Sega
Publisher
Sega
Enter The Hedgehog
You may (or may not, depending on how deep under that rock you've
been hiding) know that Sega have been through a lot of turmoil
recently, with their shifting business strategies resulting in huge
losses, developers and publishers retracting support for the
Dreamcast, and an ever looming sense of doom as far as gaming on
our console of choice is concerned. However, in the midst of all
this gloom come a few beacons of hope which could well set the
Dreamcast as a format in good stead for the next year or so. One
such glimmer of hope has come in the form of Sonic Team's latest
magnum opus, Sonic Adventure 2.
The original Sonic Adventure was somewhat of a departure for the
famed blue spikeball, with the fast-paced action of previous
outings taking a sidestep to introduce more sedate adventure
stages, which necessitated the exploration of your surrounding
world in order to reveal the storyline at your own pace, unlocking
and discovering action phases as you progressed in your adventure.
While this proved to be a successful blend of the old Sonic formula
and an attempt at a deeper approach to engaging the player, it
didn't wholly suit the brand of Sonic as we knew him, and we
ultimately missed the all-out action the original formula provided.
So with the sequel, Sega have taken steps to provide those players
with lashings upon lashings of hair-raising speed and excitement
from the outset, but that isn't to say that the notion of depth has
been entirely outcast.
This is the first Sonic title to actively pursue
some kind of decent narrative, instead of the usual blind hunt
for the Chaos Emeralds for no apparent reason. The tale dates
back to when Dr. Robotnik's (or, as the game irritatingly and
consistently refers to him, Dr. Eggman) grandfather, Gerald
Robotnik, constructed a huge space colony named ARK, aboard
which he was conducting experiments into the secret of
immortality. A product of these experiments was a curiously
familiar looking creature known as Shadow (basically, Sonic's
evil twin). When the military finds out about this project,
they attempt to capture Shadow in vain, instead killing
Gerald's niece by mistake. Shadow is then consumed by the
anger of Gerald Robotnik, and vows to assist Dr. Eggman
Robotnik in his continuing attempts to take over the world.
Yes, highly cheeseball, but what did you expect? What matters
is that although the game takes a considerably linear approach
to progress compared to its predecessor, the narrative is
driven very well simply with the aid of cut-scenes and clever
plot crossovers.
Choose your destiny
At the starting menu, you have the option to play the story in Hero
or Dark modes, and each mode proffers three characters for your
control. However, you don't choose an initial character to stick
with from the start, but rather the characters effectively take it
in turns level by level. Obviously, things kick off with Sonic, and
kick off they do in spectacular fashion with Sonic boarding down
the traffic strewn streets, weaving between cars and leaping off
ramps. It's a superb start to the game that really sets the pace
and feel for what is to follow, concluding with a manic escape from
a marauding juggernaut, somewhat reminiscent of the whale escape in
the original. Sonic's levels really are the most joyous to behold
within the game, as the ever-shifting dynamic takes you on a
frenetic rollercoaster ride of twisting, undulating levels
interspersed with monster pummeling platform sections - it's the
constant change of pace throughout the entire game that keeps you
interested.
As the story develops, control is handed over to Tails in his
missile equipped mech-suit, in a slightly more slow paced approach
to the proceedings which is a lot more Mario 64 than classic Sonic,
with the emphasis set greatly on precision platforming action. It's
quite refreshing to have a return to these sort of pure gameplay
dynamics, yet Sonic Team have enough clever tricks up their sleeves
in order to maintain an air of constant surprise and excitement.
The third and final "hero" character is Knuckles
the echidna, who's missions involve hunting for various
emeralds in small, dedicated levels using a bafflingly vague
"radar" and a lot of guesswork. Of the three main different
types of play, the hunting mode is crushingly dull in
comparison to the rest, which is a great shame and stops the
game as a whole from escalating into the highest echelons of
greatness.
If you choose to play the Dark story mode, the proceedings are
more or less the same as in Hero mode, with Shadow taking Sonic's
role of dashing about like a madman, Robotnik assuming the position
of Tales in the platform sections, and new character Rouge the bat
doing the hunting. The clever part of all this is that the two
modes are following the same story, but the characters switch
positions and often locations, occasionally coming across each
other in the form a boss section. During cut-scenes, you can
witness the actions of the other side from a different perspective,
and it all intertwines neatly. Playing both story modes at the same
time as we did, you can view the progressing narrative from both
perspectives, which really enriches the experience - this way of
telling the story reminded me somewhat of the way Half-Life's
Opposing Force expansion pack told the same story from the other
side's perspective.
Extra! Extra!
Underneath the huge range of ways to play the game through come the
little sub-games and sections which give the title extra longevity
and depth, and Sega haven't skimped a bit. For starters, once
you've completed a stage proper, you can retry the level again with
a different objective. For example, on the first stage the aim is
to simply reach the goal. On replaying the level, your objective is
to collect 100 rings. Achieve that, and you then have to find a
lost Chao creature. There are a total of 5 different missions
per level, which adds up to plenty of stuff to do once
you're finished with the story.
Oh yes, and speaking of the Chao, they've returned once more in
their own dedicated section which can be accessed in-between
levels, or via the stage selection screen. You can only access the
Chao garden between levels by finding a key on the previous level,
however, and the advantage to this is that you can crossbreed the
animals you find during your mission with your Chao to create an
impossibly huge combination of results.
But we don't stop there, oh no, there are even more unlockable
nicknaks, like a Kart Racing mode where you race against all the
other characters on a selection of tracks, and upload your fastest
times to a world leaderboard. Unfortunately, the kart racing isn't
available in multiplayer for Mario Kart style get-togethers, but
the regular games VS modes sort of compensate for this. While not
being quite as riotous fun as we'd hoped, the 2-player racing,
battle and hunting modes do serve as a pleasant diversion from the
single player game for a while.
It's all good. Sort of…
Naturally, no game is without its faults, and SA2 is without
exception. The largest problem, as with the original, is the
dynamic camera. It often switches to the most awkward positions
possible, leading to death at the hands of an out-of-view gap, or a
monster hidden under a wall which you didn't see because the camera
couldn't catch up to your position in time. The trigger buttons to
serve to alleviate this somewhat, with the ability to swing it
round to your preference, but sometimes it just doesn't budge at
apparently random times.
Another niggle which surfaced - albeit extremely rarely - was some
slightly dodgy collision detection when attacking monsters and
trying to hit speed boost pads whilst running - that is, however,
an extremely slight complaint.
Sonic Adventure 2 is a triumph. Whilst its predecessor was a
fantastic game in its own right, it could be a little overbearing
with the "adventure" aspect, and with this Sega have gone back to
Sonic's roots in style - buy it now.
Eye Candy
9
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