Sonic Rush Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 November, 2005

Hedgehog's limelight.

Version tested: DS

Here are two things you can do, SEGA, to make ALL of your Sonic games better and instantly more appealing to human beings:

  1. Stop killing me with one hit.
  2. STOP KILLING ME WITH ONE HIT.

Do the devs actually think that the best way to treat the player after he's ridden a tricky moving platform and struck a bounce pad is to plant an annoying flying enemy directly in Sonic's flight-path so that, when struck, Sonic will bounce directly into an unavoidable bottomless pit, killing the player? Or that having Sonic speed under a descending metal block without warning, and not leaving him enough time to escape before it kills him with one squishy blow, is good game design? Or that directing a boss character to kill Sonic with one unexpected strike three minutes into the encounter is somehow also very clever? And that a system that forces you to restart a Zone if you run out of lives before the end of the second stage won't somehow accentuate these things?

Because, I'm here to tell you, none of this stuff makes me smile. None of it makes me think, "Well boy howdy, let's whack a 9 on the end of this review." (Come to think of it, there's not a lot in life that makes me think, "Well boy howdy anything," but the point remains.) It would be nice to think I'm not the only person in the world who reckons forcing somebody to lose BY DESIGN is stupid.

Fortunately, Sonic Rush is a well-made platform game in spite of the abovementioned stupidity.

Forget the fact that it's using both screens. While you'll have to switch your focus from one to the other occasionally when the game moves you up or down, there's very little distinct benefit. From time to time, you'll find yourself on a rising platform and the top-screen will show you the switch you'll need to hop off and press before hopping back on, but it's rarely more complicated than that.

'Sonic Rush' Screenshot snakes

Giant golden snakes: why not?

Forget newcomer Blaze the Cat too. She doesn't really do anything hugely different to Sonic, despite taking things on in a different order.

And forget the allusions to the DS's greater graphical might. The 3d elements are superficial, and when they actually affect gameplay only really introduce a Final Fight level of world depth.

Nope - what makes Sonic Rush so good is that the devs, the chaps who did the Sonic Advance games on GBA, seem to have a lot of good ideas for things Sonic could be doing above and beyond what he did on the Megadrive. (Unlike SEGA itself, judging by the last few 3d efforts.)

There's a Super Boost button ("Rush", surely?), which propels Sonic forward at super speed, enveloped in blue flame, and with enough force to clobber any enemy and bash through obstacles. Super Boost is built up in a meter on the left of the screen, which is fuelled by the slaying of your robot foes, and the performing of tricks whilst in mid-air. Tricks? Yes - arguably a bit silly, but a good thing to remember. And learning when to use Super Boost, whipping it out just in time to clobber an enemy instead of dropping most of your accumulated rings (the only other barrier to one-hit-kills, lest anyone forget), is a rewarding feeling.

Really though, even that... For all the new stuff you can do in Sonic Rush, it's the way the old stuff's done that satisfies most. The levels that mix precise, timed platforming and rudimentary puzzle-solving. The use of common level elements in greater concert and with variation. Overcoming this stuff consumes you in the way that good platform games should.

Example: In one level, you hit a switch to activate a moving platform and then ride it to the other side of a pit. You also hit a switch to briefly activate greyed-out platforms to hop between and rails to grind. Later, you do all of this while dodging enemies. Later-later, you do these things in combination. And so on. All the while you are sprinting very fast between each bit, riding ramps, dodging stuff and generally doing what Sonic does in colourful, imaginatively drawn environments.

'Sonic Rush' Screenshot ledge

We'd throw ourselves off a ledge if Tails was our best friend, too.

If you list this stuff bit by bit it sounds tedious - moving platforms, switch-platforms, trapeze-swinging, bounce-pads, rooms of enemies. So too do the environments - grass level, water level, carnival level. But it's fast and energetic and the controls are simple and responsive, it makes good use of all your available skills in the right ways, and it presents layered levels that reveal their secrets in the face of intuition, KGB-level reactions and a decent memory. With the boost and tricks making an appreciable, if not exactly zeitgeist-redefining difference to the proceedings.

Oh, and despite a few insta-deaths, the bosses are actually very well designed, and actually capable of surprising you on second attempts by wheeling out new attack patterns to keep you on your toes.

It's a good Sonic game. Probably the best 2d one since the olden days.

