming over raw speed finally makes a return
-Physics greatly improved from Sonic 4
-Spectacular visuals nail the 2.5D gameplay perfectly

What doesn't work
-Frame rate capped too low for this type of game
-Resolution could be 1080p
-Short demo, want to see New Sonic too.

If you're wondering why there have been so few updates lately, I've been on vacation. I've also started working on some other, unrelated projects. I've also been swamped at work. Us blog writers have day jobs too you know, because lord knows this pays nothing. MMNTech has been on hiatus in the mean time. I'm trying to put some stuff on E3 together. Check out @mmntech on Twitter for updates!




Image courtesy of BevWire