Sonic and the Secret Rings Comments by Rob Fahey

The irony is indeed not wasted. ;p

i'm glad that this seems like a step in the right direction, unlike the horrible Sonic game on xbox360...

At least when i finally get a wii, there's a sonic game worth buying for it now :)

dkjim - It's a review, not a list of features. If you want that, the official game website no doubt does a solid job of it. My job as a reviewer is simply to give people an impression of how the game is to play and whether they should pick it up, and I really didn't think that the skill system was important or interesting enough to have any bearing on that. I'm sorry that you disagree, but the nice thing about the Internet is that we can disagree with one another and both express our opinions freely :)

However, yes, you DO sound a bit rude, as I'm sure you're perfectly aware. Posting here (and mailing our team via the site contact form) and saying that you reckon I haven't even played the game is pretty much the equivalent of me following you into work one day and walking around shouting "LOOK AT THIS IDIOT! HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE'S DOING!" - so I apologise if my response seemed a little curt, but while I respect your right to disagree with how I've chosen to review the game, I'd prefer if you didn't call me incompetent and a liar in the process... :)

Well I thought it was a great review... it gives me a good excuse to buy another game!

Let me start by saying this game is gorgeous. No, f*cking gorgeous! :) Especially via component It's so much fun too, granted you don't actually do much and some sections felt like they were on the rails constantly. But it doesn't doesn't detract from what, I found, to be a purely leisurely experience. I must of clocked up aboutj 40-50 hours worth of play o nit this week alone. :) It made me put Excite Truck to one side! Lastly, I feel this game is a solid 9, eight just doesn't cut it imo. Sorry Rob. :p

A 3D Sonic game as good as GoW!?

I picked this up yesterday - PC World were selling it a day early - and I played it for a few hours last night. Bloody good fun it was too. You are initially eased into the different control methods and then let loose on its first 'proper' level. It took a couple of minutes to get to grips with the controls, but it's very easy to pick up. As has been mentioned, it looks very nice too. Excite Truck, Sonic, SSX...things are picking up for the Wii after a slightly sluggish start.

If a review should be just a fun read, why do you even review a game instead of writing short stories?
It's the first time on EG that I read that constructive feedback is considered rude. Is that the official stance?

I did enjoy reading it btw, I just wonder how often features aren't mentioned, because they don't mean anything to a particular reviewer.

...must...finish...Zelda....first....

I'll be getting this once I finish Zelda, Excite truck and stop trying to beat my high score of 222 in bowling.

Who would have thought the best Sonic games of recent years would be on Nintendo platforms? It still feels wrong to me seeing a Sega logo on screen while playing a Nintendo console.

"Surely the first four paragraphs would have been better dedicated to actually talking about the game? "

I must admit it really pisses me off when valuable page space is wasted - I like my game details, thouhg in this review I'll make an exception because it's so true and made me feel all warm and fuzzy!

222 in bowling? not bad but ive managed to get 279 beat that!!! :p

Damn you, Santino! I'll be playing bowling for hours now trying to reach that score.

why is the ring on sonic's middle finger? :(

@jmctavish

haha sorry but the girlfriend really likes the bowling so i have to stay on top form lol

edit: the ring is on sonics middle finger 'cos it looks better when flipping the bird to the other characters that thankfully never made it into the game

edit: the ring is on sonics middle finger 'cos it looks better when flipping the bird to the other characters that thankfully never made it into the game
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i thought, Knuckles, Shadow (before the guns), Rouge and Blaze were pretty cool :(

Take that fucking ghost recon ad down.

I started reading this review and thought "I wish he'd been sucked into the book of the dead instead." What a nice surprise it turned out to be.

Shouldn't the penultimate paragraph be littered with 'fewer' rather than 'less' in most cases?

A genuine grammatical question rather than me being arsey.

For all those dissing the gfx. Exactly how do you keep the graphics looking cartoony while having the "next gen" polish?

They tried with sonic on the 360, and it looked wrong. You cant have a cartoony sonic running around a realistic world.

But if you make everything look cartoony, then it wont look very "next gen".

Looking at those shots, no they couldnt be done EXACTLY the same at decent framerates on the ps2. You WOULD have to cut them down, but people probably wouldnt notice the difference, and it'd probably run at lower framerates - but again, people nowadays dont seem to care about lower framerates either.