But of course it is a Sonic game, so what I said at the start still holds true. As much as I might admire the precise way everything's been put together, and enjoy compulsively dispatching Zone after Zone, I still can't abide the way it builds you up and then runs you straight into someone's swinging baseball bat without warning. Completing Sonic Rush and only experiencing relatively tolerable levels of frustration demands a very good memory and very quick reactions. Completing it without actually being unfairly frustrated by it at all demands precognition. And frankly, people with precognitive ability have better things to do than playing this - like standing where they know Kylie Minogue is going to try and lick her ice-cream in a couple of minutes.

And, as with most of the other Sonic games, there's also a sense that you're being carried rather more than you're doing things for yourself. In older Sonic games, well-timed jumps were of critical importance to uncovering the best available route to progression. In recent Sonic games, Rush in particular, actually controlling your own destiny can feel like an afterthought.

Which, when you put into the context of a game that likes killing you, and doesn't really do anything fantastically new and inspirational, is cause to frown a little - even if you really do enjoy a lot of the things you clearly are controlling.

So then, Rush will be well liked, and deserves to be. But Sonic isn't his own genre, and unfortunately for the end score, a lot of the stuff he competes against got past a lot of his problems a long time ago.

7 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (67) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • petebritish #1 6 years ago

    Sonic 2 on megadrive was the best in the series IMO. After that they tried too hard. Might end up picking this one up though.

    Good review it at least sounds better than Fifa on the 360.

  • jienn #2 6 years ago

    Sonic = cute.
    Mario = cute (if you think Ron Jeremy is).

    So both being cute make sense, because Ron is also the 'hedgehog'.

  • Brocken #3 6 years ago

    Article posted at 06.30? Eurogamer team not sleep much then?

  • gamerbunny #4 6 years ago

    brocken:Article posted at 06.30? Eurogamer team not sleep much then?

    hey brocken its 9.30pm where i live

  • Danj #5 6 years ago

    What I'd like to know is why was nothing said about this game's awesome soundtrack? Check out the official site at http://www.se ga.com/gamesite/sonicrush/ for some samples.

  • Machiavel #6 6 years ago

    I think the one-hit kill complaint is over emphasised, what with the rings being your 'rechargeable shield' and there being a copious amount of them everywhere throughout the stages. I also found myself a lot more impressed by the speed thanks to the dual screens, never quite sure if it was the screen or my eyes blurring in compensation.

    Highly recommend it though to anyone wanting the rush of the early Sonics. Horrible Tails/Cream support characters, surprisingly unforgiving in places, but a superb 2D platformer with a general elegance of design and a smattering of 3d effects to remind you it isn't the 90s...

  • Doctor-Necesseter #7 6 years ago

    Nice Kylie comment.

    /unzips

  • paulf #8 6 years ago

    'stop killing me in one hit' - Tom you would of never lasted in the 80's with the likes of manic miner et al

  • tincanrocket #9 6 years ago

    It's been mentioned elesewhere, but Simply Games have this for less than 20 quid - a steal!

  • mrsquare #10 6 years ago

    "What I'd like to know is why was nothing said about this game's awesome soundtrack?"

    o/\o

    what he said.

  • Killerbee #11 6 years ago

    Unavoidable one hit kills and bottomless pits of doom. Pretty much sums up why I've never gotten on with any Sonic game... ever.

    In my view, the key difference between Sonic and Mario (or Manic Miner for that matter) is that Mario / Miner Willy at least gave you a chance to see and avoid what was about to kill you - Sonic, because of the speed the game plays at, hardly ever does, so beating a level simply becomes a game of trial and error and a memory test, rather than skill and puzzle solving.

    I just know this game would do my head in!!!

  • smelly #12 6 years ago

    I personally like it!

    I reacon the people nowadays are too used to games being namby pamby easy and holding your hand too much. I like a game with a challenge, and so far this hasnt disapointed.

    Admitidly the end of level boss on the first zone was a tad hard to judge when you run into the screen and kept killing me for not timing my jumps right. I almost threw it away at that point, but perservered - and the rest of the game is much nicer.

  • tubeoftoothpaste #13 6 years ago

    I'm also suprsed the music wasn't mentioned - some of the tunes are absolutel quality.

    And what about the bonus levels? where you have to use the stylus? No mention of them.

    I definately agree about the having to repeat acts 1 & 2 being very irritating everytime you die. But the 1 hit kill thing is not REALLY that bad. The rings keep you going and very rarely have i experience an actual one hit kill.

