Sonic Adventure review

Game: Sonic Adventure
Reviewed Platform: Xbox 360
Other Platforms: Playstation 3, Dreamcast

I just want to open with two words here: "Oh dear." These come from my mouth not only as a showing of my disappointment for a game that i paid 800 Microsoft points for, but for a game that's been firmly placed in my mind for 11 years as the pinnacle of Sega's gaming talent to be such a disappointment. This is one journey down nostalgia lane i won't be finishing.

Now, i know people won't listen to what i, or anyone else say about this game. Simply because i didn't either, i saw the game there on the marketplace and just bought it, no questions asked. I was going to LOVE it. Then i booted it up, and saw Sonic Adventure in all it's glory... All it's horrible smelly glory. I got a HDTV not a month ago to sample the best things in gaming life, like buying a fine wine you don't want to drink because it cost so much. So imagine my disdain when this game booted up in 4:3 resolution, that's near half of my TV showing me blue, and slightly darker blue lines. Brilliant.

The opening cutscene as always, doesn't fail to look epic, and i felt a warmth of nostalgia roll in, settling the 4:3 woe's. Saying that however, the graphics in the cutscene aren't sharp enough to sharpen a pencil. People look like dolls, and Sonic only looks cool because he's the good old "chubby" version. "But Serde! This is a Dreamcast re-release!" you might say. Yes, it is. But it isn't at the same time. They've taken the graphics from the "DX" re-release on Gamecube and PC, so it isn't exactly authentic, in fact, the whole game is the DX re-release, just with every added gameplay feature (save for the chao black market) being removed. But i haven't even got to the in game graphics yet. Jesus are they bad. Not making matters any better is that anti-aliasing seems to have taken a day off in Sonic land. Colours are almost segregated across characters features, making them look like a mess. Perhaps this is the HD doing this, but if it is, there shouldn't be a problem there. Things like this should have been ironed out before they released it. If they weren't going to work on it, why did it take 6 months to come out?!



The gameplay. Oooh, the gameplay. How i loved it back then, speeding around seemingly epic environments on an epic quest... There was this level back then in Sonic's "campaign" (yeah, the campaigns for each character are still there, all with their shitty extra components) where you're on eggman's... Egg carrier, it's called Sky Deck, and had the most frustrating platforming in the game. You'd be falling through walls, railings, off ledges... Mostly because of the camera, but a lot of the time it was just because the game glitched on your face. This time through, it felt like every level was this level. In Emerald coast i was shoved off loops into the sea, in windy valley i flew through the fence in the second section of the level to my death, to which Sonic still, wanting to be non-shall-ant casually says "no" to. Overall the game play is frustrating because of the camera and glitches. That or so tedious you want to switch off (big the cats fishing stages).

But you know what the worst thing was? The absolute worst thing was, that this could have been SO good. They could have re-enthused Sonic fans, maybe even get new ones. This was the last good 3d sonic game (bar adventure 2) before 3d Sonic became absolutely awful, with Sonic 06 trying to draw off Sonic Adventures narrative with a "fire" beast instead of a water beast. Creativity up the wah-zoo. All they needed to do to this re-release was give it a hd lick of paint, change the camera up a bit and get the platforming down to a t. A simple thing that wouldn't have taken too long. Unfortunately for Sonic fans, Sega just doesn't give a shit about him. Whats coming up? Sonic riders natal, Sonic colours and... Sonic 4? Maybe that will be good, i doubt it, but anyhow.

"This rendition of Sonic was good back in the day to our childish eyes. However, by today's standards it's a shambles, don't buy it unless you're the most dedicated Sonic fan."

image credits: ign.com and gamerevolution.com respectively