Games Inbox: Sonic The Hedgehog movie trailer reaction, zombies vs. freakers, and Half-Life 2 hate

So… how about that trailer for the live action Sonic The Hedgehog movie, then?

Well… Jim Carrey looks like he’s actually having fun in it; in fact, he seems to be the only one who is, and he even looks like Robotnik at one point.

That’s honestly the only nice thing I have to say about the trailer, because everything else just makes me ask the eternal question, ‘What were they thinking?!’ The trailer looks like it’s going for at least five different tones but doesn’t land any of them, Sonic looks horrifying, the other human characters look devoid of personality and the whole film just looks ugly, like it was made in 2002.

This is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime level of disaster.
Andrew Middlemas

Hey, has anyone see the trailer for that new horror movie? Weirdly it’s called Sonic The Hedgehog, even though it does have a character that looks anything like Sonic. Instead it’s got this weird cross between Gollum and a blue monkey, with nightmare-inducing teeth, and weirdly, normal human proportions – so that it almost just looks like a guy in a costume.

The odd thing is you could make it into an actual Sonic film if you just took the monster out and replaced it with CGI. Because the voice sounds like Sonic and the bad guy (played by Jim Carrey) looks a bit like Dr Robotnik. Maybe one day they’ll be a special kid-friendly special edition. As it is I’d avoid it, because even just the trailer is nightmare-inducing.
Mailford

OK, I can’t be the only person to have watched the Sonic The Hedgehog trailer and had a grin on their face, no?

Well, despite all the doom and gloom surrounding the film (and with good reason) I couldn’t help but smirk at Jim Carrey’s quips and comebacks and was glad to see him returning to the type of characters that made him famous. I must admit I didn’t think Sonic looked too bad either and his voice seemed to fit his look and style. Fingers crossed it defies expectations.
Animated Jack
PS: I don’t recall anyone in the trailer referring to Carrey’s character as Dr Robotnik or worse, Eggman!

I’m going to be honest here. I’ve never liked Half-Life. I can’t get into it. I think it’s down to me not getting it when the original buzz was strong. I got The Orange Box on Xbox 360 when it came out and I barely touched Half-Life 2. The intro was just too long and it felt like a long corridor that I was just running from point A to point B.

I’m sure at the time it was wonderful but it is really dated, especially if it’s your first go in 2019. The thing is I know if I’d have played it when it came out, I would of loved every second of it. But modern experiences have tainted it and it’s now rather dull and lifeless.

I had this discussion about why I preferred Zelda: Twilight Princess to Ocarina Of Time. Not because I enjoyed Twilight Princess more at the time. But it’s certainly more accessible and closer to modern controls and settings. Ocarina Of Time was more enjoyable in my memory than it is in 2019.
Anthony Daniels

In regards to games being too long and some people not having time to play them, well I’m sorry but the simple answer to that is don’t purchase the game then.

I’m certainly not happy paying a lot of money for a game that has a four or five hour story campaign – yes, I’m looking at you Call Of Duty. With the limited resources at my disposal I have to get value for money and I feel that Red Dead Redemption II, for example, offers that in abundance.
Mr B

I don’t like to criticise something that other people clearly enjoy but the only thing that upsets me about Days Gone’s success is it’s going to mean more bloody zombies for years to come. They were even in Game Of Thrones the other day.

I don’t even have anything against them in particular, or at least I didn’t used to, it’s just seeing the same enemies again and again that gets me down. We know why they’re doing it, especially in an expensive video game that can’t afford to fail, but for me it’s now actively putting me off video games that I would otherwise have been interested in.

The other thing that really annoys me is when they call them something other than zombies. Freaks and freakers, walkers… they’re just so silly. Just call them what they ware! If we lived in a world in which zombies existed but weren’t previously a fictional thing who would call them walkers? That’s so undescriptive, whereas freaker sounds like something a five-year-old would make up.
Sweet Pea

Less than a week after Avengers: Endgame’s Xbox 360 brown filter, Game Of Thrones has decided to go all in on PlayStation 2-era ‘extreme darkness makes everything edgier’ mentality.

I now eagerly await Star Wars: Rise Of The Skywalker bringing back N64 Blur-O-Vision.
TGN Professor

Days Gone is regarded as generic as it borrows a lot from other games and publishers, like The Last Of Us and Ubisoft. That’s a fair comment but I disagree with a few letters that use Days Gone to say the source material is tired and kind of run its course, i.e the Sony model, Naughty Dog, or Ubisoft model. I guess all together they mean a story driven, semi-open world action adventure.

Personally, I’m not tired of them as I don’t think there’s a great many of them and also the one’s I’ve enjoyed have unique elements to them. God Of War had compelling characters and nuanced combat. Horizon Zero Dawn had an inventive world and origin story, Marvel’s Spider-Man really nailed traversal of its game world and just being Spider-Man.

I’m not saying there’s not lots of room for improvement. More nuanced combat and far more interesting side-questing is needed to push these games forward. Witcher 3 is lauded for its side missions and it looks like Cyberpunk 2077 will be have lots of interesting mini-stories within a story. I know Horizon, Spider-Man, etc. aren’t role-playing games but side-questing is a big part of their make-up. A bit more puzzling would be very much welcome for me too.

But like Metroidvanias and Soulsborne games I see these type of games as ones I will always extract enjoyment from.
Simundo Jones

That Sonic trailer is significantly worse than I expected. Kudos, Sega I never would’ve thought it possible to get so much so wrong.
Penfold

The hilarious thing about Sonic The Hedgehog is that the trailers coming out just as the Pikachu movie is about to come out. Nintendo schooling Sega even when it comes to movies!
Xtro

The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Purple Ranger, who asks what is the best PlayStation exclusive ever?

With Days Gone receiving mixed reviews but strong sales we want to know what you think is the best exclusive released on any PlayStation console, from 1 to 4 and including the portables. Anything is eligible as long as it was a PlayStation console exclusive at some point – it doesn’t matter if Sony themselves published it or not.

Why do you like the game so much and do you feel it was important to the success of the host console? Did it make any special use of the console’s unique features and how did it compare to other exclusives of the same period? (We’ll be running similar Hot Topics on Microsoft and Nintendo games in the future.)

E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk