Dragged over from my Live Journal, apparently at least CFz2011 and SoS2011 I actually blogged about. Typos are deliberately retained 😛
Caution, this may contain fanboying
In fact, it will probably.
And so we set off…
Waking up at 4:30AM, just before my alarm went off too oddly guess I was just excited, I almost flew out of bed and started to get ready for my long journey, well. I kinda had a few panicked moments (Couldn’t find my keys, couldn’t find my DS, couldn’t find my DS charger, couldn’t find my wallet) which were all solved by a tired and calm Crim. Somehow he didn’t murder me.
On the other hand, he did wake me up.
But then I buggered out of the house at 5:30AM, ten minutes later than I wanted but oh well. I had a pleasant walk to say the least, Salford was lovely at that time, so quiet and empty, it was indeed a lovely walk to say the least, managed to get the train from Salford Crescent to Manchester Piccadilly so I got the 6:10AM train to London Euston. And Boy it’s a good job I did, but I’ll mention that later, as I can tell you on the way down I drew a picture which will appear even later~
The train down though seemed like it was running so quick. I dunno, maybe it’s ‘cus I was drawing that the journey passed down so quick? Perhaps…
Suddenly London!
Surprised when I got into London, I was expecting, busier. I’m not a fan of large cities so it was a nice surprise, but I was still a very smallbig fish in the ocean, no that was not a typo, London is so. Big. I mean Euston has 18 platforms man! 18! What mad station is this! London Euston it seems.
On my way to The Camden Centre I actually managed to catch another group of fans heading there so I wasn’t totally lost, (Though turns out I could get there by myself anyway, I’m a BIG boy guys!) though when we got there, I spotted a group of people we agreed they were just waiting for the bus…
So we went to the entrance, the round the corner, then round another corner, then suddenly WE were that group of people waiting for the bus. Ah well, in the queue I got to meet Mark and a couple of others whose names elude me, along with a fellow ginger bearded man from Sonic Retro. I dunno, all I know is that we high five’d at some point inside for not being in the 3DS club and having ginger beards.
But then we were inside
Well, after being in a queue for about an hour.
After getting my awesome goodie bag from SEGA (containing an awesome shirt), we were in! Right as Svend and Kevin open the show too. Awesome timing I have to say! Though already the heat was there D:! Man, that complaint is going to constantly resound so I best not say that too much…
Of course, the first thing I did was dive right, VERY right. So right I was magically queuing up to play Sonic Generations, how odd! Didn’t have to queue up long either, 5 or 6 stations dedicated to generations meant that there was short queuing times! Brilliant work SEGA there (:
So that Generations?
Obviously I’m gonna talk about it. Now one of the complaints I’ve heard about is the demo they released on the 23rd having a choppy frame rate, I’ll tell you now, I never had such an issue, either I never noticed, or it was a problem only with the console released demo. As there wasn’t any to me. Maybe I was just forgiving?
Classic Sonic
Classic was fun, the level design was different too. I mean, it was classic style, yeah. But it was indeed a little off. First off, his jump is too low, too heavy? I dunno, it felt sluggish to me, just off. Thankfully the level seems a little built around this, so, hmm? One thing that was completely off? Speed.
Let’s spindash WHOA suddenly the other side of the screen, then magically slowing down on the S-Tube’s ‘cus I’m too fast? Wut? It’s clear the S-Tubes were scripted to limit speed, but unfortunately, the limit seems to lower than the overpowered spindash, now if they just tweaked the physics a little now, I’d be fine with the entire thing.
There was some issue about rolling, but I’ll be honest guys, the spindash was so damn fast I don’t think I even bothered trying to roll…
Modern Sonic
Modern Sonic, I’ll be honest, wasn’t too interested, and wasn’t expecting much. Though I’ll report that there was an odd light glitch with the guy in front, basically there’d be blinding bands of white on the screen, seemingly where light reflected off Sonic. But the glitch I believe wasn’t repeated, so it could have been a system problem? Unsure?
Though I’ll say this, modern’s level design is great. Put it this way. If red rings are in, there will be plenty of places to hide them, no really. In that level there are a few sneaky places that I hadn’t spotted but Mark accidentally found. Nice work Sonic Team there, I like it. It just seemed less boring than previous 3D outings, no offence colours. Sometimes running was dull.
Though the combo style things are odd, without instructions you wouldn’t know what to do. Thankfully the guy in front told us it wasn’t A A A A like we all thought, but just waggling the control stick. Odd choice, but it worked I guess! Managed to get a combo 7 too, but I landed as it came up on screen so I only got “COMB”
Hilarious!
Overall?
I am so excited now. They clearly took some tips from Colours and are trying to make what people loved from that game. Niiiiice c:
I also got S-Ranks on both (And I didn’t boost too much on Modern Sonic anyway!), Classic Sonic dances so adorably, I want it nooooooow guys ;o;
Sonic Team 1 and Losing Money
While I was playing generations the Sonic Team Q&A began, I remember very little, all except for Takashi Iizuka being asked about The Barrel from Carnival Night Zone Act 2, he confirmed it wasn’t him who did it, but then Yuji took the mic off Iizuka and confirmed he was the programmer for that level and apologised for how much it antagonised people x3; But I missed most of the first Q&A as I was out of the speakers range, and the poor translator didn’t have clearest of voices for being on stage, nice try though.
