Sonic Adventure DX (Director's Cut)

The Good
Sonic's gameplay is timeless. This is a department in which the original Sega Genesis game has hardly aged. The old ring-grabbing to stay alive and fight evil concept is as addictive as hell, which is why it's been carried over to this, Sonic's first real 3D game. Interspersed between these fast-paced levels ("Action Stages") are the Adventure Fields. These are stages filled with generic human characters who wander around and of course, are not surprised by, and are perfectly happy to talk to Sonic about anything that's on their mind, be it their "burger shop", love life, or what's hot around the city of Station Square. On release it became apparent that these areas didn't go down too well with gamers, who would prefer a more straightforward level-after-level running layout. Personally I found these stages a nice break from the action, and helped add a lot to the game's atmosphere.

As far as presentation goes, aspects like the game's menus aren't bad. They're nice, smooth, and slip on and off the screen pretty quickly with load times that aren't too long (although for some scandalous reason, longer than the Dreamcast version).

The Bad
So it's a Dreamcast port, right? A first-generation Dreamcast port. Obviously Sega would have to beef the game up a little before letting it ship, but sadly, in reality they have done very little. The glitz of the lovely pre-release screens of this "remake" falls apart as soon as you see the game in motion - a constant 60 frames per second obviously seems to have been too much to ask for. Sometimes for games, this is understandable. For a game as old as Sonic Adventure, it most certainly is not - the game was originally released in 1999. The graphics most certainly have been changed, but have they been changed enough? The texture work is definitely passable, but a lot of the game's areas retain a dated low-poly style. Wedded with the already discussed intermittent frame rate, you'll understand why the overall package doesn't exactly shine in this department. Added to this there are a whole host of glitches and things that really should have been fixed. Sonic can still get stuck and fall through certain objects. Fly up too high on one of Tail's levels and you'll reveal a pink transparent color where the background hasn't been drawn. Sometimes the characters can walk through certain objects, even some large, solid ones, which looks pretty sloppy. A lot of the time you'll see small white pixels moving around where two polygon surfaces should connect, a problem apparent on many Dreamcast titles, that should not have made the jump onto the GameCube version.

When the original Sega Dreamcast version launched, the then fairly new IGNDC reported that the voice acting should be "illegal in at least five states". This is a near-perfect analysis of the horrendous English dub, although the fact that the voices haven't been re-recorded after all these years of grated ears and complaints shows that Sega obviously haven't had a large-scale improvement in mind. For this reason more serious action is required - this voice acting should be illegal in at least five COUNTRIES. It really is diabolical. Thumbs-up however, to the fact that any combination of Voice and Caption settings can be chosen, so Japanese voices with English subs aren't a problem. While I don't speak Japanese, it seems that the voices in that language are acted with much more emotion than the American actors, which sound more like they're bored and want out back to light up. As an added bonus, the Japanese voice samples also usually fit the lip assignments, making them far less laughable than their American counterparts.

Also while the music tracks are, on the whole, pretty good, they could have been put to better use. It's not uncommon to hear music that's so loud it drowns out the voice acting (although since the voice acting is poor, maybe it would be better seen from the perspective that the voices are too quiet rather than the music being too loud). At other times, music stops at the end of one scene, and the same track begins to play at the start of another, rather than continuing over it. It's hardly a huge setback, but it feels sloppy and unpolished.

The extras added to the GameCube version are a nice enough addition and it's good to see they went to some effort, but they will most likely fall short to most people's expectations. Once you're done with completing a character's main story, or "Adventure", you're allowed to run around the game finding Mission Cards of some sort. These unlock mini-missions for you to solve. Occasionally you'll find some ones at the easier end of the scale ("Bring the man in front of the burger shop to the target"), but many of these are more cryptic and will require some knowledge of the actual levels - for example, one tells you to "run down the side of the building and pop the balloons". People who've played the Dreamcast version to death like me will most likely instantly recognize the running down the building reference to part of the "Speed Highway" level, but newcomers to the game will be stumped with little incentive to actually collect these bonuses. Get enough of these missions cleared and you'll unlock some fun GameGear Sonic games, although even these are jerky, poorly emulated, and like the rest of this disc, a quick cash-in.

The Bottom Line
On arriving in New York City and going shopping, I naturally checked out some (OK, most of) of the games stores in the area. One of which being GameStop, where I snapped this game up for $40 after quite a few months of anticipation, and that's even although I'd already owned the Sega Dreamcast version and played it to death. Maybe this set my expectations a little too high, but I believe a Director's Cut should be perfect. This most certainly isn't, and seems more of a quick money-spinner that's not worth buying if you already own the Sega Dreamcast version. If not, give it a rental and see how it fares - it's still a fun platformer.

