Hedgehog still has a gun...(review)

BlitzKrieg

Shadow the Hedgehog


Soo i picked this up (sonic nut *sigh*) so i thought i'd add my 2 cents.



Personnally when i first heard of it...i was all *meh* and hmm. At first i was hoping for some interesting twist story wise on the gun use in the game (my original theory was that it was not *real* guns but a fantasy chaos emerald related weapon in the same kin as Jak 2.) Then i thought a very simple thought process.

Shadow the hedgehog = Sonic adventure 2 - exploring levels and slow blowing crap up levels.

This made me feel good, cause despte SA2's faults the sonic and shadow levels (like SA1) were actually good blast to play and a whole game with these kind of levels. Even if a gun was thrown in will be FUN, its not like Gamma or Tails/robotnik where its flat and slow and oh so very dull (though some of robotnik's levels were fun)

So i had hope. Hope for not a groundbreaking game but just a load of speedy action packed levels with a few set pieces here and there ala the boulder in SA1 or the truck in SA2.


So i got my copy this morning...and so


far i have put in around 4 hours of gameplay (i had lectures most of the day and harry potter needed a seeing) i have completed the game three times and here is my current thinking:


Graphics:

I have a PS2 version and to be fair it at least keeps up with the action even if it looks blocky and not very impressive, in fact if it wasnt for the fact that there is ALOT more explosions and action and stuff i would say that most of the levels on Sonic adventure 2 on the dreamcast looked better then this. The levels themselves are bland and in all the ones i have played only 1 or 2 have shined in any way. Those would be Matrix madness which when you get to its central point looks pretty cool and its counterpart net something, these two levels are bright and psychedelic, and gives me a good idea what my pc would look like on the inside if i put a few acid tabs in a usb port.
The biggest graphic disapointment are the characters and cut scenes. Shadow and other main characters look fine, though i see a sponsership deal with turtle wax coming up (SO SHINY!) but everyone else look horrible. Esp the cutscenes with any of the supporting human cast, The Commander and the president look like they were done way back on the bloody quake 2 engine. I will reserve final judgement until i see my friends gamecube version. The FMV's are fine though, but nothign to call him about.


Sound.

The soundtrack is nowhere to be seen, apart from the title song i cant think of any of the level songs, they are all so dull and boring, as cheesy as some of SA2's songs were and Sonic Heroes, some of them were very memorable. Such as Bingo Highway, Mystic Ruins and Escape from the city. All the songs here are zzzzz...they all regardless of the level seem to be angsty rock music, which is fine in small doses, but when the title song, power up songs and boss songs are just sped up louder angst songs, one does grit teeth. The gunshot for selecting stuff on the menu's is cheesy as hell. The gun effects themselves seem to be the same sound effect at different speeds (and seeing as the 2 assault rifles and lazer rifle all look the same, this can be annoying). Bad guys seem silent, except the humans who are just plain annoying. And the characters...well Black Doom...Its the Claw from Inspector Gadget. And all of sonic and his friends talk too much. Esp on the later levels, when they still hold you hand ("Hmm, you might need to jump here shadow" "You dont say Vector...NOW SHUT UP")


Gameplay.

Right i explained my hope. SA2 minus crappy levels...well...**** YOU SEGA. You get rid of the crappy search levels and gun levels just to shove them into the bloody speed levels. Goddamn it my choice so far in direction on the map has been mainly motivated by the "avoid shoot all aliens/humans/robots missions" which usually means i sprint to the end or break something as these levles have you trawling back through the level *slowly* looking for stragglers. Some missions can be fun. The blow up Robotnik's ships, if a bit more time was spent on making the destroying of the ships more interesting could have been a favourite, and the activate or destroy switches missions are not a real bother, just means you have small points in the map where you have to stop kill a few guys and hit a switch. These two keep the speed up which is the main thing, thus making good levels

There is one mission type which could be a blast, the chase down big tank/ship/blimp/hotdog levels, i kinda liked trying to gun down this runaway target, the only problem is after the first one, the other ones are so g*ddamn confusing that i have no idea what to shoot at, or how to do it, so either i figure it out soon, or thats a lost oppurtunity for some fun levels (at least give the damn thing a health bar!) Again it keeps the speed up most of the time, making me a happy bunny.

General mechanics, speed check, guns are ok i guess, i quite like grabbing a mp5 and blasting a horde of robots, but the scarcity of picking up enough ammo to properly go to town is annoying, esp seeing as ALL the weapons take different ammo. There was only one level where i could get enough ammo for the machine gun where i could just spin around like mad shooting things. Destroyable scenery gives minor satisfaction. The Rocket launchers etc, are near on useless due to the pain in aiming the basterds and are only good against the bosses.


Lets look at the overall layout. As far as i can tell, Sonic Team doubled the length of the game by cutting each level in two. The only one that makes sense is the first one, You go to city help sonic and then you go to a highway leading out of the city and then a boss. Seems like the traditional 2 act structure of old years to me. And alot of levels have this...BUT. Someone in there great wisdom stuck them all over the place. For example, the second level if you dont go good or bad is this temple, if you go bad on this level you activate the temple and it turns into a flying fortress. Now you dont see this as the second you complete the level you somehow end up in Robotnik's computer (huh?) and its not until 2 levels later do you see the temple. Now i'm all for, fragmenting the story for replayability. But for the love of god some of these are ridiculous, shadow is teleporting all over the place with no real sense of direction. It would have worked better with the same idea as the first level, if you do a certain mission you continue with that level into its second part and in a sense *complete* its story segment, that i thought was nice. But bringing something up, dropping it for 2 levels and throwing it back at you just doesnt excite me, in fact it makes the game look sloppy as it feels as if there are only half the number of actual levels and the other half are the previous levels with a upped difficulty or new missions. Of course this is only from the levels i have unlocked so far. Also the 2 levels which reuses sonic adventure 2 textures and design are just cheap!

