Sonic Wild Fire

By Tom Bramwell Published 25 May, 2006

Hogging the remote.

"Oh good," a rather pungent gentleman a couple of seats over remarked as Sonic sprinted across the screen behind Reggie. "Another rubbish Sonic Adventure game."

Given what Sonic Heroes and particularly Shadow the Hedgehog were like, you can see where he's coming from (if not you could always smell where he was coming from). Even Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - one of the Cube's best selling launch titles - was basically, given a bit of revisionist hindsight, a bit cack.

I'm not here to tell you Sonic Wild Fire's brilliant, like - but it's worth making it clear that it's not a Sonic Adventure title.

We've been here before, obviously. I remember listening to people droning on at E3 a few years ago about how Heroes wasn't an Adventure game either. But in this case it really is just a superficial comparison: Sonic Wild Fire's more of a tunnel racing game, where the idea's to maintain speed, steer with the Wii remote and jump over obstacles, occasionally diverging into a bit of ledge-sidling to avoid some spikes.

Held a bit like a steering wheel, the Wii remote handles Sonic's movement left and right along his pre-ordained path through, for some reason, a SEGA-made vision of Arabian Nights. Pressing the "2" button has Sonic jump, which is handy because, what with all the collapsing pillars and bridges and spikes and rubble flying around, Sonic Wild Fire's like pyramid tours by Rube Goldberg.

You can tap the button to do a simple hop to evade some falling horror, and as you go you collect fiery pick-ups along with the requisite rings, and said pick-ups contribute to a sort of boost bar, which gives you a burst of speed at the flick of the remote whenever you need it - handy if something's about to fall on top of you and you haven't got any rings to hand to stop it killing you outright.

Along with the hop and the boost, Sonic can also jump a bit higher by holding the 2 button to charge a bigger jump - useful, presumably, for reaching aerial pick-ups and finding alternate routes, although that wasn't given much elaboration during our demo session. We were shown, though, how Sonic can do his age-old trick of leaping into the air and doing a dash attack on nearby enemies by flicking the controller in their direction - and with a restricted range of movement the blue bastard doesn't just fly off into an abyss all the time either. Welcome.

'Sonic Wild Fire' Screenshot 1

Don't point that thing at me.

As mentioned, this isn't all Sonic gets up to as he also winds up sidling along ledges. This appears to work by tilting the controller too, and sees him timing his shuffles to evade jutting spike-traps and the like. At no point during our demo though did SEGA's spiky hero start roaming around freely.

Which, in a slightly perverse way given the intro, is actually a bit of a shame because Wild Fire's easily one of the prettiest Wii games we've seen. Like Monkey Ball, it's second only to Nintendo's home-made stuff in terms of visual detail, with huge draw distances, no hint of slowdown and a heavy, sandy sort of atmospheric complexion that looked far nicer than any of his recent Adventure engines and, frankly, a bit of an improvement on the tech-demo sterility of his PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 outing - of which more another time.

The Arabian Nights thing is quite deliberate, says SEGA - Sonic's trying to find the last few pages for some hopefully not-Tails-related reason - and along with the one-player mode we're also told to expect various mini-games to be played with friends - naturally taking advantage of the various handy things the Wii remote can do and sense.

The only slightly frustrating thing about the whole affair was the lack of screenshots to illustrate all this with. For some reason, all we have is this handsome picture of Sonic grasping the Wii remote. Presumably proper shots will follow in due course. In the meantime, take our word for it: Sonic Wild Fire looks nice, and comes across pretty naturally as you settle into scooting through it. How it'll do over a whole game is something we won't know for a while, but with the game due out next year, it's safe to bet SEGA's got a few more tricks up its spiky sleeve. We'll let you know how things progress.

Sonic Wild Fire (working title) is due out exclusively on Nintendo Wii in 2007.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Halo.Jones #1 6 years ago

    It's sonic and it's aimed at kids and you know it's going to be a POS!

  • smelly #2 6 years ago

    Where in the preview does it say it's aimed at kids?

  • Carrybagma #3 6 years ago

    Haven't played any Sonic since someone showed me Sonic summitoranother on his DC.

  • Chtulie #4 6 years ago

    Wii games that only use the remote without the nunchuk (other then Mario Galaxies)seem to be a lot more solid affairs then the games with nunchuk stuff.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #5 6 years ago

    I challenge anyone (including Halo Jones...) to watch any of the various videos pottered about the net for this title and restate their opinions. Words can only say so much but, in motion, this title looks quite impressive

    For those of you who played the first Sonic Adventure, the gameplay looks very similar to the first level but with a realtime "killer whale chase"-style feel. Seeing as that's the only level of SA I play when I dig out the DC, that says something.
    Edited by 1 at 25/05/06 @ 12:20

  • The-Bodybuilder #6 6 years ago

    I must say, I've been thoroughly underwhelmed by many of the wii previews.
    Prior to most of them, I was filled with hype.
    But 90% of the wii games so far seem so.....shallow.
    Edited by 1 at 25/05/06 @ 12:22

  • Wrestlevania #7 6 years ago

    It's with creeping dread that I have to admit: you might be right, Bodybuilder...

