Back in the 90s, there were essentially two kinds of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 player. Firstly, the juvenile Mussolinis who monopolised the Blue Blur himself in the callously-defined “single player” mode, and secondly, the absolute saints and/or craven appeasers who consented to be Sonic’s sidekick Tails, and had to spend the whole run struggling to keep pace with the Sonic player’s camera.
Tails in Sonic 2 “single player” is a grieving immortal, his soul lashed to the wheel of Sonic’s whirling footsteps, doomed to respawn indefinitely until his prickly tormentor finally exhausts their shared stock of lives. Yours was an existence doled out in offscreen “du-dum” noises, as poor Tails ran half-knowingly into any spikes or Robotnik creations eclipsed by the Sonic player’s passage. Yes, I’m aware there was an actual splitscreen mode, but let’s be honest with ourselves, 30 years on – it made your TV look like a mitotic error.
Sonic players will look at the just-announced multiplayer platform game SpeedRunners 2: King Of Speed and see only another checkerboard mountain of astroturf to conquer. Tails players will look at it and see an opportunity to put everything they’ve learned from those Mega Drive humiliations to the test. For SpeedRunners 2 is a game about a bunch of Tails players competing to be Sonic.
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I apologise if I’m making too big a fuss of the SpeedRunners concept. I missed the first one, which came out in the 2010s, and which we have covered in no less than five seperate feature articles. In any case, the apposite comparisons here are probably Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Trials and The Flash.
In SpeedRunners 2, up to eight superheroes sprint through 2D spy-fi levels, striving to be the last remaining character on screen. You’ve got base movement mechanics such as wall-kicking and a grapple hook, plus power-ups such as missiles, traps and freeze rays with which to Blue Shell the other players into screeching submission. The levels include terrain fixtures such as ceilings you can swing from and boost pads. It all looks slick, jolly and decently nail-biting.
“The original multiplayer gameplay formula of SpeedRunners is timeless, unofficially dubbed as the ‘Mario Kart of 2D platformers’,” comments the Steam page. “With the sequel, our goal is to carefully bring this unique ‘SpeedRunners feel’ into the new era without compromising on the depth and fluidity of the movement system while still keeping it easy to grasp. On top of that, King of Speed introduces vibrant high-definition graphics and improved netcode.”
The game launches later this year. Speaking as a recovering Tails player, I am reasonably stoked. The only thing the trailer seems to be missing is that little intangible margin of error around the screen in Sonic 2 – that Last Chance Saloon from which the double-tufted fox might heroically scoot back into visibility.