  • botherer #14 6 years ago

    No Manic, that's not how arguments work! You've complained that Tom's reasoned explanation for why he is opposed to one-hit kills doesn't then immediately say, "Of course, if I reject all the evidence I've just given, and ignore what I believe to be the case, then the opposite is true!"

    If you disagree, as you appear to, it's your job to provide a counter-argument. You need to explain how it's fun for a game to kill you in such a way you could never have predicted or avoided - how it's good game design to have the player die through no fault of their own. (It's very clear that he's not talking about the sorts of instant deaths caused by scraping pixels with a baddie in your namesake).

    This nonsensical notion of "balanced journalism" is a poorly veiled way of writing, "doesn't say what *I* think". Were he to have made a case that you happened to agree with, you'd have made no appeals for "balanced journalism", you'd have said, "Ooh yes, good point."

    Either you want reviews, or you want people to type out the back of the box.

  • Cyhwuhx #15 6 years ago

    .::: Indeed, have this been reviewed with the music set to off? It has a truly incredbile soundtrack by Hideki Naganuma (Jet Set Radio/Jet Set Radio Future/Ollie King) and it fits Sonic perfectly. More than perfectly actually. Every future Sonic without Naganuma will be less because of it.

    As for the one-hit kills, I've said this many times elsewhere but this is the first Sonic not suffering from that, imo. If you are hit the game gives you enough time to refetch a lot of them. Actually dying because of hits... Well I only really experienced it happening during boss stages (unless I was fumbling along in the normal acts).

    And the 'Super boost'? Enemies are only one way to fill it, using tricks while in the air or when grinding fills this up considerably faster, promoting to link jumps, tricks and enemy destruction to keep the speed up. And it is *fast*!

    I get the idea a lot of people seem to dislike it for it being a bit harder than other platformers. Certainly it was the first in a long time to present me with 'game over' multiple times, but never during the game did I feel it was unfair. Completing the game was a joy and imo it's simply the best Sonic yet.
    Speed, music, controls, challenge, everything is just right. A seven? That's rather timid.

  • paulf #16 6 years ago

    'In this case, the review is just a one-sided rant...' either that or tom is just pants at games ...

  • Genji #17 6 years ago

    lol @ ManicMinerUK

    Is it in fashion to question the integrity of EG reviewers now? I've been seeing quite a lot of it recently.

  • Sabre #18 6 years ago

    Worse than Halo then?

  • tengu #19 6 years ago

    Review seems fair enough to me, I was expecting much worse from this game tbh, based off the awful GBA Sonic games.

  • Cyhwuhx #20 6 years ago

    .::: Integrity questioning? Nah. I've been visiting Eurogamer too long to view the writers as corrupt (I expect them to be the last persons on the web to be so). Actually the only thing I'm truly blaming Tom for is not using any headphones and totally ignoring the music! You Bastard*! :)

    *: not a camel
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/05 @ 11:18

  • Killerbee #21 6 years ago

    "Mario / Miner Willy at least gave you a chance to see and avoid what was about to kill you"

    ahem... Manic Miner doesn't even have air movement while jumping... you get NO chance to avoid what is about to kill you.

    You do! I agree, you can't change direction mid-jump, but you could always see what you were jumping into before you jumped! If your timing or positioning was bad, that was entirely your fault.

    My last Sonic experience was Sonic Advance 2 and in that game you're constantly expected to make massive leaps of faith, at speed, with no idea what you're heading towards (unless, of course, you've played the game before and learned what's coming up).

    Also, I agree the rings were a good idea. The only thing I really hated were the bottomless pits that you died in no matter how many rings or shields you'd stored up.

    Anyway, I think Tom's review was perfectly fair - it's good but it's still Sonic. To me, the main problem with Sonic is perfectly summed up when Tom says: "Completing it without actually being unfairly frustrated by it at all demands precognition."

    Some people will probably love having to learn and repeatedly practice the levels - in which case they probably love Sonic games. I just know I'd hate it and will be steering clear. :)

  • smelly #22 6 years ago

    The only "1 hit kills" i've had is when i've fallen down a hole.

    And it's always been my fault, and i've always known what i've done wrong (mis-timed jump, etc).

    All the baddies just take away your rings, so they're not one hit kills.

    In fact apart from falling down holes, i dont know where this one hit thing comes from, and i've played it a LOT!


