After several years in video game retirement, Sonic the Hedgehog returns as the star of a graphically stunning 3-D adventure game that blows away every other game in the genre. Sonic is joined by five of his friends in a massive quest that spans over 50 game levels filled with remarkable visuals and a pulsating soundtrack. Taking full advantage of the unprecedented processing power of the Dreamcast, Sega’s development crew, Sonic Team, has designed several gravity-defying game levels that will keep gamers hooked.
Our favorite level is Windy Valley, which requires you to survive the stormy perils of a tremendous tornado. This tyrant of nature chases you relentlessly before ultimately sucking you into the air and up through its eye. During the chase, the tornado manages to tear up just about everything on the screen. This dizzying visual spectacle moves so fast that you will literally hold on to the game controller for dear life.
Assuming you survive the tornado, there are several more challenging areas to conquer, including a level that requires you to snowboard directly in the path of a fast-approaching avalanche. During the Emerald Coast level, you will race across a precarious dock as a killer whale attacks from below, destroying the wood planks underneath your feet while you attempt to outrun the crazed creature.
We also liked the numerous mini-games scattered throughout this title. When you least expect it, Sonic Adventure tosses in some old-fashioned arcade action, such as pinball or bumper car racing. In between, you can raise virtual pets, known in the game as “Chao.” These characters, which are saved using the optional Visual Memory Unit (VMU), can be combined with other Chao characters exchanged between friends or downloaded via the Internet.
Gamers looking to show off the strong processing power of the 128-bit Dreamcast will definitely want to pick up this title. Simply put, Sonic Adventure‘s graphics surpass those of any other game currently available on any home video game system. Let the Sonic assault begin. –Brett Atwood
Pros:
- Strong replay value
- Stunning graphics
- Bonus virtual pet game
- Six different game characters
Cons:
- May be too fast-moving for some players
- Awkward camera angles can inhibit gameplay in some areas
List Price: $ 19.99
Price: $ 19.99
Sonic, a great game!,
Sonic, like all Dreamcast games, has incredible graphics. The first time I played at part when you are flying I felt weightless. To all the people who brag about beating it in two days, this game is great no matter how you look at it and I still want to play it over and over again.
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|Yep, I like it!,
First off, I really like this game. I have to say I wasn’t the hugest fan of Sonic in the past, but this one I absolutely love. The “adventure” aspect really makes it work for me.
It is very playable, quite challenging and it really makes you want to come back for more. The story has been well thought-out, the graphics are excellent, the music is pretty cool and the level designs are nicely done and fun to explore.
Having said that, it can be hard to find your way around the game at some points, but there are plenty of characters to talk to which give hints, which usually point you in the right direction. Bear in mind, I said “usually.” Sometimes I’ve spent around 20 minutes zooming around all the wrong areas of a level because of an obscure or misleading clue. For instance, “Wasn’t there something shiny in the caves?” could mean almost anything. (This shouldn’t give anything away, by the way!)
There are a lot of video sequences. Some seem gratuitous and add nothing to the game apart from an extra video sequence. It would have been nice to skip them if you’d seen them before. In fact, it would have been nice to be able to turn them off completely. The game is big and sophisticated enough to live without many of them and still make sense.
I found one or two of the levels to have traps which were extremely irritating, where you’d fall through something and die or get stuck without it being clear what had happened (particularly the Egg Carrier level). Generally they were extremely well-planned and very enjoyable to work through.
Almost everyone comments on the camera angles. They are a bit dodgy, to say the least. It isn’t just a problem when you’ve died. Frequently the camera will get “stuck” behind a scenery item. True, you can move the camera around and free it up, but frankly you shouldn’t need to do that. It spoils the flow of the game. Sometimes you can’t manually move the camera at all (this feature seems to be turned off at some points in the game), and this causes its own problems. For instance, at one point in the Red Mountain, the camera is positioned directly over Sonic which makes it almost impossible to judge the angle of a jump, because as soon as you move, the camera swings round and the apparent angle changes.
None of that really bothers me when I’m playing the game though, because it’s fun and there’s so many surprises along the way. There are lots of nice little touches (I love the way the characters duck whenever the player jumps near them or zooms by!). After all, it’s the little things that matter and make a game playable, and that’s where the work seems to have been concentrated.
If you have a visual memory card for your Dreamcast, you can also play a little adventure game on that, featuring the cute chao creatures. I reckon we’ll be seeing more of them as time goes on!
Generally, I’d say, if you like arcade adventures where you explore things and solve puzzles, and you have the patience to handle the glitches that are there, get this one pronto. Maybe not worth getting a Dreamcast just to play this game, but if you have one, it’s a lot of fun.
Oh, and the chao really are very cute.
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|It’s good, but…,
This is a good game. If you were an orginal fan of the”Sonic” series, then get it. But, I must warn…before youbuy the game get a VMU (visual memory unit). If you don’t have one you won’t be able to save the game and every time you turn it off, and play later…you will have lost the game you were playing before. Now this means, you will have to sit through those annoying movie sequences over and over and over again. Don’t make the same mistake I did, buy a VMU before you buy Sonic!
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