Sonic 2 HD - Discontinued

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Autosaver

Autosaver

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Last month we proudly showed off a demo of what we've accomplished with S2HD.
Needless to say, more work has been done on the game; unfortunately, the odds of this work every seeing the light of day is slim to none. We gave the project's Lead Programmer, LOst, a week to provide us with a DRM free build of S2HD.
We've heard as much from him as you have, so it's safe to assume that's not going to happen. Given his complete lack of communication and cooperation, it falls upon to LOst to assume full responsibility for his actions as, up until the demo was released, the project's leadership was unaware of both the DRM and the now infamous DirectInput bug. This was the last straw for us. He had ignored direct requests for the past two years, effectively holding the project ransom by refusing additional help or review on his private engine. If he didn't think a piece of artwork matched his vision for the game, it was not included, or worse, was replaced by assets of his own creation. The same thing happened with the excellent multi-format sound engine our Tools Programmer Saxman created. Ultimately, LOst is no longer a part of the project.

That's the good news. The bad news for the project far outweighs it unfortunately. We cannot replace our lead programmer as LOst kept the source code for himself, making it impossible to the coded source material to be updated or used as a base for newer builds.
Additionally, two key staff members, scanline99 and Cerulean Nights (both of whom were chiefly responsible for the many animations, spritework, and overall polish seen in the demo) have resigned from the project to concentrate on independent works and careers. While we wish them the best in their endeavours, what this means to the project is that they will no longer be producing any artwork for it. Without them we are not able to guarantee the same level of quality seen in the alpha. At the moment, with ongoing careers and kids to look after, both myself and Canned Karma don't anticipate that we'll have a great deal of time to devote to S2HD either, which means we're forced to announce that

Sonic 2 HD is officially discontinued.

Certainly the DirectInput bug and the blogosphere fallout over it didn't help matters, but by the time that had taken place we had already made the decision to discontinue the project almost two months ago, well ahead of the demo's release. Internal conflicts between the project leadership and its main programmer which reached critical mass, and the only thing holding it together was the collective determination to put our frustrations aside and get a playable build into the hands of everyone who waited years for it.

Hopefully, another group in the Sonic community will pick up the torch and go forward with the vision we had over a year ago -- not just creating a Sonic 2 remake, but creating entirely original content.

Thanks to everyone who supported the project, especially to the passionate classic Sonic fanbase.
The appreciation thousands of fans expressed to S2HD as a game made "by fans for fans", represents a landmark where SEGA has to look at for a profitable use of the -highly demanded and beloved Classic franchise.

-Vincent

Team S2HD
Project Leader
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Goodbye, Sonic2HD.
 
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An unpolished Emerald Hill Zone and hilariously stupid DRM packaged with what can't even be defined as a fangame. Although it does look nice and the music isn't too bad either, more than two years of development and this is all they can show for it?

lols2hd

EDIT: oh my god you guys will love this
 
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I had quite a bit of fun with this. Honestly, the team behind this went up and beyond what I expected, even if it did take an unforseably long time to finish a one zone demo. This is god damn gorgeous. Hopefully now that the development is private, instead of some kind of community project, along with universal sprites such as all of Sonic's animations and so on things will move a little faster.

I read a few complaints that the physics felt off, but personally I can't notice it. Maybe I just need to play the original Sonic 2 again then. The DRM in place to prevent people from modding the game is also quite stupid, why would you try to stop people from modding a game that is already based off of another?

Also, HD drill car made my day.
 
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Honestly I really like what I'm seeing here with this. Even though it's a one zone demo, this looks like it's gonna be a really fun fan remix when it's done. My only complaint is the godawfully stupid DRM they managed to shoehorn into this...
 
I downloaded this yesterday and it turns out I couldn't even play it. Although it does look neat and all I do think that they could have added a lot more especially with all the time they have had.
 
Well, all I can say is that it's Sonic 2 - in HD.

Seriously though, the game does look absolutely gorgeous, and so far has a nice soundtrack. It's kind of disappointing that we've waited two whole years to play a one level demo though.

The title screen looks awesome, too. I just can't stop looking at it. @_@
 
As soon as I seen the animation of Sonic and Tails popping out on the title screen, I knew this would have amazing graphics.

I can't wait for Aquatic Ruin or Metropolis.
 
I can't really say more than what's already been said here, especially given that I'm afraid to try to get this game running on my computer. It has good graphics, seems to have the original mechanics, the people developing this are completely insane, blah blah bleh.

