I had an opportunity to talk to Sonic 4 brand manager Ken Balough while on the E3 showfloor, discussing the history of the game, the intentions of Sega, and the reaction from fans. On that last point, I was curious as to how the infamous Sonic 4 leaks and the fan fury that followed affected Sega, and what influence that has had on the game's development.
"It's unfortunate that such an early build of Sonic 4 was made more public than we liked," explains Balough. "We do want fan feedback and part of the extended development is to incorporate a lot of the feedback we've gotten. We do want to hear it a lot, but we want to hear the right feedback. A lot of fans saw a build that was so early on that we've moved well beyond it. It's sort of like giving feedback on a concept car instead of the actual prototype, so while some of the criticism was relevant, a lot of it wasn't anymore, which is unfortunate because we want to hear what fans have to say."
And what of the infamous "mine cart" controversy which turned off many fans? How did Sega deal with the footage of Sonic flailing around in a bad tilt-controlled cart?: "Yeah it's a shame such an early concept was viewed upon when the reality is that the game we have today is very different from that. My job as brand manager is to communicate with the consumer, letting them know how we react to this feedback. We took it very seriously that our build had been stolen and took measures with first party to ensure that it doesn't happen again, but more than anything we want to lay to rest fan concerns that the game isn't polished or doesn't have what it needs and I think a big part of that message was extending the development and making sure that fans feel like they've been heard because they have been."
During my time with Sonic 4, I did ask an unknown Sega rep if part of the development extension was based on dealing with the mine cart. He simply smiled and nodded. Rest assured, Sega knows you hated that bloody cart.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
12:00 PM on 06.21.2010 | 
I really hope this game is good so it will shut everybody up from the sonic cycle crap....but then again....it wont
...lol cocks.
Well, now I am! Thanks for putting our minds to rest with this, Jim. At this point, though, I'm still looking forward to Colors a little more, though.
This all reads like, "...well, crap, they found the near final build of the game we were going to release in the Summer... uh... say it was a pre-alpha and that the REAL game is still getting tweaked."
PR-ingles: once they pop, they just won't stop.
Nothing against mine carts, but keep them out of Sonic games. They don't serve a function to a character that can run faster than the cart.
Not to say that Sega doesn't play the PR game, but they're making the damn game for these people, they should take their words at some value.
There's not much doubt that the game had issues, even if other parts of it looked fine. I do hope they can fix those up and have this singing by Winter. It'll only help the other episodes be much better off.
Haters gonna hate.
Its not a haters gonna hate thing, these guys either clearly don't know what people liked about Sonic or they clearly do know but don't care because millions of kiddies buy their awful games anyway.
Dude, what are you smoking? I've seen plenty of videos of Sonic 4 and played Sonic Rush a whole lot, and this is nothing like Sonic Rush. The level design is completely reminiscent of the Genesis games and there isn't even a boost button.