  • gizmo #8 6 years ago

    They are all sounding a little naff. The control scheme still sounds ill conceived to me each time I read about it. Maybe that will change when I get to try it out for real.

  • Psi #9 6 years ago

    the article doesn't describe much debth to the game, can someone link to these vids of the game in action?

  • Azazel #10 6 years ago

    I note that the register has just posted an article claiming the Wii is to be priced at $250 and ¥25,000 in japan...

  • Ignatius_Cheese #11 6 years ago

    @ Psi - Here's a link to some videos: IGN vids...

    Not too sure how long this link will stay visible but try and have a quick peek :o)

  • spazmo #12 6 years ago

    "Wild Fire's easily one of the prettiest Wii games we've seen. Like Monkey Ball, it's second only to Nintendo's home-made stuff in terms of visual detail, with huge draw distances, no hint of slowdown and a heavy, sandy sort of atmospheric complexion that looked far nicer than any of his recent Adventure engines and, frankly, a bit of an improvement on the tech-demo sterility of his PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 outing"

    WooHoo! Wii is better than PS3 and 360! Confirmed!

  • ecureuil #13 6 years ago

    This game looks pretty crap. :/ A totally gimmicky use of the controller - turning it left and right to turn Sonic? Sonic is not a fucking car, despite his recent corridor running affairs. A great use of the Wii controller would have been to turn it on it's side, make a 2D Sonic, and have classic Sonic controls with the D-pad and the 1 and 2 buttons.

  • Zero Beat #14 6 years ago

    But.. but it doesn't have DA HAVOK FIZZICKS BRICKS MAN!

  • kalel #15 6 years ago

    Isn't the Arabian Nights all about...you know..doing it?

    Also such a missed opportunutity to do Arabian NIghts into Dreams...

  • Rombote #16 6 years ago

    @ ecureuil: good grief.

  • Ceatlan #17 6 years ago

    I must admit this preview didn't really make me want the game, and having watched those vids on IGN I feel even less positively inclined towards it.

  • TR421 #18 6 years ago

    It's too on rails for my liking, and the control system doesn't seem suitable for a game that is on rails.
    I think using the remote as a pointer and dragging Sonic around the screen, ala Sonic Rush's special stages, would have been better.
    The special stages in Sonic Rush would have been impossible to complete without direct touch screen control, but it gives you immediacy of control like a pointer would.

  • biru #19 6 years ago

    "At no point during our demo though did SEGA's spiky hero start roaming around freely."

    Good! Because I have never played a Sonic game to go 'free roaming'. That's what Mario (and countless other 3D platformers) are for. Sonic games have an altogether different appeal, and given that it was always the most linear parts of the Sonic Adventure titles that I enjoyed most, this game is looking extremely promising to me.

    If there's one thing Sonic Adventure 2 did really well it was the grinding in that jungle level - I can imagine this working really well with the Wiimote, as you could use it to balance Sonic as he's speeding down the rails. Make it happen, Sega!
    Edited by 1 at 25/05/06 @ 15:06

  • JonFE #20 6 years ago

    "At no point during our demo though did SEGA's spiky hero start roaming around freely."

    Could you elaborate on this, please? Are you saying that Sonic's movement in Wild Fire feels like being "on-rails", in the way that you don't have any choice on where to go, like, say, Panzer Dragoon Orta?
    Edited by 1 at 25/05/06 @ 15:22

  • Gunstars #21 6 years ago

    I wish Sega would remember that Sonic is a platform game.
    I fucking hate this kind of shit, they might as well just give him a hover board again. All I want is Sonic 3 & Knuckles in 3D, that's it. Is it really to much to ask?

    No more Sonic R! Please.

  • stephen #22 6 years ago

    they should have called it wiild fire...

    ya see what i did there?11!!!

  • NegativeZero #23 6 years ago

    Whenever Sonic comes up in discussion I get the feeling that I was the only person alive who really liked the original Sonic Adventure. Shame that everything since then seemed to have forgotten what it's supposed to be doing.

  • 3william56 #24 6 years ago

    The big question is whether the game any more fun using the wiimote, compared with a thumbstick or steering wheel for the same game, or it's another DS Ridge Racer type forced use of a novel control method?

    But, god forgive me, it looks again like it would be more suited to tilt control than waving / movement. So far, few (if any) wiimote games seem to use the additional functionality of the wiimote over Sony's tilter. If ninty don't want to get spoilered by the DS3, they really need to get out some things that the Sony watered down effort can't do.

  • Dirtie #25 6 years ago

    Stop the Tails hating.

  • The-Bodybuilder #26 6 years ago

    >"I was the only person alive who really liked the original Sonic Adventure"

    The SA games were great. They were the only good sonic games left.
    I especially loved the first (other than the knuckle levels), firs time playing sonic on the dreamcast.

    Nights into dreams would be great on the wii, but I have to say I'm not more careful about the wii than ever before.