Sonic Rides the Waves of Boredom

I am not an avid player of the Sonic games. Sure, I find them a lot of fun usually however I don't anticipate the next Sonic game and am not likely to buy a Sonic game unless I rented it first. With that said, when I play a Sonic game, I still expect to play a game that at the very least will give me a few hours of great fun. Unfourtanately there was little fun to be found in this game.

Graphics:

The graphics for the game itself are somewhat grainy looking. Maybe it was just my TV set but I didn't get the usual "Whoa, cool" feeling I get when I normally look at a Sonic game. Everything looked as dull and unattractive. Every level was uninspired looking. The cut scenes looked razor sharp and appealing, almost like a CGI film. It's sad the in game graphics weren't the same.

Sound:

The voices for the the characters during the cut scenes are easily heared. The voices fit the characters and for a Sonic game, that's the ebst voice acting you can hope for. Don't expect a Malcom Mcdowell or Al Pachino level performance from these guys. However during the game the voices, especialy the announcer's voice, is hard to hear over the in game sounds, which makes the whole audio during the gameplay sound mushed. The music? There was music? Oh yeah, I remember it now. Don't bother, there's no music here worth the while.

Gameplay:

When you start playing and the first thing you say is "Well that's pretty stupid" you should be worried. You start out on your feet running forward. Run too far however and you get zapped with an electric fence and fall behind everyone else. Start too late and you fall behind anyway. Why couldn't they just let you start on the board and not deal with this useless hassle? I don't know but they do and it's annoying. From there like your typical post Mario Kart racing you get your power boosts on the track(though no weapons in this one) You can hold down X to boost your speed. Then we get another bad decision:sharp turning.

Basicly when you reach a sharp turn, you have to press a certain combo of buttons, and this combo varies slightly, but the slight variation is enough to produce further annoyance. Although only for a short portion of the race, it still slows you down.

Now for the game modes. You have your free mode, where you just pick some and race, cup mode where you race a bunch of tracks to earn a cup, Time mode where you race a track, get a time, and then try to beat it. The next mistake comes in tag mode. Like it says, you get a partner and race two others. Should be fun right? Well it would be however you don't get to choose your partner unless you're playing two player. So I pick this great racer, then they stick me with a crappy one to take on these other two. Add to that it's not a battle mode, it's just another crappy, boring race.

Then we get onto story mode, which is a series of races tied together with a storyline and stipulations added in. Well as is with most Sonic games, the story is thin and not enjoyable. While hangning out in the city, Sonic and his pals getm ambushed by a strange trio. One of them manages to do the unthinkable and outrace Sonic. Add to that, this mysterious speedster is in a competition hosted by Eggman, a no holds barred tournament race with all praticipants giving up one Chaos Emerald, the winner gaining them all. From there the story is predictable and the stiuplations added onto the races just make them even more of a chore.

Roster:

Not a wide selection. Most of the characters were made just for this game although the regular cast is here:Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, Tails, etc. There are unlockables, what ones I don't know because I didn't care to find out.

This game absoloutely reaks. Nothing is comepletely right, everything has something wrong with it. The well animated cut scenes are muddled down by the atrocious storyline. Really nothing to reccomend here.