I'm pretty sure that Sonic 2 HD is the first of its kind, but I still generally like Sonic fan games with original stories and levels more than remakes. And we've been lucky to get a variety of great and improving original fan games this year, like Sonic: Before the Sequel and Sonic Classic. That doesn't make Sonic 2 HD any less of a labor of love, though.
 
Boy, that DRM and obfuscation was really worthwhile, wasn't it?

Special gem A:
UPGRADE NEEDED
THE ONLINE SERVER COULDN'T VALIDATE YOU[sp] GAMEPLAY. ITS RESULT DIFFERED FROM YOURS.
UPGRADE YOUR SONIC 2 HD GAME TO FIX THE PROBLEM!
Click to expand...

Special gem B:
Polygon Jim said:
This reminds me of a cool message I have from LOst back when Sonic 4 got leaked.

LOst said:
Oh, can you find the shaders for me? (lol, I can really learn/steal from those stuff). Even if they are compiled, they can be disassembled. That's all I really care about. And thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Sonic Retro guest editorial said:

Uh-oh.
Click to expand...

And here is the result of that godawfully stupid DRM they managed to shoehorn into the game. The way the game's code is obfuscated to prevent hacking causes some virus scanners to pick it up as a virus, which is exactly what happened when I downloaded this. (Just to clarify - no this is not a virus.) And I think I saw on that Sonic Retro guest editorial where all this was possibly the work of one person?

Sonic Retro forum post said:
UPGRADE NEEDED
THE ONLINE SERVER COULDN'T VALIDATE YOU GAMEPLAY. ITS RESULT DIFFERED FROM YOURS.
UPGRADE YOUR SONIC 2 HD GAME TO FIX THE PROBLEM!
Click to expand...

what is this I don't even--*shot*
 
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It's such a shame that the game falls victim to so much programming incompetence. Why the absolute hell would you stick anti-reverse-engineering DRM into a fan game that owes its entire existence to the history of the reverse-engineering community? IT'S A FANGAME. Seriously, what's the philosophy behind even trying to "protect" something like that, especially in a condition where the community that it's presence is most known and followed is the Retro community. I mean, like, is that a challenge or something? It's a fangame, the properties featured in the game don't even belong to anyone on the dev team and trying to "digitally protect" something like that is incredibly hypocritical. Somebody'll bypass it, anyway, and then what? The wasted time spent coding an aggravating DRM system will have been for nothing, when that time could have been used for items of more importance.

It really is a shame because the art really doesn't look shabby at all; it looks pretty much exactly what an HD remake of Sonic 2 would look like. The entire thing is bogged down by one idiot, from the sound of things.

I also have to admit that I haven't even been able to play the game, on account of getting the error for both the 32-bit and 64-bit executables that say they can't locate the necessary game-specific .DLL files, despite them being right there in the fucking folder.
 
gamerman14 said:
Man, I've been waiting for this game for ages... now I'm afraid to dowload it. Virus are mean.
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There's no virus in S2HD. The virus alerts happen because the code is obfuscated to prevent people from reverse engineering it. Viruses also do this, but that doesn't mean S2HD is in any way dangerous. It's safe to play.

I played it and enjoyed it, but it wasn't really a big deal. After all it's just an existing game with fancy graphics and music. I was surprised how close it felt to the original in terms of physics, and should it ever be finished, I guess I'd take this over the original when I feel the need to play Sonic 2, but for now I'm not the clientele. And that's fine, this project is obviously for the Sonic fanatics.

And yes, I agree that the DRM thing is stupid, I understand that it's a bummer for people who hoped to reverse engineer this thing, I understand that it's hypocritical considering what this game is and how it was assembled, and I understand that the dev team is pissed off. I would be too if I had dedicated my time to the project. What I don't understand is the huge drama generated by the user base. Let's not carry it over to here.
 
Meh.

I haven't really been following this Project as closely as I would've liked to, regardless, this game really does look visually impressive, from all the work that's been done, (Seeing like, 50 million tweaks of just one simple frame), this really does the game justice.

There are but a few nitpicks I have about this, for example, I really wish they could have at least added more to the background, because what's there just makes the level seem flat to me.
Another thing is that Sonic's facial expression really lack any kind of personality. The Genesis has at least some leeway, given that back in the day, it was limited in what it had to offer, but seeing Sonic's face completely static throughout the entire run kinda irritates me.

I guess that's all I really can say for now, at least, without sounding like a broken record.
I know I'll be using this over the original, and it's really exciting to see Tee is making the music for this as well.
 
Autosaver said:
Go to Retro's Forums.

Press up, down, left, right, hold A and press enter.

Just do it.
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nrQ8

Can't say I didn't see this kinda joke coming.
 
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