Its happened, the sequel you've waited 16 years to see, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode I has leaked to the internet two months before it is due to be released on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and WiiWare. The version that leaked is for the Xbox 360, it seems inevitable that this will be all over the internet in a couple of hours. The game totals the small size of 169MB. Now the big question is will Microsoft release the game early or make legit Xbox 360 owners wait another two months to play the game? Achievements from the game: - Clear SPLASH HILL ZONE, ACT 1 - Defeat a boss for the first time. - Acquire a Chaos Emerald. - Defeat 1,000 enemies. - Clear all Acts as Super Sonic. - Defeat the final boss and view the ending. - Upload your recorded scores and clear times for all stages. - Collect all the Rings in 'Special Stage 1' and Clear the stage. - Build up 99 or more extra lives. - Acquire all seven Chaos Emeralds. - Clear SPLASH HILL ZONE ACT 1 in less than a minute. - Clear the E.G.G. STATION ZONE without taking any damage. Update - Sega have removed the video from YouTube.
By the looks of the screenshot, it features Avatar Awards? Cool. One thing I wonder however, will this be 800 or 1200 points? I usually find a lot of Arcade games to be 1200 last year, but few are really worth that price. Yeah, Shadow Complex was, but I don't think 1200 points will be an attractive price for potential new Sonic fans.. And Sega already removed the video btw (LOL)..
I have a feeling it will be 1200 points, 400-800 would be better considering the game only has 4 acts so its really like half a game, hence it been called Sonic 4 Episode 1. Wonder what the avatar awards are, pet hedgehog for your avatar maybe?
As i'm a hardcore fan of the 2D sonic games this really does look pretty awesome to me. Must admit i'm thinking along the same lines as Slaz, lots are arcade games are selling for 1200ms so i'm wondering if Sega will push it and ask for that much? To me 600ms points would be thew sweet spot, considering its going to be a game with multiple episodes and episode 1 only has 4 acts. I think the whole world has seen the game by now, a long before it even leaked too. Wonder why Sega keep trying to remove anything to do with the game, they did the same with Bayonetta even though it was released in Japan 2 months before the US and Europe.
Yeah, of course they will charge as much as possible, Sega sees that everyone is getting hyped for this game so they are gonna charge out the ass for the game. Removing leaks of an arcade game is damn stupid, don't really see the point as quite a few leaks have been out but they keep removing.
I also think that SEGA will try and charge the 1200 MS points for the game. I think that no more than 800 would be fair seeing as it will have multiple acts as MasterChief stated. The only arcade games I can think of that were actually worth the 1200 MS points were: Battlefield 1943, Trials HD, and Shadow Complex.
I came to the conclusion that if they'd charge 1200ms for this episode, I'd refuse to buy it until the price will drop down (or deal of the week, etc). Look, I don't use credit cards, so my points come from those 2100ms 'prepaid' cards bought retail or emailed from a webshop. I can't just say 'oh well this game rocks let's use credit card again' as I only buy a points card if there's a particular good game to use it for. This means if a game is 1200 points, I must always buy a new card for it, if it were 800, I'd use the leftover points from after my previous download. There's also SEGA comparing this game's episodic releases with the fact that they did this before by making Sonic & Knuckles a direct sequel to Sonic 3. But in my eyes, there clearly is a difference. Back then, the creators had way too much ideas for new acts and stories, that they had to 'split' those ideas into two seperate games. This time however, it looks more like planned marketing to me. Proof is this episode being 4 acts.. Not that I have anything againsts that, but they shouldn't charge too much for their fans. After all, SEGA has some reputation to retrieve if it comes to Sonic games. They'd better take it slowly for a while..