    Some people will probably love having to learn and repeatedly practice the levels - in which case they probably love Sonic games. I just know I'd hate it and will be steering clear. :)


    Admitidly i've always prefered mario to sonic, But I see sonic as more a racing game, where the levels are like "learning the course" than a straight platformer.
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/05 @ 11:22

  • Kami #23 6 years ago

    I'm going to chip in on the one-hit kill debate... (Note: Run for your lives!)

    Sonic does not really indulge in one-hit kills (the end bosses and pits I'll give you) - it's up to you, the player, to keep a sustainable amount of rings to keep yourself alive. The more rings you collect, not only the higher the end level score but also, if you ARE hit, the more chance you have of grabbing some back without having to run around and grab the paltry one or two that fly off your person.

    I'm indifferent to the approach though. A good game writes it's own rulebook in my opinion. This means that if the approach warrrants one-hit kills, and does them well with proper checkpoints (Which I take it this game doesn't have), then I can't say I'd be disappointed. It's not a make-or-break thing for me - if the game requires skill then so be it. I may grumble with discontent at those moments which I get stuck on, but I won't whinge about it. It's my fault for not being good enough.

    Of course, bad game design is not a match made in gaming heaven. And I think this is where I appreciate the direction of the "review". I've heard that Sonic Rush, while fun, is just not as well designed as some of the earlier Sonic titles. I really get that.

    I haven't been liking the direction Sonic has been heading for a while - I think it was Sonic Heroes which really put me off the Sonic franchise almost permenently. Sonic Rush isn't going to change my mind and have me running to get a copy, but overall - Sonic is about collecting rings to protect yourself. If you keep dying, it's not the one-hit kill mechanism at fault - plenty of games have used it perfectly well and I still feel Sonic has no true one-hit kill mechanism. It's either poor/cheap game design or lack of skill...

    I'm going to grant Tom the benefit of the doubt and say it's the former of those two...

  • Repsode #24 6 years ago

    The single greatest problem in the game is the fact you can't kill enemies after jumping from spingboards but once you get used to it you learn how to adjust your playstyle to it. After half an hour its a 7, after 3 hours it's a 9, no problem.

    The problem hthis reviewer has is endemic to all Sonic games, and doesn't cause me that much frustration because before that point i've ammased enough rings to get 8 lives.

    This is the single best sonic since sonic 2, highly recommened.

    On the soundtrack, I listen to it in the sound test a lot now. Thats how good it is.

    And is it me or does the 3d seem more impressive than the 3d on PSP(boring me now) because of how "underpowered" the DS is?

  • Markusdragon #25 6 years ago

    Sonic Pocket Adventure will always be the best sonic game.

  • caligari #26 6 years ago

    Okay, now a Tony Hawk DS review please!

    I'd love to see if the game plays as good as it looks.

  • Genji #27 6 years ago

    I like the first couple of Sonic games on the Megadrive. In those games, you could speed through the levels, rolling through enemies, jumping over obstacles, going through loops. It was all about the speed.

    With the later games, though, I was forced far too often to stop and wait for moving platforms; or having to lose all of my rings - and my speed - because of some spikes that decided to appear underneath me as I was running past. In those slower situations, Sonic lost out to Mario, because he didn't control nearly as well. The exhilaration was gone. From what friends have tole me, this incarnation is more of the same.

  • thegamesthething #28 6 years ago

    you know what i hate about driving games? corners

  • Cyhwuhx #29 6 years ago

    .::: Genji, if you loved Sonic for speed, then Sonic Rush is the best you can get. The older titles are incredibly slow and more stop-go-stop than this. In fact I'd turn your comment the other way around for Rush.

  • botherer #30 6 years ago

    "Well, I guess my counter argument is "loads of games do it and you've never mentioned it as a problem before, so is that REALLY why you dislike the game or is it just the first thing that came to hand?""

    How is that a counter-argument? If I said to you, "Counter the argument that killing people is bad," and you said, "People have been killed in the past," that would hardly be addressing the issue. You sound like a Tory politician.

    So you said he should have provided the other side of the argument. In fact, you demanded it. So what is it? Share the defense for unfair deaths that the player cannnot predict or prevent. You *must* be able to without any effort, as were you so certain it was absent from the review.
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/05 @ 12:48

  • botherer #31 6 years ago

    People are right. Every comment thread on the site is now plagued with people shrieking their petulant demands, booming their orders for how reviews should or shouldn't be written, condemning writers because they challenged their previously unchallenged opinion, stomping around, fists in a bunch, knees in a high, pompous march, yelling at anyone nearby about what they want and why it's unfair that they don't get it. It's like a seven year old having a tantrum, bemused and hysterical that the entire planet isn't built around them and their precise whims.