OVERALL: 4/10 (lyris.tk) (American NTSC version reviewed)

The Good
This game is great, why do people hate it? Me and my friend love this game. We looked at reviews for the Dreamcast version "excellent all over", Gamecube one "Terrible", we went by the Dreamcast reviews. They were right. Sonic was fun, Miles was fun, Knuckles is great many people hate it but I love treasure hunting, Amy is ok, Big was good and E-102 Gamma was good. Good graphics, sound and Gameplay. This has music from the band Crush 40, they make the game even better.

The Bad
The only bad thing is that there were a few glitches that I ran into, WHO CARES?

The Bottom Line
Good, if you hate this, you hate Sonic and that is like impossible. Great if you like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Sonic Heroes you will love this, you can run around 3 adventure fields that have many levels on them. Station Square, Mystic Ruins and Dr. Eggman's Egg Carrier.

The Good
I must admit that I've never played the Dreamcast version of this game, so I will judge this game's merits on the Gamecube version alone. The game have its strong points, I know people have criticized the graphics on this game, but I find them quite good. Also a strong point for Gamecube users is that the library of Game Gear Sonic games are unlockable in this game, when they are not present in the Sonic Mega Collection. This game is a good first attempt at putting Sonic into the 3D platforming world.

The Bad
However, there exists many flaws in this game, with many elements seemingly lifted from Mario 64, I would have thought Sega would tried tried to innovate within the 3D platforming field, much like the original Sonic innovated the 2D platforming field. They even lifted the poor camera system of Mario 64 and made it worse...The fact that you had to switch to free camera every new stage made it really annoying...Also certain characters seemed to be added for no reason...after the first 3 characters of the game, the game loses some luster...

The Bottom Line
This game isn't a necessity for gamers, not to sound like a Nintendo fanboy or anything, but I feel the Mario platformers are much better than this game to experience 3-D platforming.

The Good
Sonic is known for fast-paced stages, great music, cheesy acting, and furries. Well, this game has pretty much all of that.

The story is just like every other Sonic game: Oh noes! Someone is causing havoc! Who will save us? (enter Sonic)

And you get where this is going. However, I do like how the story is told from six different perspectives. But all in all, the story is pretty generic.

The gameplay is fun and fast paced... sort of. You see, there are six characters you can play as, and, like-wise,six different game types:

Sonic: Fast-paced Platformer Tails: Racer-platformer Hybrid Knuckles: Treasure Hunt Amy: Escape your stalk- I mean enemy. Gamma: Platformer-shooter Hybrid Big: ...fishing... yeeah.

Now, I shall go over each mode and say my opinions of them.

Sonic: Best stages of the game. What you do is simple: just finish the level! Like all Sonic games! These parts do have some cheap deaths and frustrations awaiting, but are good fun over all.

Tails: Same as Sonic's, only you can fly and you have to beat Sonic to the end. These can also be pretty fun, especially since you can fly.

Knuckles: You must look for the missing pieces of the Master Emerald. These stages are complete bull crap. They are slow, boring, and very, VERY confusing. It's useless. Forget about it! (hint hint)

Amy: These aren't too bad, really. In fact... they're kind of fun? Basically, you have to outrun this robot pedophile. Or as I'll call him here, Pedo-Bot. Now, Pedo-Bot works for Eggman, and Amy finds this bird that has... let's just say it has jewelry ;) Anyway, Pedo-Bot must get this "jewelry" and give it to Eggman. You must prevent this. In the stages, you can stun him by whacking him with your hammer. Okay, this is too long.

Gamma: In a sudden twist of story, you play as one of Eggman's new robots, E-102(I think) Gamma. It is basically a platform shooter. Kind of like Contra. Except it's not. I think this mode is good, but not great.

Big: I. HATE. THESE. STAGES. Yeah, caps lock. I'm a man now. Well anyway, you play as the slow-ass, fat-ass, gay, purple cat named Big whose only friend is a frog named... Froggy. And all you do is fish for your lost friend. FISH! Why, Sega? Why? Why? Whyyyyy?

So, overall, the gameplay is good.

The opening cutscene, as well as the few other CGI cutscenes, are very good. They are well detailed. The other graphics...well...see the bad section.

The voice acting, like I said, is cheesy. It's not too bad, but not great, either.

The music is wonderful.

"Open Your Heart" , the main theme, is a great song.

Sonic's theme is also great. Some say it has a GnR feel, and I think I agree.

Tail's theme really doesn't do him justice. He should have a better theme!

Knuckle Head's theme is garbage. I already hate rap, but his theme makes How I Could Just Kill a Man seem like Ride the Lighting!

