Comments on: Everything Old is New Again

By: drdnar

drdnar — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:36:57 +0000

Actually, the original Sonic games went through a lot of trouble to make the gameplay closer to analogue (see http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Physics_Guide ), for example, the ability to control Sonic’s jump height. They implemented this by, counter-intuitively, making Sonic continue to accelerate after leaving the ground.

By: mickiscoole

mickiscoole — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:39:51 +0000

In the sonic remake, every time you went over a jump then the view would zoom in, go slow motion and you would have a QTE to land properly

By: GoNintendo - Everything Old is New Again

GoNintendo - Everything Old is New Again — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:27:45 +0000

[...] Article here [...]

By: nihohit

nihohit — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:01:18 +0000

Oh, I remember having mouse aiming in Abuse and thinking it’s the most ingenius mechanic ever. Abuse still is a fun game to play today, so I was probably right.

I’d go with the old earthworm jim’s – the fixed direction and length of worm slinging always felt very constrained mechanics-wise, especially when compared to the fluidity of the animations.

Also, I’d add analog aiming and rolling/dodging to Crusader: No Regret. That will demand major reworking of the game, considering a lot of the design was based on exploiting these fixed length to create action-puzzles.

By: Gerard Delaney

Gerard Delaney — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:07:53 +0000

Splosion Man is another game that has been released recently on XBLA and is one that I am enjoying most out the recent releases. It takes so much from the Sonic playbook and is a 2D platformer created in a 3D engine. The analog sitck and fidelity of control complemented some otherwise old school elements. It has simplicity and focus of game design that does not translate into boredom which can occur sometimes when I get a bout of nostalgia only to find out that those old games are just old. I put this down to two elements:
1) An ingenious training system that, like Valve, presents each skill / challenge type in a benign situation so that it can be mastered and overcome in later situations.

2) A clever checkpoint system that takes away the frustrations associated with old school platformers and allows for more difficult challenges to be implemented without ruining the experience