Forum > Gaming Discussion > Official Project Needlemouse Thread -- Download Only XBL/PSN? Not Coming to Wii?
Official Project Needlemouse Thread -- Download Only XBL/PSN? Not Coming to Wii?
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Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:25:38
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For those that may not know, "the name is a reference to the original codename of Sonic the Hedgehog, 'Mr. Needlemouse.'" -- Project Needlemouse Wikipedia

Project Needlemouse Teaser Trailer

All-new 2D Sonic rolling out in 2010
Sega teases "built from the ground up" HD 2D adventure--code-named Project Needlemouse--that aims to return to original game's speed-oriented play; teaser trailer inside.

Since he debuted nearly two decades ago, Sonic the Hedgehog has been Sega's mainstay mascot. Today, the Japanese publisher revealed that it is working on an all-new reinvention of the titular spiny spinner by taking him back to his two-dimensional roots.

The new game, code-named Project Needlemouse, will debut sometime next year on as-yet-unidentified consoles. So far, the only glimpse of the game has come via a mysterious teaser trailer, which only shows the outline of the new look of the hero at the end.

"Speed returns in an all new 2D adventure built from the ground up" declares the teaser trailer, before showing a blue blur zipping across the screen scooping up golden rings. Accompanying it is a litany of sound effects and visual cues from the first Sonic the Hedgehog, who launched worldwide in the summer of 1991 on the Sega Genesis system.

Since then, the character has helped launch all of Sega's systems until its last, the Dreamcast, went on sale 10 years ago. In the years since that console's implosion, Sonic has appeared on all its former rivals' consoles in dozens of games and has undergone several high-profile reboots. The most recent games to feature him were last fall's Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, and Sonic Unleashed, which was better reviewed on the Wii than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.     

Speaking with GameSpot, Sega associate brand manager Ken Balough confirmed that Project Needlemouse will feature HD graphics. He also said the game's concept was a response to "old-school Sonic fans" who "have long asked to see Sonic return to a more 2D style of gameplay."

Gamespot Project Needlemouse/Sonic the Hedgehog Q&A
GS: Why did Sega decide to bring Sonic back to 2D? Did the success of Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure play a part?   

KB: Old-school Sonic fans have long asked to see Sonic return to a more 2D style of gameplay. Many liked the daytime stages in Unleashed but wanted to see a game that plays purely similar to the early games of the Genesis. Project Needlemouse is that critical first step that brings Sonic back to his 2D roots.   

GS: What can you tell us about the game?   

KB: I can tell you it’s a brand new 2D adventure coming out in 2010, it’s in HD, and to definitely stay tuned.   

GS: With HD makeovers of classic games being popular right now, can we expect the game to use chunky old-school sprites or hi-res HD sprites?   

KB: You can definitely expect HD graphics.

New Video: Sega France Interview: Confirmed XBL/PSN download-only? Not Coming to Wii?
With so little information coming out about Project Needlemouse since the first trailer was released in September, anything new on the next Sonic, in theory, would be most welcome.  In this case, that may not be so, because if the hints dropped in the video below are any indication, a notable number of fans could be shut out of playing the game.   

That’s because the interview below with Sega France’s Franck Sebastien, conducted by DigitalGames.fr and translated by Benjamin Daniel, may indicate Project Needlemouse will be a download-only experience. When taking about the game, Sebastien makes a clear reference in this translated statement:

But with Project Needlemouse, I think that Sega wanted to settle [sic] demands, because there’s a lot a nostalgic gamers out there, and on XBOX Live or PSN…(pause)…you have a lot of hardcore gamers.  And the old versions of Sonic games are selling very well on these platforms, so there’s a real market for these kinds of products. [...] The idea really is to finally please all these hardcore gamers, because we love them at Sega.

Sebastien made that remark when juxtposing press reception of Sonic Unleashed to the game’s target audience–children, according to him.  He then transitioned into some Needlemouse discussion, and that’s where you hear the juxtaposition with XBOX Live and PSN–and no talk about the Nintendo Wii.

The Wii shutout may have been a given, as the Needlemouse trailer touted the game as HD.  The Wii is not an HD console.  What wasn’t clear to this point was whether Needlemouse would be released on disc or as a download.  It now looks very possible the latter will be the case.

You can watch the interview, translated and in context, below. Decide for yourself what it means, and then talk about in our comments section.


Edited: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:07:48

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Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:34:32
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I was bored, so I made this thread.

It would suck if Sega doesn't release this game on Wii. Sure, Project Needlemouse is made for HD, but it shouldn't be too difficult to downgrade the resolution to 480p. I guess time will tell. Perhaps it'll be one of the first games announced for Wii HD! Grinning


Edited: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:42:59

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Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:24:43
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I always expected the game to be a XBL download HD graphics game so no suprise here.

I dont really care, it would be nice to play it but with no wireless or Hard drive on my 360 its useless to me anyway.

I think when they say HD graphics they dont just mean the resolution, they mean all the detail and effects etc too.

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Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:55:52
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gamingeek said:

I always expected the game to be a XBL download HD graphics game so no suprise here.

I dont really care, it would be nice to play it but with no wireless or Hard drive on my 360 its useless to me anyway.

I think when they say HD graphics they dont just mean the resolution, they mean all the detail and effects etc too.

Have you ever played a PC game? Detail, effects, and resolution can all be adjusted or turned on/off in order to fit the needs of the hardware. I seriously doubt a 2D, downloadable Sonic game will push the HD consoles so hard that the game couldn't possibly run on Wii. It's not like they're trying to make Bioshock run on Wii.

Personally, Sega would be stupid if they don't release it on Wii. That's a HUGE part of their Sonic market that they've been milking for years now. They should go all out and release it on retail disk so that every Wii owner could easily buy it, not just the internet savvy.

Of course, this is assuming that it'll actually be a good game, which I doubt.

Edited: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:01:07

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Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:46:45
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I direct you here where one of the developers of the COD MW Wii port talks about the transition process.

Originally Posted by Lone_Prodigy:
Ignorant me thinks that all you need for a Wii port is essentially like dialing down the graphics options in the PC version. Shadows? Off. AA? Less/off. Number of corpses? Low. Textures? Low.

This is why I'm not a dev.


We were able to simply downsample assets in some cases, but new asset pipeline techniques were required in a lot of situations. Purely downsampling only gets you so far. You have to realize that the data for each level (this includes textures, animations, map geometry, audio, scripting, characters, props, particle fx, UI, etc.) had to be shrunk from around 80mb on the xbox 360 to around 25mb on the wii. If all we did was simply downsample everything to the point where it fit in memory, the game would look more like star fox on the snes than call of duty 4. In some cases, we had to come up with programmatic ways to get similar graphical fidelity with less texture memory. In other cases, we were able to stream higher-res assets off of the disc, but then you run into the problem of how the game knows what to stream in, and when to stream it such that you don't get texture pops, audio stutters, and things like that. So each level had to be retrofitted with triggers to tell the game what to stream in, and partitioned into chunks of coherent stream data. Then there had to be a balancing act to keep from exceeding the wii optical drive bandwidth. We had this same problem with all asset types, not just textures. Memory management tasks like this took up a huge amount of time, and had to be done individually for each SP and MP level.

Other than memory restrictions, CPU time was the other main bottleneck. Even running the absolute lowest quality assets, a huge amount of CPU time is tied up in level scripting, AI logic, line-of-sight traces, and everything else central to a first person shooter. When everything first fit in memory, the game ran at about 2 frames per second, and hundreds of engine optimizations had to go in to bring that up to 30. Cod4 runs with 32 AI at times (safehouse, heat, and the bog are the worst cases), and each one is calculating animation matrices, doing geometry traces, and running thousands of lines of script - every single frame. We weren't able to reduce the number of AI without significantly changing the gameplay, and so other elements of the engine had to be re-engineered to maintain an acceptable framerate. Building off of WAW for the wii gave us a head start, but a lot more engineering and optimization had to go into this project to raise the quality above what it was last year.

I know it's easy to look at some screenshots of the game and dismiss it as a phoned-in port, but try to realize the sacrifices that had to be made to maintain the original cod4 content and gameplay - it's a lot more complicated than just turning the "good graphics" knob all the way down. There is a reason you don't see more ports of 360/ps3 games to the wii that don't try to substantially change the game in some manner.

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Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:17:08
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GG, that's just a bunch of smoke that the "man" wants us Wii owners to believe. It's all a scam to keep Wii owners away from teh good third-party software! Don't fall for the lies, GG! Don't . . . fall . . . for . . . it!!!!

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Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:48:43
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Well he's talking about a port.

Whereas we are talking about a new game. If they started making a game with the knowledge that it was going to be multiplatform from the start then you wouldn't have the same problems I'm guessing.

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Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:01:24
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I come in here expecting something new... grrrrr.
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Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:27:31
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Dvader said:
I come in here expecting something new... grrrrr.

There is new . . . the whole rumor about it being downloadable-only, and no Wii version.

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Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:45:07

Ravenprose said:

Dvader said:
I come in here expecting something new... grrrrr.

There is new . . . the whole rumor about it being downloadable-only, and no Wii version.

I thought we knew about no Wii version. And I though downloadable only was expected. Maybe Sega sends me messages directly to my brain, that is how I know these things. Nyaa

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Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:04:13

Dvader said:

Ravenprose said:

Dvader said:
I come in here expecting something new... grrrrr.

There is new . . . the whole rumor about it being downloadable-only, and no Wii version.

I thought we knew about no Wii version. And I though downloadable only was expected. Maybe Sega sends me messages directly to my brain, that is how I know these things. Nyaa

It was suspected, but that guy's interview appears to confirm it;  something that Sega hasn't stated officially yet.

Edited: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:04:35

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Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:06:30
"The Rightful King Shall Return?: Sega has been teasing a game codenamed Project Needlemouse, which may or may not be a new 2D Sonic. Tune in next issue." - OXM
Edited: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:07:23

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