But that's not the point. Is it fun? Yes.. Who cares what it looks like then? Id rather have a fun game with cartoony gfx which (Due to their very nature) may look last gen.. Than a next gen looking game.. which doesnt suit the sonic universe and plays as shocking as the 360 one (apparently - never played it) did.

I actually had a genuine smile on my face after looking at that.

Nintendo starting to do well with home consoles. Sega making good games. I've just gone back in time 12 years when gaming was actually good. Couldn't be happier. Brilliant.

@smelly: No-one other than a single Sony fanboy had dissed the graphics, but you'll have opened the floodgates now.

Oh look ^
There's one already.

about time there is a good 3d sonic game, the 360 (and soon to be on the ps3) sonic is terrible. Only I could buy a wii as every shop has sold out in town

Oh good grief, a nice thread about a good game... ruined.

Listen, WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK WHETHER IT CAN BE DONE ON OTHER CONSOLES?

It's on the Wii, that's the platform it was designed for, and that's where you can play it. And actually have fun with. Instead of doing this shit in forums. PERIOD.

Well said that man

@SeesThroughAll: I was trying to take both sides of the discussion and balance it up and stuff. But my summary was, it was a good game, who cares?

I for one am happy to see a good sonic game.. i'll probably buy it (renting it first just in case though .. as some reviewers dont seem to agree)

smelly: I really wasn't picking on you mate, but there already were people popping up saying "oh no it wouldn't run that well there, but on that other one"... which easily turns into a cock-waving fest. And we've all seen it happen before.

Lets face it. For the considerable future whenever a wii game comes out all we're going to have is 360/ps3 owners coming on saying "haha graphics look shite compared to all the dull racing/fps games on my machine".

This will continue as long as the wii is outselling those machines, and the fangirls get desperate about trying desperately to make people buy their machine instead.

If the wii starts selling less than the other two, then the posts will turn into "har har.. the wii is dead, it's gone the way of the cube,etc".

Actually kiddywinks.. By posting this, it means you guys no-longer ever have to post this stuff ever again! Yay!

Personally I thought the game was bloody awful back at TGS. I just found the controls ropey, and feeling very disconnected from what was happening onscreen.

So you're judging you opinion on a preview build as opposed to a reviewer who's played the full game?

RE 4 looks better on the cube, GoW on PS2 looks better, ninja Gaiden looks better on the xbox. I wish people would stop giving the Wii slack. It costs about the same as the 360 now. And this game plays OK at best and doesn't look as good as the old systems. Too many areas it falls short in. Alien hominid is another game you overrated as well. Quirky doesn't make a game play better. Simplistic should not be rewarded with good scores.

Especially if this was a PS3 game it would be slated. By everyone. But Nintendo (both brilliant and awful) seem to do less to get more plaudits from the press.

Haven't played a 3D Sonic game since.....well..... Sonic 3D; mainly due to the shocking reviews they've received.

I still think that the hedgehog belongs in 2D, completing the first levels of games in 23 or so seconds (ah, Emerald Hill Zone) but this may well be the one to turn me (and others) around.

Well, the skills I'd say are pretty integral to the game considering you start out as a speedwalking, feeble shit. If the game was actually like the first 10 minutes with it, it'd be awful.

Once you level up it goes absolute bananas though, and rocks beyond recent Sonic comprehension.

the gametrailer video review does say, you move very slowly at the start until you up your level/stats. Seems a bit of stupid idea to move that slowly to get a run up

Thought i'd mention that my two boys (ages 5 and 6) found the party games a lot easier to play then the Monkeyball ones and I personally think that the clunky menu system in Rayman actually make this the better of the three if you have young'uns.

And I don't think you can compare this to Wii Play or WarioWare as they are different types of games.

Just my tuppence worth if anyone's interested...

Nick, if you're out there and see this, i really want to know... Does this wizz as well as it sounds like it does?

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And a general question to all Wii owners, if a few wouldn't mind giving me your opinions about this...

