Xbox

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!

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.

Remember Sega’s Genesis game system? Remember the Dreamcast? Remember one of the legendary animated heroes of them both? Of course, the blue-speedball being referred to is Sonic the Hedgehog.

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.

Hoe dan ook geeft Sonic Heroes je een wrange nasmaak. Het heeft heel erg sterke momenten. Wanneer camera, controls, snelheid en levelopbouw als puzzelstukken in mekaar vallen beleef je opnieuw dat magisch Sonic gevoel van welleer. Vooral in de eerste levels is er geen vuiltje aan de lucht. Maar cameraproblemen en een gameplay die gebaseerd is op "goed geluk" nemen, ondanks het feit dat ze slechts sporadisch voorkomen, de bovenhand en leidt tot onnodige frustratie. Je kan je nooit van de indruk ontdoen dat mits een beetje meer doordachtzaamheid, een aanpassing van camera en iets strakkere controls, heel wat problemen vermeden konden worden. Wat overblijft is een erg plezierig spel met een aantal fundamentele problemen.

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.

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 remplit son contrat, ni plus, ni moins. Malgré des défauts difficilement excusables pour un triple A, il fait prendre au joueur son pied manette en main grâce à la dose d’adrénaline qu’il procure.

When I was around five or six, I had a friend called Tim who lived just up the road from me. He was actually younger than me, but we hung out a lot of the time because he had a Mega Drive and I had a SNES, and we enjoyed playing, comparing and, naturally, arguing about the relative merits of our favourite games - Sonic The Hedgehog and Super Mario World. We were mini-geeks of relatively few long or interesting words, but I can still remember the gist of his argument versus mine. I preferred the pixel perfect precision, momentary bursts of satisfaction and continually mounting tension of a traditional Mario adventure, whereas he enjoyed the speed, accessibility and replay value of the first two Sonic titles. We regularly swapped sentiments along these lines.

With feet built for speed, Sonic the Hedgehog is a perfect match for the Xbox. Since his first appearance so many years ago, Team Sonic must have dreamed about this kind of power, and what it could do for the hyperkinetic levels that drew players to Sonic like fanboys to Star Wars. And, after a couple of near-fatal Dreamcast missteps, the prospect of a new Sonic built for speed is like a refreshing breeze.

När något man älskat håller på att tyna bort vill man inte bli påmind om det genom sig själv. Sonic är alltså på liv och död. Just nu tyvärr död, men genom sina tvådimensionella plattformsspel lever han för evigt.

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.