    You don't like a review? Good. Say, "I didn't like this review because..." But these hissyfits, commanding the journalists on what to do and not do - man alive, give it a rest.

  • thegamesthething #32 6 years ago

    "people shrieking...."

    dude the loudest shrieker round here is you

    "man alive, give it a rest."

    well precisely

  • Aretak #33 6 years ago

    I'd give this an 8 personally... easilly the best Sonic game since S3&K, but still not quite up there with that and Sonic 2.

  • BremXJones #34 6 years ago

    Manic: I decided that I'd better explain my disagreements with Walker privately than in a public diss which people would miss the point of.

    I actually agree with Walker. I just wouldn't SAY it like him as inflamatory posts are inflamatory posts. Doesn't matter if he's right or not, in terms of cultivating the correct ambience.

    (Me? I answer direct questions and when I think someone's missing something pose a socratic question to try and point people towards my position without getting in a shouting match)

    KG

  • Machiavel #35 6 years ago

    Yep, Genji, give it a go. Sonic Rush is, as you yearn for, all about the speed. And it's quite a show.
    Edited by 2 at 29/11/05 @ 13:34

  • Stoatboy #36 6 years ago

    "Do the devs actually think that the best way to treat the player after he's ridden a tricky moving platform and struck a bounce pad is to plant an annoying flying enemy directly in Sonic's flight-path so that, when struck, Sonic will bounce directly into an unavoidable bottomless pit, killing the player?"

    That strikes me as the main crux of the one hit kill problem here. The game has a mechanism to prevent one hit kills (the rings), and yet the level designer has managed to engineer one regardless, by placing an enemy in the player's path that they can't see until they've got no choice but to hit it, above a pit that will kill them when they fall into it. If the game had been designed to be one hit to kill then you'd hope that any designer who placed an enemy somewhere where the player couldn't see it until it was too late would be beaten with sticks until they saw sense.

  • Cyhwuhx #37 6 years ago

    .::: Absent until December 2nd.

  • Genji #38 6 years ago

    Yes, I will try it. But after Animal Crossing, Castlevania, etc. I have a lot of DS games to buy :-(

  • thegamesthething #39 6 years ago

    re-reading the above, i think "knees in a high, pompous march", should infact be "knees high, in a pompous march"

    just a pointer john, no need to shriek :)

  • Mirkan #40 6 years ago

    Sonic is a racing game and the levels are tracks, make no mistake. You won't foul a racing game because you crash the first time round (unless you're playing.. I dunno.. Mario Kart?) instead you memorise the tracks and you do better and better on them.

    This has always been true about Sonic games except maybe the Adventure series which is surprisingly forgiving and just generally really easy, and if that fact is getting to you then perhaps you just don't like Sonic games anymore.

    The important thing is that the tracks are well designed and layered and increasingly challenging for the inevitable grudge match against your friends in either battle or time attack once you beat all of it, and in this area Rush completely excells. Tom's right about this being the best Sonic game since the old ones, and even though someone will prolly want to hang me for it, I think it's probably even better.

  • Metalfish #41 6 years ago

    Erm, thegamesthething isn't that still grammatically correct?

  • JonFE #42 6 years ago

    Slightly off-topic, but where is the X360 Fifa review ?

  • smelly #43 6 years ago

    Slightly off-topic, but where is the X360 Fifa review ?

    Who cares? According to review, it was shit.


    Mirkan

    Deffo agree there mate.

  • thegamesthething #44 6 years ago

    yes metalfish, i just dont know what a high, pompous march is ... unless its a pompous march when one is high?

    actually im not atall sure about "fists in a bunch" either, i think john might have been a bit upset :)

  • JonFE #45 6 years ago

    It's not that I actually care, but I'm a sucker for conspiracy theories :)

  • botherer #46 6 years ago

    "botherer, are you Tom, or just some punter..."

    Why, I'm TV's Famous John Walker.

    "whoever you are, you don't have a clue what you are talking about..."

    Clearly.

    "you want an equivalent of what I said as a counter-argument to the sentence "killing people is bad", try this one, and then kindly take yourself away until you have attained some kind of basic literacy level..."

    I'm quite confused about how you're not understanding my question. My lack of a philosophy degree is clearly putting me at a massive disadvantage, so you'll have to be forgiving.

