Sonic Generations demo out today

As part of its celebrations for Sonic the Hedgehog's twentieth birthday today, Sega has released a one-act demo of throwback platformer Sonic Generations for Xbox 360 and PS3.

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Twenty years ago, Sonic the Hedgehog made his first appearance on the Genesis. To celebrate, Sega has released a demo for its upcoming platforming throwback, Sonic Generations. However, it'll only be available for the next twenty days.

Xbox Live Gold subscribers can grab the 652MB demo from the Xbox Live Marketplace now. The demo's also available on the PlayStation Network in Europe, and will presumably also launch in North America today. Sony wouldn't want to miss the little blue fellow's birthday, right? (Update: The demo should be available later today.)

Sonic Generations features both the 'chubby' original Sonic and his modern counterpart, letting you play it as a traditional side-scroller or a fancy modern 3D-o-rama. It's headed to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS in "late 2011."

The demo contains the first act of the Green Hill Zone, which is the section we got to play in our E3 preview. You're only able to play as the old Sonic, though. According to Sega, the demo will only be available for 20 days, so make like a hedgehog and hurry!

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  • reply
    June 23, 2011 6:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Sonic Generations demo out today.

    As part of its celebrations for Sonic the Hedgehog's twentieth birthday today, Sega has released a one-act demo of throwback platformer Sonic Generations for Xbox 360 and PS3.

    • reply
      June 23, 2011 6:02 AM

      Demo? What? I thought we didn't have those any more.

      • gmd legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury mega
        reply
        June 23, 2011 6:04 AM

        Sonic first access club

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        June 23, 2011 6:04 AM

        replace demo with beta and proceed accordingly

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      June 23, 2011 6:07 AM

      Holly shit, NICE! Yes I am a Sonic fan, this one looks really good, can not wait to get off work.

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        June 23, 2011 6:34 AM

        Sonic 4: Episode 1 looked good too. Remember that pile of shit?

        I won't get my hopes up.

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          June 23, 2011 7:22 AM

          That never looked good, I was uber skeptical about that from day one. Generations might perform better though.

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      June 23, 2011 7:20 AM

      Haven't been keeping up with this, but how does it differ from Sonic 4? Are they trying to compete with that user-made sonic that kicked the shit out of Sonic 4 in every way?

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        June 23, 2011 7:23 AM

        As they've promised with Generations: it is a return to strictly 2D side-scrolling platforming goodness that made Sonic 1 the game it was. (that said, the game is really 2.5D - you can only move left or right, but there's times the level "turns" a corner or something, but you never interact with objects in or out of the screen axis).

        Also going for more details visuals (Green Hill zone looked amazing, even as this pre-release build gives).

        And yes, likely it is a response to the bitchy Sonic players that have complained about every non-2D Sonic gameplay element from the past.

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      June 23, 2011 7:39 AM

      Just finished it, and it was surprisingly good. The level design was very reminiscent of the older Sonic games with many different paths. But they managed to keep the pace moving forward, opposed to other older Sonic games where if you mess up a jump or something you end up fumbling about to get back on track again.
      My one issue so far is the jumping, which currently has a delay on it. It wasn't a long one, but in a game such as Sonic I think it should be dead on.

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        June 23, 2011 8:15 AM

        They must have forgotten to add 'blast processing' - they need to throw that in there STAT!

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        June 23, 2011 8:15 AM

        Good stuff seem positive, right on, hopefully the jumping will not be that bad.

        I was totally fine with Sonic 4(actually really liked it) even though many hated so I am sure I will adapt to some changes in gameplay if any, as long as they are not crap.

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      June 23, 2011 9:00 AM

      Sweet, I'll have to try this when I get home.

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      June 23, 2011 9:10 AM

      [deleted]

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      June 23, 2011 9:27 AM

      Getting an extra life is just a sound now? :( I don't know about the later Sonic games, but it was treated like a big event. That extra life theme would just stop whatever was music was playing. Although, that might have been a byproduct of the sound chip. . .

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        June 23, 2011 11:52 AM

        Funny how we fondly remember and reminiscence about things that were simply hardware limitations.

        That said, when I gain an extra life I want there to be some goddamn celebration!

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