Sonic Heroes

The Good
First of all, I like its "arcade-style" gameplay (in my opinion, it is more enjoyable than "mixed" style of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2). The game is fast, you can quite quick learn how to play and without irritating "demurrages" - enjoy the gameplay! I was afraid a bit, that the same set of levels for every team will make it quite boring, but I was positively surprised - despite quite similar experience in case of Sonic's Team and Dark Team, every time I had different experience and I had the motivation to end all scenarios. It's graphic and animation are really nice, but one of the strongest point is the music - memorable, dynamic, exciting - it's one of the best set in whole Sonic's history. I liked some of the multiplayer modes (like bobsleigh race or action race), they're simple, but enjoyable.

The Bad
First of all - camera & controls. Camera is sometimes really terrible and making some fragments unreasonably hard (harder than they could be in case of properly working camera). If someone prefer to play on game pad, probably he won't have any issues with control, however I like to play on keyboard, and guys from Sega didn't allow us to change control! And the default configuration is rather bad. Fortunately, using combo "keyboard + mouse" is helping to have more comfortable experience (but why I can configure pad and even mouse, but not keyboard?), but still - it's a serious lack. I didn't like more "slippy & clunky" style of controlling characters (especially in case of speed characters), it was made better in SA 1 & 2). Some voices are unfortunately quite weak - Rouge should has more dynamic voice, Knuckles too (I had impression, that they're slowly falling asleep). And there was a couple of fragments, when game suddenly (and in totally unpredictably way) t ended some longer sequence (for example riding on the rail) and I didn't have even time to react/jump/whatever. Some of multiplayer modes are almost totally unplayable (like team battle), I also really regret, that for every mode there are only 3 stages. And since it's PC version - I also regret, that there is only local multiplayer (I really wish that they could add "online" variant too). Getting back to single player scenarios - I didn't like these two "halloween-style" levels - their project was trivial, boring and a bit irritating.

The Bottom Line
Sonic Heroes is really dynamic 3D platformer, this time quite far from the mixed style of two previous games (Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2). And this time plot doesn't have too important role - it's rather an ornament, being some excuse to a couple of cinematics (they're looking quite good, by the way) and "carry on". But it doesn't hurt in any way - the game meant to be dynamic, with rather simple rules, and it's doing it quite good. It has four scenarios - all on the same set of levels, but fortunately with different style, and believe me, you can feel it. It's quite long game in comparison to other Sonic titles, but while you'll probably end all "normal" scenarios, only the most devoted and persistent fans will end all (or at least most of) challenge levels. It also has a couple of multiplayer modes - unfortunately, only local.