    I'm asking for you to enter into some dialectic. Provide a sort of Hegelian antithesis to Tom's thesis. He gives his reasons why it's bad to be killed in unpreventable or unpredictable ways. I'm asking for the reasons why it's /not/ bad - you began by stating that his review failed by not mentioning these. It's peculiar that you haven't just said what they are. I've not been overly ambiguous in my queries.

    "Killing people has never really bothered you before, so why the sudden statement of absolute morality over it now?"

    See, that's not providing the reasons why his statement is incorrect. That's just saying, "You didn't say this last time." It's another debate. You want to know, "How come you've suddenly started not liking this, when you didn't mention it before?" Fine, reasonable question. But it clearly has nothing to do with my question, which is, "What are the benefits of instant deaths that can't be predicted or avoided?"

    It would be a shame if you replied, "He didn't mention it last time," again.

  • botherer #47 6 years ago

    "yes metalfish, i just dont know what a high, pompous march is ... unless its a pompous march when one is high? "

    Imagine a seven year old child, dressed up in his soldier costume, the helmet too big and tipped forward, half obscuring his eyes, a blanket cloak fixed around his kneck, a plastic sword tied with string to a dressing gown belt on his waist. His fists are clenched, his eyes screwed up in anger, and he's raising his knees high so he can stamp down hard as he walks, so furious is he that he's been told it's time to have his bath.

    That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

  • thegamesthething #48 6 years ago

    very vivid - i'm glad youve chilled a bit :)

  • Yazoo #49 6 years ago

    No game has ever given me motion sickness... until I tried this. As the screen Sonic is on scrolls with the character until you reach the top/bottom of the level, and then quickly haults and Sonic carries to the other screen, it just gave me a really bad headache. Other than that the game seemed reall well constructed and a good 2d-Sonic - just a shame it had to try to justify the dual screen.

  • bloodflowers #50 6 years ago

    One hit kill - no problem, that's how arcade style games always were and should remain - punish the weak.

    However, what's not forgivable is the way the player is virtually on autopilot, going too fast to ever hope to see what's happening next, especially on a small LCD screen! After hearing much hype I was hoping for a return to the platform style gameplay of the first few Sonic games, this is just on rails tat.

    Also, from John Walker:
    "I'm asking for you to enter into some dialectic. Provide a sort of Hegelian antithesis to Tom's thesis."

    Is your other pseudonym Tim Rogers?

    Edited by 1 at 29/11/05 @ 18:07

  • kentmonkey #51 6 years ago

    Botherer wrote: "People are right. Every comment thread on the site is now plagued with people shrieking their petulant demands, booming their orders for how reviews should or shouldn't be written, condemning writers because they challenged their previously unchallenged opinion, stomping around, fists in a bunch, knees in a high, pompous march, yelling at anyone nearby about what they want and why it's unfair that they don't get it. It's like a seven year old having a tantrum, bemused and hysterical that the entire planet isn't built around them and their precise whims."

    When have people said that? I've not seen one post that was anything like what you've just concocted above. I've not seen anybody having a hissy fit, what I have seen is people leaving "feedback" or "speaking their brain". I've not seen one person (hard to when it's on a forum admittedly) bemused or hysterical that people don't agree with them, other than you it is. It seems you're fine to disagree with posters, but not the other way round.

    You don't exactly help things either with your deliberate flame bating review style, sarcastic retorts and completely inappropriate comebacks such as "BLOWHEAD". That was incredibly childish and no matter what has happened before, totally not the done thing as an employee in my book, talking to a customer. What annoys me most with retorts like that are that you wouldn't likely say it in person to somebody unless you were in line for a place in a mental institute as they would either laugh in your face at how pathetically childish you'd just been or alternatively sit you on your backside, depending on their mentality.



    You're not exactly going to help things either with pathetic little rants like that, you want people to stop, try improving your reviews and listen to the feedback being left (mainly for you over the past couple of days) rather than blowing your top which isn't going to help the situation. Red rag to a bull mean anything to you?

    For what it's worth, I thought this was an excellent review, business as usual. I thought it labelled clearly the fact that the reviewer didn't like the one-hit kills mentality of the series and for him that was the 2nd biggest stumbling block next to the unavoidable instant deaths. I've never really got into Sonic, my wife loves it, for exactly the same reasons I don't like it, so being able to see both sides of the story I thought the review made it clear that if you like Sonic you'll most likely love this and think it's an 8. If you're not a fan, it's not going to be for you. If, like Tom, you like it but just think there's better examples in the genre that have progressed and aren't quite so frustrating, it's a perfect 7. Great review, and to slightly amend a famous line "can we have some more please sir".

