When SEGA announced Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 I got excited. Hey I grew up on Sonic games, heck, I remember popping the first one in my Sega Genesis back in the day and being mesmerized by the speed and platforming excitement. I could only imagine what visual and technical feats wait on the new powerful hardware.
SEGA, please tell me what's going on. If there's anything I can do to help (give you a shoulder to cry on, get your coffee, reminisce about the good old days) you just let me know. The demo that turned up on Xbox Live showed a game that had so many control flaws that it seemed broken. Being the optimistic person that I am, I knew that the issues would be addressed and SEGA was just giving us a taste of what was to come. Boy, were they.
After playing through a good chunk of Sonic the Hedgehog I decided that the game looked good. There is some nice detail on the environments and SEGA employs some interesting physics. The cut scenes with Sonic and the Princess (played by Part of Five vet Lacy Chobret) look good, if not a bit weird. Sonic with the little skinny legs and the big head talking to the real looking princess is strange, there's just no getting around it. But I digress. Let's get to the actual platforming.
Although the control is a little tighter than the demo, for some reason your character will continue to fall off of things for no apparent reason. You can do exactly what the game says and still fall to your death for no reason. In a game where you will be making quick decisions when jumping from platform to platform there's no reason for this game to be fighting against you. I'm not sure it's the level design, bad collision detection or a little of both, but you will die a lot. Especially when moving fast. Wasn't that the point to most Sonic games, going really fast? This just boils down to the level memorization if you don't want to meet a quick demise. The hub cities are a waste and you'll find yourself running around not knowing what to do until you trigger a cut scene a certain way and wait for the game to load ... run dialog ... and load again. Lots of technology here guys, why is the game loading in between sentences? The addition of the telekinetic powers seem cool at first until you run into said control issues and anything that actually works that's added to the mix is overshadowed by the bad.
SEGA, why not just make a 2D Sonic? Do you have any idea how cool that would look. At least find another developer to bleed some new blood into this franchise before it gets to a point to where it can't be rescued. People will only give you so many chances before they avoid the title all together. I'm rooting for you SEGA. I know you will release another good Sonic game (not the Wii one that everyone let pass) eventually. There are some moments when things start to work and I start to smile but this Sonic adventure just isn't the second coming of our blue friend.
