Highly underappreciated (but still diabolical)
Luckily, I still get plenty of enjoyment out of the 3D Sonic titles. I have very fond memories of Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. Even in the face of less-than-flattering reviews I bought Sonic Heroes and loved it, although I could feel Sonic becoming tired and fractured with every passing stage.
I stuck to my theory on this latest title. The reviews have absolutely slaughtered it from every angle, but I grew up in this world and I enjoyed the demo so I bought it regardless, and I'm extremely glad that I did. Having given it the benefit of the doubt I can 100% understand all the negative opinions towards this game.
The camera comes close to making the game unplayable, since it uses a 3D control system. You can be moving through a stage when the camera will flick around and you'll end up going in a completely different direction as the controls haven't compensated for this change. Plus the fact that it recognises scenery and thus will jam if you try to turn it whist in a confined space. The camera's always been slightly annoying but never to this degree. The mission structure itself could use some work. The majority of the action stages are fun and genuinely impressive, particularly Crisis City, Kingdom Valley and Radical Train. Unfortunately the stages that suck.. REALLY suck. Flame Core and Tropical Jungle, I'm looking at you. Then there's the town sections. They weren't a good idea in Sonic Adventure and they're definitely not now. Although we do like the shopping.
Character-wise you've got just about every Sonic character you could ever possibly want, and a few more for good measure. Big The Cat is away farting about with his frog elsewhere. This is good. Meanwhile, Team Sonic and Team Dark return, along with Amy Rose, Dr. Eggman and a first 3D appearance for the fantastic Blaze The Cat from Sonic Rush. But most exciting is the new hedgehog character, Silver. Awful name (he's silver, so they called him Silver, do you get it?) but brilliant gameplay. Silver is a time-travelling hog from the future trying to edit the past to change his present, using his futuristic psychokinetic powers to move objects and other random coolness.
Plus there's plenty to do, and unlike some feats required in previous games, it's all doable. This is good. Basically speaking, if you're not a fan of Sonic you will probably think this is the worst game you've ever played. Alternatively, if you are a conniseur of the series you will probably fall in love with it's similarites to Sonic Adventure, reliving happy memories, particularly in the Wave Ocean stage, an obvious nod to Emerald Coast. Unfortunately, graphically it's diabolical for an Xbox 360 game, but it's clear it's been rushed out half-finished. When reading about this game I for one did not expect it to come out so soon. Hopefully, some more tweaking can be done to save the PS3 version, and this will somehow translate into a big juicy update for us 360 owners to fix this mess.
Sonic Team need to get their Wii-exclusive title right, and it needs to be spectacular.. or we could soon be bidding farewell to one of the world's most famous gaming mascots.
Andy Fenn