    As Kieron has so eloquently put it before me, my advice would be to take lessons from him, both as a writer and as somebody who replies to customers/posters/plebs, whichever category you feel we fall into.

    Kieron's reviews are generally excellent, in fact I'd like to drop the "generally" as I've never read a bad one of his, and when people disagree with what he has said, he has the patience to not only reply properly and try to address the issues but also to try and calm down the situation, if it needs calming down or dropping down a notch or two. He also has an excellent grasp of the English language which means that cheap level retorts are not necessary.

    You wanted controversy, it was clear from your review, and you're quite happy to stir up a hornets nest in here as well because seemingly you're still p*ssed about yesterday, but then complain when that hornets nest strikes back. I find that very hard to comprehend.

    /reiterates great review in case it got lost in there somewhere


  • botherer #52 6 years ago

    "Is your other pseudonym Tim Rogers?"

    How DARE you?!

    km - "You don't exactly help things either with your deliberate flame bating review style, sarcastic retorts and completely inappropriate comebacks such as "BLOWHEAD". That was incredibly childish and no matter what has happened before, totally not the done thing as an employee in my book, talking to a customer."

    I'm not an employee, and you're not a customer, so with those out the way it gets much easier.

    And I said "BLOWHARD". I'm not sure what a "BLOWHEAD" is.

    "You wanted controversy, it was clear from your review, and you're quite happy to stir up a hornets nest in here as well because seemingly you're still p*ssed about yesterday, but then complain when that hornets nest strikes back. I find that very hard to comprehend. "

    No. I want nasty people to stop telling my friends that they are rubbish at their jobs in entirely unconstructive ways.
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/05 @ 18:25

  • kentmonkey #53 6 years ago

    Botherer, when has anybody told your friends that they are rubbish at their jobs in nasty ways? You're making a far bigger thing out of this than anybody else there.

    You don't want to let it go but you don't like it continuing, I can't work you out.

    Oh and so I'm not a customer, none of us are customers of EG? is that right? So us coming here reading EG's reviews doesn't make us customers? Are the fact that we help keep the site going with hits for banner ads doesn't make us customers? The fact we don't pay doesn't come into it, you don't have to pay to be a customer.

    So you're not an employee, I take it you're not employed means that you still get paid to do your reviews and I wonder how much longer that will last with your attitude. You basically didn't deny that you were trying to flamebait either, which makes your whole "hissy fit" even funnier when you then did get flamed. Somebody call a wambulance for Mr Walker.

    I'm not sure what a Blowhead is either, but then again I'm not familiar with the term blowhard either? And the fact you thought it was fine to call somebody that rather than blowhead speaks volumes of you I think.

    I didn't see anybody saying Tom couldn't do his job, he's got too much respect for that from people here I think and it was a bloody good review anyhow.

    My email is in my profile, why not email me if you want to continue this? I'm sure others would prefer that. Out of courtesy I would like to be upfront and warn you that I will be highlighting your comments to Rauper as I find them unacceptable. Not the fact you've defended yourself, more the unprofessional way in which you've gone about it.

  • botherer #54 6 years ago

    km - If I've offended you, I'm genuinely sorry. It was not my intention to upset you - merely argue with you.

    Please understand I don't say this in fear of your telling on me to Kristan, but more just the moment of come-down from being pissed off, and recognising that I become just as rude and unpleasant as the people who get me into that state.

    It's probably fair to recognise that your deliberate insults aimed at me do no more for your case than mine do for mine.

    But I think, in the end, it's better for me not to comment in threads any longer, as I am too compelled to say what's on my mind, and worry that it harms the perception of my reviews.

  • kentmonkey #55 6 years ago

    "km - If I've offended you, I'm genuinely sorry. It was not my intention to upset you - merely argue with you."

    You haven't offended me at all so no need to apologise (although thank you for the intention) it's more the fact I think it looks bad on EG to have one of it's employees (you will be seen as one) resulting to such lowly comments.

    "Please understand I don't say this in fear of your telling on me to Kristan, but more just the moment of come-down from being pissed off, and recognising that I become just as rude and unpleasant as the people who get me into that state.

