The Hedge-gate conspiricy: Sonic can't get a fair review anymore.

After reading the Sonic Unleashed review from Gamespot, I posted this in the user review section.

I need to start by saying I haven't played Sonic Unleashed yet. I'm waiting to get it for Christmas so I don't have to shell out $60 myself. The asinine review posted by Gamespot, however, is such an egregious affront to the gaming community I am compelled to say something to defend this game, Sega, Sonic, and the collective videogame library for all systems that Gamespot has influence over.

Now, I'm an admitted Sonic fan. I've been playing these games since he was first movin' with a quickness in 1991. Trust me when I say that I know recent titles in Sega's famed franchise have been garbage. Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 were appalling excuses for games and Sega deserved the reviews they had coming. But something is terribly wrong with this newest entry in the series, and it's not Sega or Sonic.

It's simple: this Sonic Unleashed business has proven that Gamespot in incapable of reaching objectivity or fairness in their reviews. We've gotten to the point where the major reviewers like Gamespot and IGN just see the word Sonic in the title and instantly hate any game from Sega about their flagship blue mascot. Sure there is good reason to be skeptical of Sonic games thanks to Shadow and Sonic 06, but the bias has permeated for so long that the speedster can't get a fair review anymore. TSSZ reported that the IGN reviewer Hil Goldstein didn't even finish a quarter of Sonic Unleashed before giving it a 4.5/10 in a review, in which he straight up tells gamers not to have anything to do with this game right out the gates. Even worse, Gamespot gave Unleashed a worse score—3.5 vs. 4.4—than the garbage that was Sonic 06.

... Are you kidding me? WHO is writing these reviews!?! I don't need to have played this game yet to know that can't be physically possible, especially with all the positive things circulating in the Gamespot user reviews.

At least Game Informer breaks games down honestly and fairly but IGN and Gamespot reviews have proven themselves completely biased. They go out of their way to review games they don't like by breaking the codes of conduct they claim to stick to in their reviews. IGN's reviewers are unethical for not finishing games before writing their reviews and Gamespot is trying to pull a fast one by reviewing the WRONG VERSION OF THE GAME. That's right: word is that they reviewed the Wii version of the game and passed judgment on all systems. In case anyone doesn't know, this isn't the same game across platforms—the "Hedgehog Engine" isn't even present in the Wii or PS2 versions of Unleashed. This engine isn't even mentioned in the X360 review! But even with their shameful reviewing tactics aside, how could this game possibly score so low when the rest of the reviewing community—just the one that Gamespot acknowledges, mind you—gives it a 6.3 and their own members give it an average of 7.2?

The issue here is not whether Sonic Unleashed is a good or bad game: it may very well be garbage. The issue is that Gamespot unjustly crucified this game, giving it the worst score of any professional game site on the net, when the vast majority of the reviews within their own community have at least a healthy amount of positive feedback to offer. So much so that the average score stands 3.7 points ahead of Gamespot's spiteful and cynical analysis of a game that Sega spent three years crafting to rejuvenate their series.

To Gamespot:

Quit drinking haterade for no reason and grade games based on the game itself and not its predecessors. You've always graded too harshly but this is ridiculous. At this point I will be hard-pressed to ever trust one of your reviews again. I challenge you to read through your user reviews and see how shocked they are that you could give this game such a bad score. The only reason I remain a member of this organization at this point will be to further expose the biased reviews you produce in an attempt to rescue innocent games that your significant influence can either bolster or destroy.

For now I give Sonic Unleashed a 10 to balance out the negativity Gamespot has built around it. Whether my review of the game stands in sharp contrast to Gamespot or matches it dead on, the fact will remain that this site refuses to grade games fairly. Go read Game Informer, everybody.

This is more talked about than when Zelda Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3 didn't get about a 9.0 when they score just below it. I say look at the average and forget about 1 single review we all have different opinions but I do agree you must focus on the bad points and the good points and not just be biased against the game or the series.

