Sonic 4: Episode II Now Available for Tegra 3
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 16, 2012 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Android
- Mobile
- tegra zone
- Tegra 3
- Tablets
- NVIDIA
Earlier this year at Mobile World Congress, NVIDIA and Sega announced Sonic 4: Episode II would be coming to TegraZone in an optimized version for NVIDIA's Tegra 3 hardware. Today the promise became reality as the $6.99 game is now available via NVIDIA's TegraZone on Tegra 3 devices. The timing alone is pretty special. While the Xbox Live Arcade version of the game debuted yesterday, the iOS version won't come out for another day and the standard Android build will take another month. NVIDIA's ability to pull even small day long exclusives over iOS is still impressive in a world where many game developers put no one ahead of Apple.
The final game seems a lot like what we played at MWC in February. It works on all Tegra 3 devices using either on-screen touch controls or an external gamepad. The gameplay is distinctly Sonic, although I'll admit my fondness for the platformer peaked years ago. The single player game has you controlling Sonic with an AI controlled Tails. Also included is a multiplayer mode that allows for co-operative play over Bluetooth. The game looks good on Tegra 3. We've been running a preview APK on some as of yet unreleased hardware so I won't comment on performance just yet.
NVIDIA promises better visuals in the Tegra 3 version of the game than the standard Android version due out in the coming weeks. While we don't have the standard Android build, NVIDIA sent along some screenshots to show the difference in image quality.
Source: NVIDIA
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Senti - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
What is this minor game for Tegra review doing on anand? I could forgive something like Diablo 3 with all the fuss around it, but this it beyond help.It's not what I'm (and I hope most others) expect to read here. I'm not demanding awesome hardware reviews each day, but less noise like this would be nice.
fm123 - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
Sonic is popular. Based on the data I looked up, about 80 million copies of Sonic games across different platforms.BugblatterIII - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
Sure that's not 80 million versions? ;o)Senti - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
Sonic in general – yes, I don't argue against that.I'm speaking about this random Tegra release.
Obsoleet - Saturday, May 19, 2012 - link
Agreed. This is pretty ridiculous. I'm so close to removing AT from my RSS feeds. This is pandering/marketing, 'anand in the pocket' crap.Worse is the Trinity review where at the end of their AMD Trinity review they say "yeah this is great but you can still do better with Intel cpu + Nvidia switchable graphics". Its like wow, AMD can't win with you guys, no matter how good the chip is, the alternative that existed before Trinity was released is STILL goign to be superior. Didnt realize that.
A fair review would be that Nvidia has no competing CPU/GPU solution- and Intel has a lackluster APU for sale. And the latter is not at the same price point- nor would many want some Nvidia standalone monstrosity in their laptop..
From a fair, unbiased perspective there is a lot of pandering- to say the least.
Tuvok86 - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
what about Jazz the Jackrabbit??Obsoleet - Saturday, May 19, 2012 - link
How is this a big deal? Does anyone care? Sonic is released on Tegra3.. wow. I see the source listed as an NVIDIA blog entry. Which is marketing, and so is this.