So Project Needlemouse turned out to be Sonic 4, a new 2D Sonic for direct download. "Sonic 4" somehow manages to carry an even greater weight of "no, we're going back to the old school, serious this time" than calling the 2006 game Sonic the Hedgehog did, although we all know how well that turned out.

I hold no hopes for the game, as anyone familiar with the Sonic series shouldn't. But to be honest, my problem is not so much that I'm worried they'll screw it up, but that I don't know that I care. Maybe it's just because I wasn't a Genesis owner growing up, but the 16-bit Sonics are not actually that great as games. This was an argument people had repeatedly when discussions would come up on how to "fix" Sonic -- maybe the original game concept itself is simply too limited. When levels were fast they were over too quickly, when they were slow they were plodding and dull. I'll admit I haven't played any of the Rush games, which were apparently well-received, to see if anything's changed in modern times.

They released a short trailer, which is below. One shouldn't judge based on 3 seconds of footage, but the animation seems strangely slow, especially in direct comparison to the old Sonic sprites (which they chose to do in their own trailer).

It's a bit of a shame that this perpetuates the idea that modern 2D games belong only on portables or as downloadables, though the market for a traditional Sonic may be so small at this point that pitching it as a download is the only way it could get made.