Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Sonic and the Secret Rings is set for a March 2007 release right now, according to the official site. To those of you turning away already, I feel your pain, really. I was one of the many youngsters who began begging for a Sega Genesis the day I first played the original Sonic the Hedgehog, I loved Sonic 2, thought 3 was kind of meh, and it’s been a mad tumble into mediocrity and beyond for the franchise since then. The real stumbling block for Sonic, as with most older console franchises, is the transition to 3D. I rented Sonic Adventure 2 Battle on Gamecube and didn’t hate it, but tired of it very quickly. I bought a used copy of Sonic Heroes and sold it again almost as quickly, despite really liking it for the first hour or so.

Sonic Rush on the DS was great, and its quality has gotten me pretty excited that maybe, just maybe, there’s some life in the spiky blue guy yet. Which brings us to Sonic and the Secret Rings for Nintendo Wii.

Secret Rings is a fast-moving 3D game where you run through a world with a theme based on the setting of 1001 Arabian Nights. There are some reasons to pay attention to this game.

Sega has ditched the stupid sidekicks who’ve been slowing him down since Sonic 2. No Tails, no Amy Rose, no friggin’ Knuckles the Echidna.

Travel in the game has been described as “on rails”. This sounds like a bad thing but one of the weaknesses of the franchise of late is how sloppy the control is, and how it’s easy to get lost and not know where to go next. Restricting Sonic to a predefined path through each stage could pull us back to that classic “2D” feel that Sonic Rush proved still works so well, while still keeping that flashy 3D look the kids these days love. It also allows for simple controls that are relative, rather than absolute, at all times. Steering is accomplished by tilting the remote, which is held sideways like an NES controller.

The addition of a number of “party games” to the mix adds a multiplayer value to your purchase, something that, even when done badly, is a sensible move for the developer.

Sonic allegedly never stops moving. One of the things I hated about Sonic Heroes was that every time you stopped to do some fighting (because you had to), it got clumsy because the controls while moving slow were really irritating. It always felt like you were on roller skates. Video I’ve seen of this game shows a near constant forward motion (except when charging up to boost), even when attacking. In the large, open areas you see in these videos, running at a breakneck speed for a few minutes through each stage looks really exhilarating, a sense that the game’s recent predecessors lack. It remains to be seen whether they can pull this off without it feeling like there’s a chain around your neck dragging you forward.

The dialog and voice acting in these games has always been terrible, but it actually seems serviceable in Secret Rings, going by the video clips on IGN. I am bothered by the genie’s voice that’s telling Sonic how to control certain actions by doing certain things with the controller. Such things shouldn’t really be voiced, even if you need text on the screen. It kind of breaks that wall when a character in-game is telling another character what button to press and you hear it being said, I can’t really explain why.

Branching paths in the levels are being reported by Sega and in hands-on time at IGN. The camera is also reportedly “nearly perfect”.

Any Sonic game now has to be approached with a healthy dose of skepticism, and it’s really a shame considering the roots the franchise has. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as it nears release, will anyone else? Perhaps more interestingly, is anyone going to automatically rule this game out just on the basis of the crap Sega’s been giving us in the series of late?