Honestly I think even if Sega did make a game that was entirely made up of "Unleashed's" daytime stages, the reviewers would complain that it was too repetitive or too short or something.kbaily

I disagree. I think that if SEGA made a game that was comprised entirely of day stages a la Unleashed, but there were 10 zones with 2 unique levels per zone plus a boss fight with the big man, the game would get a good, if not great score. If you've read the reviews for Unleashed (as I've read pretty much every one for all versions) they all say the same thing at one point:

"if this game were nothing but the day stages, it would be short but it would be awesome". every review for this game is talking about trimming the fat and focusing on what Sonic is good at: Running fast, grabbing rings and kicking the crap out of Robotnik. I have a feeling that most of the reviewers for most of the major publications grew up with the Genesis era Sonic games and are bummed that all these extra characters and useless hub worlds don't do anything good for the games so they dock points for it.

This is understandable and their goal is a just one: give the game a bad score whenever Sonic Team introduces bad elements into the game so that it discourages them from trying it again. Sonic Team has shown they they can learn from their mistakes. They've shown that they listen to feedback. Sonic is has been pretty much the only playable character in the past few Sonic games. Sonic Team has finally fixed the bad camera work from the past games. They've also set a new standard for modern Sonic music in Unleashed. They've fixed the glitches in control and framerate and the production values, esp using the new Hedgehog engine are finally doing Sonic games justice visually.

In a sense, I totally agree and applaud these reviewers for being so critical of the areas of the current Sonic games that suck because we WILL see them removed. In another sense, it's a shame that the reviewers can't review a game for what it  is, rather than what they think it should be. Still, I'd rather have a Sonic game get a bad score if it has bad elements than get a good score because the lesser percent of the game was that much more amazing than the greater part of it. 

I will agree that after the Next Gen disaster the series has slowly improved but it's just been baby steps. I mean while Secret Rings did experiment with a weird control scheme (though that was more a Wii thing than a Sonic Team thing), it did have a camera that stayed put and focused primarily on Sonic running though stages.

As you said with Unleashed and from what I've seen, the day stages are exactly what a modern 3D Sonic game should be and as you said, the camera and controls seem to finally be under control, they ditched the Crush 40 cock rock as well as the series returned to a more lighthearted feel and ditched the Final Fantasy-esque melodrama of "Shadow" and "Next Gen."

Sega just has this crippling fear of if they make a game with just Sonic running fast through stages that it will be too short and in this day and age, if you can't get 20 hours out of game, it gets slammed for not being worth the money though the easy solution to that is selling it at a reduced price.

I'd gladly pay full price on either platform for a game with 20+ stages lasting 3-5 minutes each if they were all amazing like Unleashed.

Heck, give each zone 3 levels (super old school) and let Tails and Knuckles in on the action. act 1 for sonic and tailor it for speed. act 2 for Tails and tailor it for flight only allow tails to run decently fast. act 3 for Knuckles and tailor it for gliding and wall climbing and make Knuckles run at a decent clip as well. Then let sonic fight robotnik at the end of each stage. 

they ditched the Crush 40 cock rockkbaily

I liked the music, except for Seven Rings in Hand (it got annoying quickly). But I did grow up on metal and am currently listening to some as I type this (Metallica's "Fuel" specifically {one of their better songs since they cut their hair}), and you probably weren't. Give me a some memorable tunes that almost sound like they belong on a electric guitar (Doomsday Zone or Robotnik's S3 theme for example) (not acoustic guitar, acoustic and acoustic versions of rock songs generally suck) and I will be happy.

Crush40 are just a horrible band period.

You only have to listen to the first song in Sonic Adventure 2 to understand why. I don't even know the name of it or how it goes other than

"follow my rainboow"

really?

no thanks. I play any sonic game with that sh*tty music turned off.

