GameCube

Sonic Heroes

We all know and love him. He is that cool blue guy who once upon a time was ready to kick Mario’s ass back in the days with his Blast Processing. He has gone through some really cool and unique changed since his 16-Bit days. He can run rings around Superman on a bad day. He is only second to Mario when you think of videogame mascots. The big bad Sonic the Hedgehog is back in action! And he is faster and better then ever!

The more I played Sonic Heroes the more I enjoyed it. Like the old Sonic games, you have the option of whizzing through the stages or thoroughly exploring each one. The game is definitely on the easy side, but amassing 100 rings to win a free life is still a challenge. So what didn't I like about Sonic Heroes? Well, Tails sounds like a whiny four-year old, and Knuckles sounds like he's shouting a bad word whenever he attacks. I also didn't care for the two-player "race" mode, because falling off the edge of a platform instantly takes you out of contention. Otherwise Sonic Heroes is a terrific, light-hearted romp that will win you over if you give it a chance.

Ich persönlich finde das Gameplay einfach genial! Allerdings habe ich es nach kurzer Zeit fast völlig vermieden, die Kameraperspektive zu ändern, da man auch ohne dieses Feature meistens wunderbar klarkommt. Was die Gegner betrifft, hätte ich mir aber ein wenig mehr Abwechslung gewünscht. Zu schnell hat man den Bogen raus, mit welchem Charakter die unterschiedlichen Feinde am schnellsten ins Nirwana befördert werden. Dafür haben´s die Jump&Run-Passagen aber manchmal ganz schön in sich.

Sonic the Hedgehog, like Nintendo's fat, Italian plumber, has been around forever. He blasted through loops and sped through corkscrews on Sega's 16-bit Genesis console and has delighted hordes of fans ever since. But not everybody's been happy with the mascot's transition to 3D. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 for Dreamcast (both of which were later ported to GameCube) proved to be fast and pretty, but also lacked polish. Drawbacks included play styles with less emphasis on raw speed and more on exploration; clunky, underdeveloped camera systems and in-game bugs and glitches.

Back in the early days of gaming, the one thing that every console released had to have was a “mascot” that helped sell the system, and show the power of that system. Nintendo had Mario and Sega had Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic games were always known for tremendous speed, collecting golden rings, and going around loops. Since Sonic has leapt into 3D, the games have not been as polished and refined as some of the other games that had been converted to 3D. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were good, but had their fair share of problems. Sega has now created their first original Sonic game for all formats, but will it be as good as the glory days of Sonic? Read on to find out.

Sonic games are all about speed, instinct, and reflex - you run around dizzying loops, hoping you're fast enough to press the jump button before you fall on a bed of spikes. Sonic Heroes had the potential to take that concept to the next level, but somewhere along the road to change, Sonic Team seems to have gotten spooked by the unknown.

When I saw that I had a one-page review for Sonic Heroes on my docket, I immediately thought, "Oh great, another crappy Sonic game to review." I’m not saying that my initial bias was correct, but I think that it’s telling that what was, during the Genesis days, one of my very favorite franchises now evokes an extremely negative reaction. As an aging game icon, Sonic has been in decline for years, and is dangerously close to be relegated to the b-list of gaming superstars.

When the folks at Sonic Team were in the process of creating the original Sonic the Hedgehog, they knew they couldn't beat Mario at his own game. So, instead of cooking up another hop-happy Mario clone, they focused their efforts on speed. As a result, one of the most visceral franchises of the 16-bit era was born. However, the transition from 2D to 3D was a hard one for Sonic, and the series lost a lot of its focus in the process by trading in speed for action adventure elements and introducing an unnecessary--and unnecessarily large--supporting cast of characters. Sonic Heroes strips away a lot of the elements that slowed down the Sonic Adventure backpedals on a lot of the design decisions made in the Sonic Adventure games, and though it still exhibits many of the camera and control issues that vexed Sonic's previous forays into 3D, it's truer to its 2D roots than any other 3D Sonic game before it.

Avec son concept très intéressant qui permet de contrôler des personnages en équipes dans des niveaux toujours aussi fous, Sonic Heroes renouvelle assez bien la série de Sega et saura plaire à ceux qui n'ont rien à reprocher aux derniers épisodes 128 bits. Ceux qui, par contre, se plaignaient des problèmes de caméra et du gameplay assisté et confus de Sonic Adventure, ne pardonneront pas à Sonic Heroes de ne pas corriger ces défauts.

Sonic Heroes really is beset by all manner of problems - the camera is crap, the scale is awkward, the story and characters are basic and cringe-worthy, the combat is tedious, the platforming and puzzling is too basic, and I was well bored of it by the time I conquered the final level with the first of the four Teams, which wasn't even that long after I first grabbed it out of the shrink-wrap. Although it has some redeeming features - the high-octane buzz of racing manically through beautifully imagined set pieces at an uncontrollable, breakneck pace, the occasional standout level, and a few passable multiplayer options to explore - it remains at worst mediocre and at best fairly playable, and at times I felt like a hero for persevering with it at all.

Sega may have left the hardware business behind, but its little blue mascot hasn't given up the ghost. In the past few years, the GameCube has hosted several Sonic revivals -- ironic, given the once fierce rivalries between Nintendo and Sega. So it's fitting that Sonic Heroes debuts on the GameCube weeks before hitting set top rivals. Returning to the simple speed that made Sonic a hit, the game isn't a slam dunk, but it is a big step in the right direction for the franchise.

The conventional wisdom when trying to explain what's wrong with latter-day, 3D Sonic games is to pin the blame on all the characters who aren't Sonic. Players want Sonic, so the thinking goes, and the high-speed, forward-moving gameplay that goes with him, and aren't interested in treasure hunts or fishing minigames or mech action. After playing Sonic Heroes, though, I've come up with an alternate theory: the problem is the blue hedgehog himself.

The game is fairly simple and isn't a bad introduction to the platform genre of games. There is one team (Team Rose) that features a complete tutorial on every aspect of the game, however, even while not using Team Rose there are still hint rings located throughout the game that tell users what action they need to perform. Sonic Heroes is simply an average platformer that will more likely entertain young players new to the Sonic franchise than veterans of the genre.

Overall, while Sonic Heroes certainly isn’t the worst game ever made, it also leaves a great deal to be desired. Not every game series can make the transition from 2D to 3D, and Sonic Heroes is living proof of that fact. As a long-time Sonic fan, I am once again disappointed by a mishandling of the series by designers who seem to have completely lost touch with what made Sonic a great game in the first place, which was its simplicity. Sonic Heroes takes a simple concept and makes it complex seemingly for the sake of complexity, and the result is an overly frustrating game that feels more like work than fun. If you need a Sonic fix for your GameCube, look into Sonic Mega Collection and experience Sonic the way he was meant to be. Otherwise, if you thought Sonic Adventure was a great game, then Sonic Heroes will likely satisfy you, but the rest of us will be left shaking our heads, wondering what happened to our zippy blue friend.