Other minor elements. Rings no longer all fall out when shot, only 10 at a time. Which makes sense as for the first time in a 3d sonic game, the bad guys are an actual threat, the biggest threat previously was falling (and still is i guess) but now you actually get shot ALOT. so thats fine. the new extra life system is stupid though, everytime you pass a checkpoint with more then 100 rings, you get an extra life, its pretty easy to get a 100 rings with the new damage system and holding onto over a 100 is not a problem, so clocking up 3 extra lives per level makes the game stupidly easy.
Vehicles are a snore, except maybe the floating pad, which at least has a pratical use and changes the gameplay mechanic to something that is at least partly fun. The jeep is useless, the jumping robot is annoying, and on one level there is a shooting robot, which turns the game into the tails levels of SA2 and just makes it hurt.

BlitzKrieg

The chaos powers, choosing good or evil. Good chaos power is useless in the level, as trying to solve missions requires you dont fly past half the level at supersonic speed...good for just completing the level though. In the boss levels it simply makes the boss stupidly easy as it freezes the boss on the spot and you can easily finish it off in one go. (using this technique you will get a A ranking everytime) Evil Chaos power is a bit more usefull, but more so for saving time by getting rid of bad guys around a locked switch or similar. But the most fun element of both is that when either is activated you have for a limited time unlimited ammo, so can go mad for a brief moment shooting up the scenary (FUN WITH MINIGUN!) O the whole choosing which side, like Lothar says, just doesnt have any effect, but never bothered me in the game cause regardless of who anyone was i still killed them, so its more of a fault of sega promoting this aspect so much...stupid adverts.

The annoying element of the choice though is in the storyline:







Story: Your choice seems to have f*ck all effect, i do Robotniks bidding in one level and i still have to fight him as a boss, same with the alien guys and so on. Speaking of bosses...so far there seems to be only 3...yes regardless of your chosen route, the same boss will wait you at the end, a pathetic robotnik boss who is too easy. And while the dialogue is different, the last few cut scenes always seem to be the same. Apart from that the jumbled up level design will confuse you as to why shadow is ending up in most of these places. The problem with replayability in this game is that regardless of your route, it will all feel the same in story and missions and so on, i just wish that depending which area you lean more to actually affects which aspect of the *overall* plot and your 3 foes (Robotnik, Gun, Black doom) meaning if i go all one way, i face one foe (GUN) or all other way Black Doom and in the middle Robotnik....nope. No matter what way Robotnik shows up gives some lame excuse and you fight the same boss fight again and again and again. (only done it three times now)


Conclusion: An absolute wasted oppurtunity which should only be picked up by hardcore fans who want any form of a sonic fix. It can be fun, but compared to EVEN the weakest of the previous games it feels cheap (none of the levels match sonic heroes in scale), and even the promise of simple fun action is spoiled by tedious missions to unlock new levels.


*EDIT*

played some more since last night when i wrote this review.

-there are four bosses i have found so far. Not three. but i still have to fight Robotnik with the same machines twice regardless what route i take.
-the missions are still a pain in the ass which are no fun.

FunkyChicken

Whats your rating for us lazy people?

Lemlin

Just read the last sentence: "The jeep is useless, the jumping robot is annoying, and on one level there is a shooting robot, which turns the game into the tails levels of SA2 and just makes it hurt".

I'm a lazy person too but you don't need a rating to know its crap after that!

BlitzKrieg

FunkyChicken wrote:

Whats your rating for us lazy people?

4/10


if one c
is a huge sonic fan (like me) they can withstand the crappy missions to unlock all the levels so you can select them at random to race through at full speed. but anyone else will hate the game...its aweful.

Gummy Panda

Blitz,

maybe you should get sonic rush for the ds if you have one. As that seems to be pretty good.

BTW, does anyone know how to unlock streets of rage (bare knuckles) in sonic gems Jap version?

johnny_ultimate

Yeah this one's been getting eaten alive in the reviews.
Sonic and 3D dont mix.

Lemlin

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Yeah this one's been getting eaten alive in the reviews.
Sonic and 3D dont mix.

I think they could with the right development team. Mario managed to make a great transition to 3D.

Gummy Panda

Lemlin wrote:

I think they could with the right development team. Mario managed to make a great transition to 3D.

Yeah, but mario didn't get put into the "real" world.

I remember i played sonic adventures on DC for the first time. I thought it was **** and why give sonic a voice, a voice of a kid who says awesome to much. Like a bill and ted film

BlitzKrieg

thing is i liked sonic adventure 1, 2 and heroes. Yes there were faults but like lemlin said if the basic concept was given to a team with a better track record with 3d games, or if sonic team at least focused more on what makes a good sonic game, then they would be brilliant games.


Take Sonic Heroes for instance. Overall i think the biggest problem was that changing between 3 players was too much of a pain in the ass. Cut that down to 2 (sonic and tails) and i think you could have had a really good f*cking game.

monkeyfudge

Nice write up!

I'm a big Sonic fan too... And I liked the Dreamcast games and Sonic Heroes. Heck.. I even liked Billy Hatcher.

But I haven't liked the look of this one since I first saw it... so I think I'll be giving it a miss..

I'll definitely have to pick up a copy of Sonic Rush for the DS though.. it looks pretty good.