    It's probably fair to recognise that your deliberate insults aimed at me do no more for your case than mine do for mine. "

    Agreed, although my deliberate insults at the start in the GSH thread were just that, you did a deliberate flame baiting review, I did the same in the comments section to provoke a response. I did mean a majority of what I said but usually as others on here would testify, it would never be said like that. It was deliberate, it got the response, but I do agree with you.

    "But I think, in the end, it's better for me not to comment in threads any longer, as I am too compelled to say what's on my mind, and worry that it harms the perception of my reviews."

    Why not type what you think, leave it 10 minutes and then re-read before posting? That way it allows for the initial temper to die down.

    Please don't get me wrong, I actually hold the reviews generally on this site in very high esteem as I tried to say yesterday and today, it's just this week has seen some really poor reviews (not just in my opinion if you can be unbiased and look at the comments on 3 reviews in particular...not this one though) and I was trying to do something about it, at least make it noticed. It probably worked too well in hindsight. That's actually a huge compliment to EG I think.

    Anyway, if you want to remove the comments you made, I'm happy to help in removing the bits I've quoted, as I'd rather no bad came to EG and that some of those comments you made weren't visible by potential sponsors of the site or potential new longterm visitors. If you'd like to do that I'm more than happy to do the same.

    Reg's

    KM

  • oerhoert #56 6 years ago

    Disagree about this week being particularly poor, actually. As long as the reviews are well articulated, analytic and intelligent, and manage to entertain at the same time, I can very well live with disagreeing with some of them.

    I haven't played Gunstar, but from my experience with Astro Boy, it <em>is</em> quite a narrow genre, and feels a bit too archaic nowadays to just cash in the eights and nines on auto pilot. I <em>have</em> played Kameo, though, and I think EG's review was spot-on. Lots of the defenders <em>will</em> have a bit of a revelation when they find out exactly how unengaging the game is.

    Other than those two, however, I haven't even noticed anything particularly controversial. Care to elaborate what reviews you were referring to?

  • Genji #57 6 years ago

    See? We CAN make peace with each other! Who wants a smoke of my happy pipe?

    /passes pipe around

  • monkeyspasm #58 6 years ago

    I agreed with Walker though.

    Criticism of reviewers has got just...daft lately.

    You don't agree with a review? Fine. But I distinctly recall someone calling for Mr. Walker's head on a plate yesterday, which prompted my criticism in the forum.

    edit - and re-reading, KM's last post is incredibly childish. 'You should delete your posts as they'll harm EG'? What?

    Not as much as yours, pal.

    It's laughable. Get a grip, guys.
    Edited by 1 at 30/11/05 @ 08:09

  • Genji #59 6 years ago

    Oh dear.

  • Genji #60 6 years ago

    Anyone still want some of that happy pipe? There's plenty to go around!

  • Machiavel #61 6 years ago

    /suspects Genji is cutting the mix too much ;)

  • Genji #62 6 years ago

    No, I just want people to agree to disagree! Stop the arguing!

  • volvis #63 6 years ago

    Question:

    How are game saves handled in Sonic Rush? Is it only between the larger episodes or after every level?

    I'm curious because I'm wondering the pick-and-play value of this game: if I get tired before I can finish the current episode, do I have to start all over again the next time I play?

    Thanks in advance!

  • Beitel #64 6 years ago

    @ volvis: The game saves automatically every time you finish two acts in a row. You can select the boss battle that comes after that every time you want.

    And oh, I don't agree with this review. One-hit kills aren't an issue with this one, in my opinion. But who said that reviewers have to be always right and look at every aspect of the game? If you think you can do it better, write your own review.

  • kentmonkey #65 6 years ago

    /reads Monkeyspasms post...has plenty to say
    /reads Genji's offer of the peace pipe, accepts and takes a big puff
    /replies to Monkeyspasm

    Oook!

    /takes another puff
    /wonders where all the pink fluffy bunny's playing "it's a small world" on violins came from
    Edited by 1 at 30/11/05 @ 19:07

  • NickGillett #66 6 years ago

    That's one of the best game reviews I've read on the Internet. Funny, perceptive, and having played the game at length - absolutely right in every respect. It's a deeply flawed joy to play.

  • volvis #67 6 years ago

    I played this and I have to say that Mirkan (at the top of the page) is spot on about this game being a racing game to boot. I'm having such a blast perfecting my routes that Mario Kart will just have to wait. I managed to run the first forest level with Blaze sub one minute last night, but I know there are still places where I can improve.