Sonic the Hedgehog

The Good
The design of the characters and the levels are amazing. The voice acting is pretty good for a game straight out of Japan. The game also contains Shadow, who is an awesome character. On my PS3, the graphics were pretty good.

The Bad
I have a lot of bad things to say about this game. The first thing is the loading times. This game took 10 seconds just to load an in-game dialogue that lasted two seconds. The second issue is the difficulty. This game is freaking hard. A younger kid would cry at the difficulty. If you want to start out the kiddies to the Sonic franchise, start with Shadow the Hedgehog. Third is the dubbing. The voice acting is way off on the character's mouth movements. I thought Ashlee Simpson was bad? Last but not least is the lives system. Sega, if you're reading this, make an autosave system to where you don't need to have a limited amount of continues. This way, the little eight year-olds won't cry.

The Bottom Line
To a professional, this game is an unfinished mess. The developers admit it, the critics point it out, and you'll find it out. If you love sonic, you can pick this game up cheap. If you're a casual gamer, stay far, far, away! There isn't much enjoyment here for anyone else.

The Good
I liked the level designs. The story was very well thought-out. The music was pretty catchy. The music aims less towards the electric guitars, and more towards a softer tone. The story in the game actually has a time travel situation where the characters in the game all go through time to find out info and change the future. It gets confusing, but I have not seen a more well thought-out story for a Sonic game since Sonic Adventure 2. The levels are what you would expect from a Sonic game. They do have a more dynamic approach here.

The Bad
What I did not like that Microsoft rushed Sonic Team to finish the game in time for a holiday release. Because of this, the game suffers from long loading times, framerate drops, and imprecise control. The loading in the game is long - 15 seconds at an average. They also appear frequently, especially during town missions. The slowdown usually occurs when you are hitting a robot. The control is sensitive, so you will have to practice with that. Also, the game has too many playable characters that have pathetic play mechanics. The only characters that stand out in the game are Sonic, Shadow, Silver, and Blaze. The others are slower and just make going through the levels a chore.

The Bottom Line
Just because the game received extremely bad press from reviewers, does not mean you should give the game the cold shoulder. Actually, all of the people that reviewed the game, like at IGN and Gamespot, were all adults. You see, adults like the old Sonic games. You know, the Genesis Sonic games. These reviewers cannot stand the fact that Sonic has a big cast of supporting characters, and so they pummel the game for being not Sonic. If you are a new Sonic fan, you will appreciate the game. If you are an old fan, you will probably despise it. Every Sonic fan should at least rent it. You will appreciate some memorable levels.

The Good
Negative publicity is enough to sink a game. The latest example of this happening is the hilariously tongue in cheek game Deadly Premonition. Sonic the Hedgehog, originally released in 2006 for the Xbox 360 is one of the most prominent examples of this generation of a good game being buried under unwarranted negative publicity.

What you get when you play Sonic the Hedgehog is a great game, riddled with niggling technical hitches. A lot of the time, you won't even notice these. When you consider the high proportion of the game that isn't affected by the occasional frame rate hitch then you come to realize that there really isn't all that much that is wrong with the game.

You begin the game with access to only Sonic's episode. The game is composed of 3 episodes taking place in explorable town stages and action stages set in deserts, beaches and ruined castles.

Each episode contains levels designed to showcase the various skills of each of the characters. Sonic's stages are essentially designed to to be as quick as possible, emphasising the sense of speed you expect from a Sonic the Hedgehog title. Sonic's stages are augmented by "speed stages" which are sort of addendum to his regular acts that are essentially on rails. They are a mixed bag of not particularly well designed and really good.

Shadow the Hedgehog no longer relies on guns to best his foes being armed with "chaos spears" that paralyze which are then followed up by a chaos attack. His stages are similar to Sonic but are actually designed better, to showcase his mix of vehicular combat and regular exploration. You normally aren't forced to use vehicles, however sometimes it is a necessity. They mostly control well, although the hovercraft is a bit floaty at times.

The last episode takes place through the eyes of the telekinetic Silver the Hedgehog who can grab objects using telekinesis and then throw them at enemies or paralyze enemies and then use them as projectiles. Silver's levels are fantastically designed.

Occasionally you have the chance to play as Knuckles, Tails, Rouge, Blaze and the new character Omega however while these levels are mandatory they only make up a small proportion of episodes.

In between the regular levels you must navigate the towns and fields of the game either participating in optional missions or simply going from act to act. Each mission is quite different and can vary from a foot race to a logic puzzle. They break up the game if that is what you want and that is nice to see.

Sonic and his buddies look really good and the environments they explore are all artistically realized. Flame Core and Crisis City look fantastic and the beautiful Wave Ocean looks particularly inviting.

Sonic the Hedgehog's soundtrack is fantastic featuring some outstanding background music and competent voice acting. Flame Core, Aquatic Base and White Acropolis stand out as featuring the best music in the game and the general audio quality is commendable.

The Bad
While Sonic the Hedgehog is generally a very fun game there are reasons people look down on it.

To begin with the frame rate does take very noticeable hits at times and it is quite unclear as to what is actually causing it. For instance you can be in a sparsely populated area of town and the frame rate will dip significantly however you could then walk out into the giant field outside town and the frame rate will be fine, despite the amount being rendered. This inconsistency is baffling.

While the town's breaking up the stages are a nice touch, harkening back to the brilliance of Sonic Adventure they do feel rather dead. They feel dead, despite the fact that they are full of people. This is because a lot of what is being said is totally useless. Being able to talk to people and get a bit of direction is fantastic, however when a lot of people have nothing meaningful to say then why have them saying anything at all?

Occasionally you might find in some levels that you'll shoot off into the abyss when you hit a speed boost. Also the camera sometimes jerks around and if you're in mid jump this could completely disorientate you, sending you sailing off the side of a cliff. These occurrences are rare however, far rarer than publications made them out to be.

Load times can become a nuisance. When you try to engage in a town mission, you must sit through 2 loads, despite the fact that these missions take place in your immediate area. They are quite strange.

The Bottom Line
Sonic the Hedgehog is far from perfect, nor is it going to win any awards for creative. The issue is, it's a very solid game with small yet obvious flaws that have been exploited by many publications to further their pro-nintendo agenda's.

Please don't avoid this game, it's a lot of fun and if you've been put off it simply because of word of mouth you need to re-evaluate how you judge games.