EDITORIAL: Do We Really Need 3D Fan Games?

When Sonic Team Junior released the very first 3D edition of Sonic Robo Blast, people were amazed, including myself. Why? Because, in theory, this would begin a revolution in Sonic Fan Games. No one has ever been able to do a Sonic game in any form of “True” 3D (Isometric doesn’t count.) Sure, it sounds exciting, but is it needed?

Well, in my opinion, Sonic Fan Games exploded onto the Internet because fans, just like you and I, wanted to try and capture what made the original 2D Sonic games so special–the speed, the depth, etc. I believe no one has really been able to accomplish this-not even Sonic Robo Blast 1 (though that may change with the release of SRB 1.5–but that’s a long way off), and I think it’s going to be some time before it happens.

Suddenly, BOOM! STJR is working on a 3D Sonic Fan Game using the DOOM engines! Just like that, the near perfection that is Sonic Adventure is now trying to be duplicated. You simply can’t do that with a DOOM engine graphically, though in terms of speed it is not far off. When Clickteam’s Jamagic is released, the dream of a true 3D fan game that can come close to the magic is an inch or two closer, depending on your programming skills. But I doubt if we’ll ever see a Sonic fan make a 3D fan game that can capture the magic.

Why? Because we are just fans. All we have right now is either Multimedia Fusion or DOOM engine programming skills. We don’t have a Dreamcast development kit. We are not the Sonic Team, and we are not Yuji Naka. While we can imagine what they think about Sonic and his future, we don’t know it. We don’t have the magic they have. That’s why we’re fans, and they are the real deal.

So, with all of that, plus SRB2 development in progress, perhaps it is better if most of us game developers stick with the 2D front for a while, and try and perfect that aspect of fan gaming before moving on to the next level.