I got out of work early today and immediately made a beeline to GameStop in the nearby mall for this game. After getting home, I spent an hour… or two (where’d time go!?) with the black hedgehog and his bad attitude. Here’s my review so far.
They weren’t kidding when they said “Good or Evil? You Decide!”… there really are a lot of choices to be made in this game. Looking at the storyline tree within the gameplay menu, there are a total of no less than ten (yipe!) endings. All these endings depend on your choices within the gameplay. Each stage, you can either help out the good, kick it with the bad guys, or stay neutral. The neutral path is just Shadow being his own rebel self, searching for the answers to his lost past. That path is easy compared to the other two. If you want to go the straight and narrow, or be the dark evil one, the requirements for each level are a little steeper. Also, you have a light meter and a dark meter. The more good guys you kill, the more your dark meter fills up. The more bad guys you kill, your light meter fills up. When either meter is full, you’re supercharged for a limited time with a specific light or dark power.
The beginning cinematics are wonderfully created, and breathe new life into the Shadow character since we saw him last in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. Eyes, mouth, hair and limbs were very expressive in the cut scenes. Shadows voice and mannerisms are deliciously anti-social. I actually found myself loving the moments where Shadow says “I take orders from no-one”. Whoever did the voice acting for Shadow in SA2:B does it in this game and does a great job. The soundtrack is not like the aforementioned game, which was a mix of rock, sugar pop, and rap/r&b. This time it’s all hard rock and metal… the good stuff!
Even though the control scheme took some getting used to, I finally got the hang of most of it. Trying to remember which of the four buttons fire weapons, make Shadow slide and roll, pick up weapons, lift/pull/push things can be a chore. However, it’s a very fun, extremely challenging game. All the levels and choices will keep any gamer busy for days on end. The levels are enough fun to keep going through them trying to find every single item and secret. I don’t know why this game got low ratings from gaming sites like IGN… wait… I know why. They were nit-picking it in comparison to the other games in the Sonic franchise. Message to other reviewers: stop comparing so much!! I know I did, but only the good with the good, not the good with the bad!
All in all, a very enjoyable game! I wouldn’t recommend it for younger than teens, though. It’s a much darker, anti-hero game than the rest of the Sonic games. There’s more violence in this one than the other games (at least there’s no blood!), the main emphasis in the dark objectives is hell bent on eliminating the foolish humans, and Shadow says “Damn!” almost every time he gets hurt! Sure it’s dark and gothic-ish, but so is Sonic’s evil twin Shadow. He is this gamer’s newest and most favored anti-hero!
