[GaryCXJk]

You guys need to realize one thing. The thing that actually made the Sonic franchise suck was not the games themselves. It was and still is the fans.

See, there are two factors in play here:

1) How the "fans" perceive the game;
2) How SEGA responds to the "fan" feedback.

Let me first explain the second one. SEGA has always been listening to the fans, about everything basically. They said so in several interviews, and it also shows in the gameplay footage I've seen. Sonic Rush wouldn't be there if there wasn't a cry for a classic type Sonic platformer. However, the thing is, either these games never get bought by the "fans", or the "fans" have yet another thing to complain about the games.

For example, Sonic Heroes. It's the game that started this whole whinefest. Sure, the cameras were at times horrible, and the controls were all but fast, but the game wasn't bad. Now I don't know what the "fans" said that caused Sonic the Hedgehog (the XBox360 and PS3 version) to suck, but for some reason that game actually blew.

Or how about the aforementioned Sonic Rush. I actually have seen people blatantly say that the game sucks. Why? Either because it's too fast, which is ridiculous, seeing as people actually asked for fast, or it's too slow, which is preposterous, seeing as it does have enough speed in my opinion. Either that, or people have something to complain about the frigging soundtrack, or the fact that they just had to invent Blaze the Cat or whatever reason they can think of. What message do you bring out to SEGA? That they shouldn't do 2D anymore? In my opinion saying that they need to stop inventing new characters is balls, new characters don't influence gameplay, people have to remember that.

This also brings me to the next point. From what I've heard from people who've actually bothered playing the (XBox360 and / or PS3 version of) Sonic Unleashed for longer than 30 minutes, the game wasn't bad. People actually found the game pretty good. Sure, they didn't like the Werehog levels, but at least for the aforementioned consoles these levels were pretty balanced. Also, some even compared it with the slow stages in the old Sonic games.

And then you have Sonic and the Black Knight, a game I still have to buy, but from what I've seen, the game doesn't look bad, the thing people just complain about is the sword and that it makes the game very slow. From what I've seen, it doesn't make the game slower. You can just spindash you way out.

Point is, fans today have a too low expectation, even if there are good Sonic games, people find ways to bash the franchise, saying the Sonic games are dead. No, they're not, it's just that YOU made it so that Sonic died a slow, painful but unnecessary death.

I mean, wasn't the cause of the downfall of the Dreamcast the lack of sales? And who actually provided these sales all those years on these other consoles? It had always been the fans. So why the heck would the Dreamcast sell that bad? It's not because of the lack of games, because I did see enough good Dreamcast games, and the amount of Dreamcast games surely wasn't that low, especially compared to the Nintendo 64's library. It wasn't because of the graphics of the Dreamcast sucked, because, for its time, it was probably better than the other two consoles (the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation).

I think these "fans" and "gamers" should just stop whining, or stop gaming altogether, because they know jack about games, in my opinion. If you refuse to pay for a game just because "the rest" was crud, you don't deserve to call yourself a gamer.