A number of people have made the comparison, either in passing or in detail, but I figured I'd take a crack at it too, because nothing on the internet's truly original, anyhow.

Yesterday, after taking a general hiatus from games for whatever reason, I decided to turn on my Xbox 360. After being greeted by the new update, and switching back and forth between HBO and my console until it was done, I downloaded updates to a couple of my Indie Games (CarneyVale Showtime and Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp, if you're curious), and the demos for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Splosion Man.

I booted up Splosion Man excited to see what critics were all praising and what a couple of my friends said was one of the better platformers in years. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was blown away by what Twisted Pixel had created.

And as I blew my way through the levels, I realized that what I was playing was a Sonic Genesis game brought into the 21st Century. The comparison seemed very apt. Apt enough that I decided to blog about it, something I haven't done in... months. I've only got two real categories for the comparison, but they're pretty important.

Anyhow. It starts off with attitude and the presentation.

Ashley Davis already talked about the idle animation (and with reference to Sonic), so I'll leave that be, but with regards to the presentation of the thing.

In Splosion Man, there is no unnecessary setup. You are a man made out of fire (or something), and you blow up scientists because of some reason. You simply know that you're good (or something), they're bad (or something), and you need to get out of there (for some reason).

The first Sonic game had an equally unhelpful introduction. All important aspects of the story were told by how the game was played. You were a blue hedgehog saving woodland creatures. Why? Who the fuck cares? It's a fun game, and that's all that matters.

Many games these days are losing sight of fun, and while I know Revered Anthony bitches and moans about that, I would play Splosion Man over... say, GTAIV anyday. I didn't like GTAIV in general, but it has a story, and isn't fun, so I'll use that.

Splosion Man has no pretensions as to what it is, and neither did the original Sonic. Recent Sonic games have fallen further and further into a hell hole of story driven boring as fuck gameplay. Splosion Man looks to the past and sees what worked, and ignores what didn't.

The most important comparison though, comes from the sense of speed and the importance of level design.

Sonic was fast, and that was what set him apart from Mario back in the day. However, it was the levels that made the game so well loved to this day. Speed is all well and good, but pressing right on the d-pad to win is hardly fun. Splosion Man is faster than Sonic ever was, with exploding barrels rocketing him across the screen at insane speeds. Some of these explosions remind me of the loops in Sonic. There's no real reason for the loops, but they're cool. The exploding barrels do often work into the gameplay, but sometimes they're really just there to look cool.

When you're hurtling through a level in Sonic or in Splosion Man, you look really cool, but there's always the chance that you could get royally fucked by the levels. They are clever, challenging you to actually think about every jump or explosion. If you're not careful, you will die, and you will die often. You sometimes blaze through the levels, unsure of exactly how you pulled off some of the moves you did, but you'll know that it was your own ability that allowed you to string that perfect set of jumps, or turn those scientists into stacks of meats.

However, Splosion Man is not 1990s Sonic. Splosion Man takes the fundamentals of a Sonic-style game and then brings them into the 21st Century, as the title of this post implies.

Pretty much all major changes come from the use of 3D. While faux-3D movements have been used in Sonic and other platformers for a while, Splosion Man makes liberal use of it, with enemies moving in and out of plane and the like. The most important (gameplay wise) is the camera. The camera swings in and out, back and forth, side to side, to get the best view of the action. It will come in close, sweep around to your next objective, pull out and give you a view of an entire room (I pity people on SDTVs, considering the miniature size the character becomes on my 42" HD set). The camera really has a great way of presenting the best view of every single area, and while it sounds like it's intrusive, it never is. It really is a clever system, and I really love the way it's implemented.

In general, Splosion Man is a fantastic game, and as one of the few new games coming out at the $10 price point, it's really one that people should get behind. I love the odd sense of nostalgia it brings, while taking old concepts and bringing them into the new age. My hat is off to Twisted Pixel. If Sega is paying attention (and they're assuredly not), they should seriously consider hiring TP for the next Sonic game.

I'd buy it.


I apologize for all of the puns in this post. None of them were intentional. If you facepalmed while reading them... sorry.

I also apologize for the lack of images. I'm not a very artful person, and can never think of good ones to use.