Just how tiring does it get using the Wii controller? As someone with an illness which results in me feeling very tired and getting a lot of pain even without much physical exertion, the idea of having to hold or wave the controller in the air has always been my biggest worry about buying a Wii. I've seen people say that the games don't usually require as much physical movement as people often expect, but i've also read a lot of reports of healthy people feeling sore from the way in which they had to use the controller. I just can't seem to find a straight answer about this. If a perfectly healthy person finds that their arms ache after a half hour gaming session, it would almost certainly mean that the control method would be unusable for me. So, any input would be welcome...

@DocTep

first of all sorry to hear you have an illness. to answer ur question, in all honesty it depends on the game itself as the remote is very versatile i've found. for example some of the minigames in rayman are quite simply exhausting as they are designed to be that way, whereas Twilight Princess is quite possibly the most comfortable and lazy ive ever been in my life while playing a game thanks to the controller being in 2 pieces so you can play from wherever your arms lay. if u look at some videos of people controlling metroid prime 3 also you can barely see any movement at all as very slight wrist adjustments are required for that game.

Fantastic, will definatly be buying this tomorrow after the Metal Slug: Anthology i won't have any Wii games to buy until June with Elebits and Mercury. Which sucks.

I did enjoy reading it btw, I just wonder how often features aren't mentioned, because they don't mean anything to a particular reviewer.

My stance is that a review first and foremost should be as engaging and effective in communicating the quality of a game as possible. To do this, it should mention features if they are essential to the experience - less relevant features (and unnecessary modes, even) could rightly be ignored, because if the reviewer gets it right, they will be as unimportant to you as they were to him/her.

It is, in my view, part of what it takes to be a good reviewer - to understand which parts of the game that are necessary to mention and criticise, and which parts that aren't. Conciseness is important.

That actually sounds awfully good and like something I would really like to try.

GOOD REVIEW. First surprise for me in quite a while.

>"Sonic may have been super-popular once, but nearly a decade of terrible games have killed off the brand. "

Bullplop.

Watch kids channels and you'll see how strong sonic is. The latest cartoons are from late last year-this year.
Heck my 5 years old sister loves sonic, and I wasn't much older when I first encountered the blue bastard.

There is a reason why the crappy sonic games still sell.

Holy shit, didn't expect this score at all. Going to have to try this one then.

...the selection of actual levels is small, with the game choosing instead to offer a variety of missions on each level.

Sounds like every 3D Mario game so far to me so no complaints from me.

The fact that after all these years Sega still hasn't learned that leaps of faith do not add anything to the gameplay - in fact may even piss some people off - is worrying though.

Anyway, thanks for the great review. I don't think I would have picked this one up if I hadn't read it ;)

Hey, remember when Sonic was into funky house music? His whole roots were in the 90's, where speed, beeping music and crazy multicoloured zones were also the description of a good night out. Some of that would go pretty damn well with a genuinely fast and frenetic sonic game, you know.

I've always thought Sonic Team got it exactly right with the Sonic/Shadow levels in Sonic Adventure 2.
Sounds like they just took those and put motion controls on them, i guess.. If that's the case, then this sounds like a must-have
although, what's with the dodgy-ass storyline? I mean, even compared to the old titles, that storyline's dodgerific

Shame about the lack of a proper Jun Senoue soundtrack.

I went out today to buy this - could not find it anywhere :( So I checked Amazon - and it is indeed only out on March 9th in German speaking countries.

A few of the comments suggest that previous Sonic games haven't sold well. Are you basing this on rubbish reviews? Because despite rubbish reviews I imagine Sonic is still one hell of an earner for Sega, even Sonic Heroes seemed to crop up in the high-end of most charts for quite some time after its release.

@Doctep, just want to share my opinion on the Wii games I've finished so far, Zelda, Call of Duty 3, Splinter Cell, Red Steel, can all be played, if you wish, like the crazy, young cool, trendy folk in the promo vids, waving their hands around like there's no tomorrow. Or if you want you can just kick back on your sofa and play all lazy boy like, with only slight wrist adjustments. The Wii sensor bar is great and picks up on all forms of movement exaggerated or not.

Even Wii sports, can be played sitting/lying down with small wrist adjustments, I don't know why but even when played in single player everyone just goes a little nuts, but you really don't have to.

In short, from my experience you can play like a madman, or if you want just 'normally' all the games I've played so far or read about seem to cater for both play styles. Hope that helps you in your decision to get a Wii or not.

BTW, sorry about your illness, hope you get better soon :)