I like metal too (Soilwork and Evergrey are awesome) but Crush40 is not metal or even good rock. It's for 8 year old girls. 

Crush40 are just a horrible band period.

You only have to listen to the first song in Sonic Adventure 2 to understand why. I don't even know the name of it or how it goes other than

"follow my rainboow"

really?

no thanks. I play any sonic game with that sh*tty music turned off.

I like metal too (Soilwork and Evergrey are awesome) but Crush40 is not metal or even good rock. It's for 8 year old girls.

whoozwah

So you slam an entire band and all of their songs because of ONE lyric?

[QUOTE="whoozwah"]

Crush40 are just a horrible band period.

You only have to listen to the first song in Sonic Adventure 2 to understand why. I don't even know the name of it or how it goes other than

"follow my rainboow"

really?

no thanks. I play any sonic game with that sh*tty music turned off.

I like metal too (Soilwork and Evergrey are awesome) but Crush40 is not metal or even good rock. It's for 8 year old girls.

Shadow_of_Kirby

So you slam an entire band and all of their songs because of ONE lyric?

yes. The point is that there should NOT BE lyrics.

I have to agree with you 100%, I think so many people wanted to Unleashed to be bad, that they wrote a bad review anyway, even though it's actually an okay game.

Crush40 are just a horrible band period.

You only have to listen to the first song in Sonic Adventure 2 to understand why. I don't even know the name of it or how it goes other than

"follow my rainboow"

really?

no thanks. I play any sonic game with that sh*tty music turned off.

I like metal too (Soilwork and Evergrey are awesome) but Crush40 is not metal or even good rock. It's for 8 year old girls. 

whoozwah

We just can't find anything to agree on, can we? :P

Honestly I don't understand why you all put so much stock into reviews (especially GS's) anyway. Ever since the whole Jeff Gertsman incident last year, the overall quality of GS's reviews in general has declined.

First of all I hate numeric scores and I hate the 10 point system even more because somewhere along the way we got this idea in our heads that if a game isn't at least an 8, it sucks. I mean the Wii version of Unleashed got like 7s. When did 7s become bad. The worst part is because most gamers have ADD and don't read the actual reviews because they get distracted by clouds and shiny objects, we look at the score, read a few comments then immediately write our hatemail to the review medium...

"Dear assfaces. You hate Sonic. U R so biased. U suck. I never read your reviews again!"

We dont' put this much stock in book, music or movie reviews. 300 was a movie that got terrible reviews and yet everyone saw it and liked it.

If you like a game, then who cares what someone else thinks, unless there's that bit of doubt in the back of your head that it's fun as you convinced yourself it is.

[QUOTE="whoozwah"]

Crush40 are just a horrible band period.

You only have to listen to the first song in Sonic Adventure 2 to understand why. I don't even know the name of it or how it goes other than

"follow my rainboow"

really?

no thanks. I play any sonic game with that sh*tty music turned off.

I like metal too (Soilwork and Evergrey are awesome) but Crush40 is not metal or even good rock. It's for 8 year old girls.

GabuEx

We just can't find anything to agree on, can we? :P

I guess not...oh wait. NiGHTS was good right? during the flying levels... 

Pfft, you kidding?

Why fly around when I can jog at .2mph throwing blue chips at enemies?

I guess not...oh wait. NiGHTS was good right? during the flying levels... 

whoozwah

Yeah, NiGHTS was good... although, again, I found it frustrating how little they did with the premise, which is precisely the reason why I was inspired to start that fanfic I've been writing off and on.

Pfft, you kidding?

Why fly around when I can jog at .2mph throwing blue chips at enemies?

Shadow_of_Kirby

The kids's levels in that were an interesting idea but very boring.

The kids's levels in that were an interesting idea but very boring.

kbaily

That could be said of a lot of what Sonic Team has come up with. :P

yup. which is why we all should paying much more attention to Prope.

A lot of good things could come out of that place.