"A classic set of games set in stone (or is that 'on disc'?)"

Sonic is back, but in an old costume. Sonic Team & Infogrames have finally put out the Sonic Mega Collection in the UK, and it's old school Sonic at best.

Game Play

I'll review each of the 7 main games separately, since there are a few, but first off I'd like to point out that the games have not been altered in ANY way, they are direct ports of the Genesis originals.

On to the reviews:

Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic's debut, and has gone down in history. A classic game featuring the man himself (hedgehog himself?) Sonic. You race through 6 long levels, smashing badniks and trying to thwart Dr. Robotnik's (Eggman's) evil plans. The game is fast, fun and challenging. A classic and THE ‘must have' in the Sonic Mega Collection.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Sonic returned in the smash sequel, to once again stop the evil Dr Robotnik. This is a longer game, with more features than the first. The zones are now only 2 acts long, instead of 3, but there are more zones. Tails appears for the first time, and is the 2 tailed flying fox that Sonic fans either love or hate (but I love him, why not? He can fly!). Sonic 2 is faster that Sonic 1, more fun than Sonic 1 and definitely more challenging. A nice fast and fun game.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3

Although only 6 levels, this is only half of the story. Sonic has been given a graphical makeover, and now looks a little shorter, darker but more bad-ass. Dr Robotnik's death egg has crash landed on a floating Island, and has set out to use the power of the stolen chaos emeralds to get back. Sonic has to get back the chaos emeralds and stop Dr Robotnik from continuing his resilient efforts to control the world. Sonic again, is faster and more colourful that before. More challenging? Nope. This time, there is a save feature, meaning you don't have to play start to finish like Sonic 1 & 2. This also takes a lot of challenge out of the game. It's still a great game though, and it my favourite Sonic game of all time.

Sonic & Knuckles

This game continues where Sonic 3 left off, and this time gives you the chance to play as Sonic OR Knuckles. Same game play as Sonic 3 really, same items, maneuvers, etc. No real change here, but the 'wordless' storyline is portrayed well. Another fun 2D platformer, who Sonic is the King at, but he shares the throne with Mario. :)

Sonic 3D Flickie's Island

Sonic in 3D? Not quite. More like Sonic from a 3D angle. Looks good, controls kind of awkward, especially after countless hours of the 2D platformers. Fun game though, but I never really spent much time on it, as I never owned it in the past. It seemed fun, but I was pretty hopeless and got lost. Good graphics, fun sounds and overall a nice game.

Sonic The Hedgehog Spinball

Sonic Spinball is a nice pinball style spin-off game, and can get nastily addictive when you're raking in high scores. A nice looking game, nice music and pretty fun. Nothing much can be said, after all, it is pinball.

Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

I played this a looong time ago, but I wasn't into puzzle games much then (except the oh so 1337 Tetris, which is the greatest puzzle game of all time). Anyway, this game is damn fun, especially against a 2nd player. The game gives you a big space, like a Tetris style rectangle, where coloured beans fall 2 at a time. You can swap the colour alignments around and move them left and right before planting them down. Once 4 beans of the same colour have been connected (only through up, down, left & right), they'll disappear and the other beans will fall to fill any gaps, possibly causing more beans to link and cause combos. The more consecutive combos you gain, the more pressure is put on the opponent as clear-coloured beans fall down causing them immense hassle. A great singles puzzler and multiplayer puzzler. As like Sonic Spinball, this game can get addicting.

Verdict
The collection has great platformers & puzzle games, and makes a nice mix. There are some hidden games too, which I won't spoil for you.

Although by today's standards, they're not difficult, the games are more for the older audience to re-capture those memories, for the nostalgia value.

Overall – I'd give the collection as a whole a solid 8/10.

Other Content

I won't go into this too much, because I don't want to ruin the great extras. There are some movies, tons of comic artwork, character artwork and a manual viewer, which lest you view the original game manuals page by page. You can zoom in and out and read the text, and flip through the pages.

Verdict
Some good added content, and really is worth it if you're a sonic fan – 8/10

Graphics

Their Sega Genesis Graphics (‘Sega Mega Drive' for Europe), so don't expect awesome 3D graphics with mind blowing FMVs.

Although, the menu is nicely laid out, and has nice bright colours and twinkling stars. The graphics on the menu are nice

8/10

Sound

The sound is pretty basic sound, but the music for some of the games such as Sonic 2, 3 & Knuckles is awesome. I love the music in this game, and it really helps set the fast paced style of game play and really does compliment the atmosphere of the games.

10/10

Replay Value

If you're a very old school gamer, you'll probably come back to these great games every now-and-then, but if you're not, then you'll probably just let it collect dust. But with a lot of unlockables, added content, great action & addicting puzzles, it's something Sonic fans (especially) should not miss out on.

7/10

Rent or Buy

Rent? No way, this collection of games if fantastic, but it's not a ‘rental' game, unless you really want to go back and see what the fuss is about with the original Sonic games.

This is like a ‘greatest hits' CD, you may own the original LPs, but you've just gotta have it in your collection. I'm a life-long Sonic fan, and have been brought up playing Sonic & Mario games, so I grab anything with their names on it these days.

As I said, if you're not a Sonic fan, but are curious: Rent

If you're not a Sonic, and aren't curious: Don't (Duh)

But if you're a fairly big Sonic fan: I urge you to slap down the hard earned (or given) cash for this collection, as it is classic old school gaming set in stone.

Overall

It's fantastic, purely for the nostalgia value, and the games are great quality.

Although this final score doesn't really average-out to my ‘divided scores', I'm gonna bend the rules and give this one a 10, because it truly is a magnificent set of games.

10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/03, Updated 03/16/03