Monday, May 21, 2012

Review: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) Part 2


My palms were sweating. Patience was wearing thin. It's okay, I thought. I can wait around for this. Only when I changed over to the football on TV for a little bit, saw a goal being scored, then turning back did I realise that nothing happened. The loading screen had been staring at me for a grand total of 13 minutes. I realised in that time, for the first time in my life, real disappointment. I hate this game.

TL;DR: 13 minutes before I could even attempt Shadow's first mission. That's how long I had to wait.

IT JUST WON'T STOP!!!

This game is so boring and it has it's loading screens and it's unfinished feel to blame for it. I have games that install on my Playstation 3 faster than it takes to load a level for Sonic the Hedgehog. When I said that I had so much to complain about, I wasn't lying. Now after completing the three main stories, I can safely say that the list has doubled. I can't say everything, otherwise I'll be here all day, so I'll just explain the worst of it so perhaps you can get an idea of just how depressed playing this game made me feel.

I can just hear him saying "You got yourself into this...".

I think the penultimate moment where my dislike of this game was magnified was the boss battle with Silver. It happened in Sonic's and I thought it was a glitch (it was) but then when I played against him as Shadow, the same thing repeated. You see, Silver has psycho-kinetic powers, so he could literally pick me up with the poser of his mind and throw me against a nearby wall, damaging me and making me lose all my rings. If he was close to this wall, he could so it again  and again and again until the ring that was falling out after being hit managed to avoid me. That's right, I wanted my lone ring to bounce away from me so that I could die. That's how much I disliked this game. I felt better when I was dead. But then that feeling didn't last long as I had to sit through another loading screen…

I hated this. I want Silver to go die.


I remember a quote during the game where my sidekick (I've forgotten their name, that's how memorable they are) comes up with an excellent quote whose timing can possibly put it next to Vector's line of "Find the computer room" as one of the worst delivered lines in Sonic history.

"Watch out Shadow! If something that big runs into you the soft footholds won't hold."

I heard this every single time I was dead. Not before, where a prior warning would have been accepted, but after it was needed.  My body lay sprawled on the ground, limbs lying next to me as if I was sleeping (there was not much slack for movement, it's G rated after all) and I was given warning about the big hunk of death that was coming towards me. I didn't like this late announcement one bit.

Yeah Shadow! Watch out for that big worm thing creeping up behind you!

I'm going to stop the Sonic slaying at the end of this next paragraph. I feel as though you get the picture of what I'm trying to say, plus I want to keep this entry fairly short in case my brain decides to explode at the thought of actually completing the game (I'll only do it if I get paid. There, I said it).

This last point is about a civilian in Soleanna, again, because you end up going there quite a fair bit. This civilian had a yellow exclamation mark on top of them but when I spoke to him, he said the same thing as the civilian on the opposite side of the road. Now, I thought this was just Sonic Team being lazy but no, it was worse. After wandering around all of Soleanna and not finding a single person with a blue exclamation mark, I decided to look every where else. After spending 20 minutes looking through every nook and cranny of all the hubs of the game, I decided to ragequit and turn off the game. After coming back to it a week later I ended up spawning next to the civilian who was copying the guy opposite him. He was now blue. He was now also about to die. I haven't played since.

"Can there be a sequel guys?"

No. No there will not be.




-- FINAL VERDICT --

Platform Used: Xbox 360

Score: 2/10

Recommendation: Avoid.

The game is glitchy. The game has a weak story. The game is terrible on all fronts.

Give it to a friend to play and watch the torture.