Now just so you know, I didn’t lose money, it was spent, but it’s like losing money! So here’s the swag, including freebies…
I’ll mention the freebies first. The blue Sonic shirt, the show guide, the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic, the stickers (I got for buying the CD) and the wristband were free. The first photo is my new C40 shirt ;D, the two prints either side were by Nigel Dobbyn (and Tracey Yardley on the left), £10. The (Signed later by Jun Senoue!) CD, “The Best of Crush 40; Super Sonic Songs”, £20, and one of the last few o:, the two postcards, one of Eggman and one of Metal Sonic, £6, by the amazing Syaming-Li (Well worth it man ;D), and finally Mike Pollocks book on Voice Acting, may never go into it myself but I’m sure it’ll be a great read…
Oh did I mention?
That Jun Senoue was there? Ah yes, I did! I managed to catch him while he mingled hust to say hi, nice to meet you and shake his hand. I almost fanboy squeed afterwards… I instead I almost did here instead
That’s me! And Jun Senoue! In a photo together! Eeeeeeeeee. He’s a really nice bloke too from what I can tell, really has a good presence among his fans, it was brilliant. (Also loved that he dragged Kevin Eva on stage at the end to sing Live and Learn, but I only saw that video today ;P). But who else DO?
Hell yes. That day was amazing. Meeting (And getting photos with) Jun and Mike, yeah. You betcha I’m still fanboying hard ;P Meeting Jun alone made my day, both of them? Well, I’m still buzzing now!
Course later Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka did signings too…
2024 DO note: There’s meant to a pic of a Sonic drawing I did here that was signed, I don’t believe I’ve lost the physical piece but I don’t know where it is
This was the pic I did on the train, not my best, but still. For today. I got in order, Yuji Naka, Jun Senoue, Mike Pollock and Takashi Iizuka to sign it. Now, most people had merch, or dreamcasts. I went for my own art as it’s sentimental. Put it this way, still deciding how to keep it safe =P Wish I could’ve had a better picture but still <3!
Sonic Team 2!
This time I heard more of it, I was in the speaker range this time. Hearing that Jun loved all of his music kinda made me squee a little. But Iizuka apoligising for Big’s gameplay, and Naka apoliging for the problem platforms in Chemical Plant Zone were nice ;P Also Yuji’s reaction to the 20 year old concept art, and saying even he hadn’t seen it in 20 years kinda was sweet in a way. Not much else to say here really, bar I don’t think my question got asked D8 Have to see if I can email Jun, I am quite curious really…
But that’s not all!
To be fair, what also made this day was finally meeting some people I only knew names to, “Speedknux (or George =P)”, “Oliver”, “Char”, “Nemain”, “T-Bird”, “Tallguy”, “JJ4Ever”. It was great finally meeting you guys!
Gettign a free stick from the best show ever, and then later just chatting to Char was great. You guys are awesome and I’m glad Char kept tweeting at me to say hello as I had no idea where you were! In fact, if it wasn’t for Char, I’d probably not have seen and got to chat to Nemain too! More praise for Char! Nemain, you’re awesome too, (BRING NACK! >:C!). Tallguy! You were tall…ish. Not as much as me, though thanks for saying you’ll keep me posted on any smaller meets X3. T-Bird man, your hat was more amazing than I expected it to be, ‘cus dear god does it suit you and I want it now ): Thanks for the tip-off about queueing early =D And to JJ, sorry I saw you all of what, 5 seconds, all day? :B?
Also props to Mark for sticking with me all day, I’d have been lost and bewildered without you. I really was just out of my pond completely by getting into SoS :V
And they were people I wanted to meet! Jez, Molfie, you two are cool, nice meeting you. Jenny, you too, in our brief chat! The woman who queued with me while waiting for Yuji and Takashi, you were a brilliant gal to chat to while waiting.
Though Sam, you get massive thank you for offering to put me up, despite only knowing me for all of 20minutes and on the basis that I’m Crim’s boyfriend. Again, I’m still flabbergasted you did so and I’m so thankful even if I didn’t take the offer up (:
And a big thank you to AAUK, Kevin Eva and Dreadknux AKA Svend whatever his unspellable surname was. It was an awesome day. I managed to say this to Kev, but not Svend, sorry!
Did I get lazy here. Maybe. The thing about writing about people you’re friends with, is that it’s gonna be short. It’s hard to do so without being creepy and over detailed. It’s like “AT 12:20 I SAID HELLO TO CHAR, IT WAS NICE!”, instead all I can say is you guys were awesome, and meeting you really made my day so much better =D Hope I can see you again at some point!
Finally, at 6:30PM I finally left, I was hot. Sweaty. Sticky. And perhaps smelly? I dunno, I stuck on a lot of Lynx multiple times that day. And most of all, just wanted to get back to the bed, and the guy I loved really. It was an amazing day.
A++, would do again =D I had a fantastic day
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