I can't say I really enjoy 2.0 thanks to the lack of OpenGL. Software mode just ends up raping my computer really hard, and any level that's not THZ or GFZ ends up running at half FPS the entire time and it makes the game totally unplayable. :<
Speaking of levels that aren't GFZ or TFZ...what the hell happened? The difference in styles between THZ and DSZ is so abnormally large, you could swear someone degraded SRB2 down into some pompous SRB2 mod made by SomeOldbie34234 that automatically gets straight 10s simply because the person is well liked in the community. Oh and it's more detailed then most current generation platformer games these days.
There are so many things I could nitpick with the new levels in SRB2. Seriously. It's like it jumped from simple, short fun to something you'd pick out of any random stupid FPS in this god forsaken modern world. You know, speaking of which, I love how much Castle Eggman emulates that. What with it being dark and gritty and I had to turn up the frikken brightness on my monitor to see crap. It really reminded me how most modern FPSes use like, 10 colors at the most, white, black, and four shades of brown and grey each. And it reminded me why I really hate that.
And then the complexity! Sure, it's large, detailed, pretty, and will likely keep you entertained for hours. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. At least, not if you were, say, posting a level for the level contest maybe. For what's supposed to be a simple Sonic adventure, that's kinda absurd. I think a good goal is for a level to be able to be completed in about 2-3 minutes starting from the first stage, and very slightly incrementing every stage thereafter. You're not supposed to be able to complete one level in under a minute one stage, then the next stage taking 10+ minutes just to get to the retarded end. And don't give me that stupid crap about me not being good enough. I cleared most areas in a level with Sonic at decent speed without tirelessly trying them over again. I looked around and explored a bit, but even going at a decent pace I still found myself to be earning a time of over 8 minutes in CEZ1. 13 minutes in CEZ2. Think people, the old Sonic games had a time limit of 10 minutes to clear each stage. You should not be making the stages so hilariously long and difficult to trek through if you're intending on emulating some of that old school style.
And that was just CEZ! I was afraid of what Arid Canyon and every other level afterward would be like! I could swear the level designers were TRYING to make me damn sick and tired of looking at the same retarded textures over and over and over again for a full blown half an hour. You know what levels were good? Mystic Realm's. That's right, you heard me, Mystic Realm's levels are better then this. Sure, they're not as big or detailed but they were short, fun and not tiring. I remember when I could clear S3&K in less then a half an hour, I got so good at it. It was because it was short, and fun. Maybe not long lasting, but the fact that I kept coming back to it meant that it didn't matter; regardless of length S3&K is still going to last longer then SRB2 because it's not tiring!
I had to stop at ACZ because the lag was starting to piss me off but that's a story more or less related to my computer. Though admittedly, I wouldn't have to deal with that if OpenGL was support, but haha, like that will ever happen...while we're at it, let's make a Mario game out of the source engine. Then we can say we have a mascot that forsakes the higher end users and a mascot that forsakes the lower end users. But I digress. That's not why I'm ranting. Why I'm ranting is because the single player levels disappoint me to hell and I had really high hopes for them. All the gimmicks and such don't matter at all if the level design sucks. The Sonic Heroes arguement applies in this situation and it's incredibly saddening too considering how SRB2 started.
The match levels are pretty nice however.