Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most recognizable mascots in the video game industry. For years he dazzled fans with his speed on numerous Sega consoles. Recently, a few of his games were developed for Nintendo’s systems and finally, in 2004, Sonic has made his way to Microsoft’s Xbox console. With Blinx the Time Sweeper and Voodoo Vince heading the list of most recognizable platformer game leads, it is apparent that the Xbox is somewhat lacking in platformer games. With the heralded Sonic Heroes now available for the Xbox, will this change?
Sonic Heroes does not feature a single story. During this game, you will control one of four teams of characters, and each team has its own storyline, however the main goal always ends up being to defeat the evil Dr. Eggman. Eggman has been Sonic’s nemesis for over a decade, yet he somehow always manages to come up with a new contraption, which sends the Sonic team scurrying to find him as quickly as possible; and if a concept has mesmerized gamers for such a long time, don’t even try to change it.
Sonic Heroes is a revolutionary Sonic game due to the fact that you will control three characters at the same time, instead of one single character as we are all used to. The three characters that you control are known as a Team, and there are four various teams to choose from when completing the Story Mode. The standard team is Team Sonic, consisting of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Team Sonic is. Team Rose is a step below Team Sonic in difficulty, and consists of Cream, Amy and Big. Then there is Team Dark (Omega, Rouge and Shadow), that features the hardest difficulty of all three Teams because it has more enemies and more difficult jumps. Finally, there is Team Chaotix, which is completely different from the other three teams because their missions are far more objective based, thus ensured a completely different experience.
Switching characters to select the one that you want in the lead is very simple, and changing the formation is necessary often due to the diverse abilities that each character possesses. Each Team basically consists of a fast character, a strong character and a flying character. The fast characters, such as Sonic, can perform speed dashes and have attacks that are fairly powerful. For example, Sonic has a tornado spin as well as a homing attack. The strong characters are necessary for destroying rocks and can perform very powerful attacks. Finally, the flying characters, such as Cream and Tails, are necessary due to their ability to destroy enemies that are hovering in the air or to transport the Team to previously unreachable destinations.
The bosses in this game, although few in quantity, were very interesting to fight against. Sometimes you will have to face off against a single boss, such as the Egg Hawk, Egg Albatross or Egg Emperor, yet you will also have to face off against the other teams as well. So, if you are controlling Team Sonic, you must face off against Team Rose and Team Dark. The bosses are fairly easy to figure out, as they have only one or two attacks, which you can learn to dodge and them bringing them down shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. However, I always relished facing off against them.
At times there are various puzzles that need to be solved, but they aren’t too difficult because you will usually come across signs that tell you which formation is recommended to advance. Besides the attacks that each character possesses, there is also a Team Blast attack. In order to obtain a Team Blast, you must fill up your Team Blast meter by killing enemies or collecting rings. When the meter is full, by pressing the white button you unleash an overly powerful attack that will clear all of the enemies on the screen. The Team Blast can also have an effect on your Team depending on what Team you are using.
The Sonic games have always focused on speed and various obstacles, and Sonic Heroes features plenty of everything. This game features all of the flippers, bumpers, loops, sharp turns and speed modifiers that you are accustomed to. Over the course of 14 levels, you will experience Sonic in 3D like never before. The action never slows down unless you wish to, and if the camera hadn’t put a blemish on the experience, this would have been the ultimate Sonic game. The problem with the camera is that it has a tendency to get stuck on walls, show a bad view or make sudden 180-degree turns. This leads to quite a few unnecessary plunges to death, which is a sour note to an overall solid experience.
This wouldn’t be a Sonic game without coins, and they are obviously in this game too. Collecting coins (which are found almost everything) is very useful. They raise your score, keep you from dying and when you collect 100 you are awarded with an extra life. If an enemy hits you, all of your coins scatter in different directions, which gives you the chance to retain some of them. As long as you have a few coins, you cannot die unless you plunge to your death. However if an enemy hits you when you have zero coins on you, then you will also lose a life. Besides coins, there are also other objects to collect. First of all, there are 120 emblems to find, some of which unlock extra modes and sound tracks. There are also some Chaos Emeralds, a staple of the Sonic games, scattered throughout the game. Since you will probably not find all of the items your first time through the game, you have the option of playing not the entire mode, but levels that have already been beaten in hopes of obtaining a new high score, new fastest time or finding new items.
Sonic Heroes features quite a bit of multi-player modes to supplement the excellent single-player Story Mode. The multi-player games consist mainly of various races, and the modes are Action Race, Expert Race, Quick Race, Bobsled Race, Ring Race and Special Stage. These modes are fairly different from each other (although not too much), yet the ability to use attacks is what makes this mode fun. However, if you want to get rid of the racing concept and focus on just battling, then there is a Battle mode. Here, the objective is to hit the other player off the ledges.
This game features quite a bit of replay value and should keep you busy for a while. Although zooming through the Story Mode wishing to simply beat the game will take no longer than 3-5 hours, replaying the levels in order to get a higher score or to find some items will add a lot to the replay value. Also, when you consider that there are four different teams that you can control, then the longevity of this game really adds up pretty quickly. If you have friends over and want to race or battle for a while, then you can see that this game has potential to be in your Xbox tray for quite a while.
The graphics in Sonic Heroes are perhaps the best graphics found in a Sonic game as of now. The environments are extremely lush, vibrant and extremely colorful. No level is like the other, as the environments differentiate completely, making each one so unique and enjoyable. The character models are very detailed and the character animations are as fluid as can be. However, the highlight of the character models is when the characters are displayed during the cut-scenes. I did not experience any slowdown whatsoever during the single-player adventure. The only thing that brings down this game is a sub-par camera.
The audio in this game isn’t top notch, however this is all that I can expect from a platformer game. The character voices sound exactly like the voices that you hear in cartoons, therefore it is perfect for a game like this. The background music isn’t exactly epic, although Sonics games tend to have cheery music. The music tends to fit in quite well with the levels, and that’s all that you could ask for. The sound effects are also nothing special, yet the chimes made when you get a coin or the rumble when you destroy a rock are what you expect from a platformer, so no complaints.
Overall, Sonic Heroes is an above average Xbox game simply because the Xbox doesn’t have many games like this. The Xbox lacks a wide selection of good platformers, therefore a game such as Sonic Heroes is welcome to many collections. Sonic’s transition onto Microsoft’s console is a fairly smooth one, and it could be the best 3D Sonic adventure yet. It is innovative due to the fact that you control three characters at once, and perhaps the developers will stick with this concept. I recommend this game to those that enjoy Sonic games, want to play an above average platformer or simply want a fun, not too complicated adventure.
A special extended version of the popular GameCube compilation ported for the PS2, Sonic Mega Collection Plus contains 20 of the most popular Sonic th...More at GameQuest Direct. com
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