eew
Let's not beat around the bush. Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most broken, stomach-churning games I have ever had the displeasure of playing. This is a game that I literally got a stomach ache from playing. It's pointless, and it gives Sonic a really bad name. Yes, even a worse of a name then what Shadow the Hedgehog brought to the table.
I love Sonic. Don't get the idea that I'm a Mario fanboy (well, actually I am) that's just trolling. This game is bad. And the opening cutscene brings such promise. It's beautiful, flashy, and colorful. And that's really what this game is. All flash, no substance. Yes, artistically speaking, the graphics are quite nice, and are actually a pleasure too look at, especially in 1080p. This game is what I would call "screenshot perfect". It's a game where you look at the screenshots and you go,"Oh, it looks so cute. Can we keep it?"
No you may not keep it. This game takes the level design of, say Sonic Heroes, adds tons of collision detection issues, camera issues, an unstable framerate, and turns the speed down to roughly half-a-mile-an-hour. Yeah, at max speed, Sonic is practically jogging, and the other characters may as well be walking.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, you also play as Shadow, a new character called Silver, and other well known characters such as Tails, and Rouge. Each of the three hedgehogs has their own "thing". Sonic (technically) is the fastest runner, Shadow can drive vehicles, and Silver can pick up stuff and throw them at enemies telepathically. Yeah, big deal it all sucks. Shadow's driving controls just don't feel right, and often feel clunky. As mentioned earlier, Sonic runs very slow, and while at times his movements are very sensitive, at others he feels to tight, so it gets annoying. And Silver's telepathic behavior feels pointless because usually there are multiple enemies on screen at one time, and throwing boxes at characters one at a time just feels abysmally slow.
I've been talking a lot about speed. Please note: I'm not a speed freak. I like slow platformers. However, the levels are designed like Sonic Heroes, meaning very linear and barren. This works well when your moving at blazing speeds, but not when your jogging. So, you pretty much feel like your pushing on the control stick until you reach the end. BORING! There are parts where Sonic moves really fast, but you can pretty much set down the controller. Since your not engaged, it dosen't feel fast. It feels like your watching a movie which looks fast, but dosen't feel fast.
Oh yeah, there are hub missions. Yeah, I thought we booted those after Sonic Adventure. They felt pointless then, and they feel even more pointless now. The hub world is a city that is used to transition between the action stages. In order to get the action stages though, you have to play the town missions. I feel obligated to tell you how bad these are.
First, you talk to someone who has a problem that they are very happy to tell you about. You accept the mission. 5-20 second loading time. Then they tell you what to do. 5-20 second loading time. Then you do the mission, which usually involves a very tedious killing of robots. 5-20 second loading time. Then you get your results. 5-20 second loading time. When I'm spending more time looking at a loading screen then actually playing, we have a problem.
Also, this game is bugs galore. You'll fall through more floors then a fat-ass. Yeah, and the framerate is very unstable. When you fall it feels like it drops 40 frames. This contributes to the speed thing. Also the camera is the worst I've ever seen. Okay maybe not THE WORST, but it's very bad. It gets caught behind walls, and everywhere you don't want. You do get a nice view of the pretty scenery though. But get this, during boss fights, the camera does not focus on the boss. Since the boss fights are much larger in scale in this game, it can take a while to find the boss. WTF?
I mentioned the colorful graphics. And I mentioned the unstable framerate and s****y camera. Here are the rest of the graphics. They suck. It's a shiny last-gen game. The textures are blurry, the character models look weird. Yes, the FMV sequences look great, but the in-game engine looks like a shiny last-gen game. And a mediocre one at that. The audio sucks. The sound effects sound like they did back in 1991, so Sonic fans will probably have multiple orgasms (Ill admit, I did). The music is good, but it never fits the level. It's like listening to Mozart while engaging in S&M. The voiceovers are pathetic. PATHETIC! The dialouge is awkward and uncomfortable.
Sonic the Hedgehog feels unfinished in every way imaginable. It serves only to be the bottom of the barrel. Even the biggest of Sonic fans will get very little enjoyment out of this game. Even if you find it for 10 bucks DON'T GET THIS GAME! P.S. The story sucks in case you care.
I know this review wasn't very well written, but since this game wasn't well made, I figured it wasn't worth my time to write a well thought-out review.