Amy's theme is catchy but makes NO sense at all. I mean one of the lyrics are something like,"It was so cute, I just had to shave it." ...erm... (disturbing silence)

Gamma's theme(which is instrumental) actually pulls at my heart strings, something few songs accomplish with me.

Big's theme is the best thing about Big, but it still sucks.

The rest of the sound track is amazing as well.

Finally, there is the fact that, when you get 20 emblems, you get an old Sonic game (all on the Game Gear). These are a nice edition, making this game an even better deal. Granted, some of the games suck balls and you could get almost all of them on a copy of Sonic Mega Collection Plus, but it's still a nice addition.

The Bad
Now, as I said, the gameplay is good. But the Big stages are HORRIBLE! Absolute garbage. The character himself is not exactly what I call like-able.

I said that the CGI cutscenes looked good, right? Well, the in game graphics are... terrible. I'm not even a graphics whore, but these graphics SUCK! The mouth movements are terrible, especially with Dr. Eggman. The textures look like they belong on N64! This is unacceptable! The frame rate is a bit better than the graphics, though. But, hey, graphics don't make a game. I'm talking to you, Halo fan-boys.

The Chao Garden is not very good. Now don't get me wrong. The Chao Garden in the sequel is fantastic. But this version seems very watered down. VERY watered down.

The Mission mode can be very confusing and hard. On the other hand, some are just confusing. Finding the cards are a real pain in the ass, too.

There are a few other minor problems, but these are too minor to type about.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game is a great addition to your GameCube collection. You will have a ball for sure. Just don't go too slow :)

The Good
SAdx allows players to follow the same story through six different perspectives and continue adventuring through Mission and Trial Modes. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are reunited against Robotnik, AKA Eggman, along with the perky Amy and two new friends, Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma.

The Bad
Aside from difficult to control camera angles and brief storylines with Big and Gamma, the game leaves little to be desired. However, the storylines of each of the six characters overlap, leaving questions as to what the real story is. Each character tells his/her own version of the story, as if three little kids were arguing over who broke the kitchen window. Did Tails defeat Eggman's first contraption, or did Knuckles? Did Sonic win or lose the fistfight with Knuckles, or did Tails perform the fight all along? We just can't tell who's got the true angle, although we can all just assume that Sonic is the real hero.

The Bottom Line
SAdx is yet another great game featuring everybody's favorite super-sonic blue hedgehog, Sonic. And, though there is always room for improvement, Sonic Adventure DX has exceeded my own personal expectations and gone past the limit to prove once again that Sonic is indeed the fastest and greatest Hedgehog Hero of them all!

The Good
A few years ago, I discovered Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. It was a shock, and it was my dream to play it on my PC... So what's about Sonic Adventure Director's Cut on PC ? First of all, it is very fun to play, even on keyboard.The levels are very well designed and full of surprises and events (snowboard, races, pinballs...) You can play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy... and two newcomers, Big the cat and a robot called E-102 "Gamma". Each explores a part of the story, which is better developed than usual. The game is not very long and not very hard, but filled with fun and energy ! And the music is very nice (the main theme is fantastic !)

The Bad
Well, here come the problems. First of all, the graphics are, err, old. The game is exactly the same as it was on Dreamcast, without any enhancements. Playing Sonic is cool, and Knuckles and E-102 too, but the others are a bit boring. Especially Big which levels consists in fishing... And you must finish all their stories to have the final fight... And I wonder where is that "director's cut", because adding some old Game Gear games in bonus isn't enough. And, the true flaw of this game : it seems somehow unfinished. There are still many bugs, the camera is alcoholic and the programming of the events and other cutscenes is not very well done.

The Bottom Line
Sonic DX is still a good game, but it seems very old now, especially with the lack of enhancements. If you like the blue hedgehog and don't know sonic adventure already, you may be interested in this PC version.

The Good
There is a lot to do as there is lots of characters... a few gamegear games extras are nice n retro - not good but nice and it's sonic and who doesn’t like sonic? WHO?!

The Bad
It may be sonic but that doesn’t mean its any good, the graphics are very bad, low standard dreamcast rubbish that sonic team hasn’t updated or taken any advantage of the gamecube's power in any way, shape or form. The story is horrendous and complicated and just doesn’t make any sense at all. This factor isn’t helped by the horrible HORRIBLE voice acting and music, in fact it’s so bad it’s funny, the way it all just makes no sense! The gameplay is evil, the action stages play like 3D bits of the original Sonics abet not very good 3D bits, as there too buggy and glitchy, also the thing that really annoys me is that the core sonic gameplay hasn’t changed; it’s still just a case of holding forward all the way through the levels. Some variety is attempted in the different characters but, its just rubbish!

The Bottom Line
DON’T buy it! You might as well as go out with £50 taped to your head with mug me written on it.