Shadow the Hedgehog

"Shadow the Hedgehog: Choose villain or hero, but did it make it?"

The latest installment of the Sonic the Hedgehog series wasn't about Sonic at all. Shadow is the contender for the lime light of the work of the Sonic team. But did it do good enough?

Game play: Honestly, I'd say they did a fair job in this field. I say that because there were some major flaws that constantly bugged me in this game. For one, if you're trying to earn a hero or dark mission complete, I don't know if it was just me, but it'll take you forever on your own. And the way you see Shadow in the commercial riding on the bike, I saw the bike a few times in the game itself. And the vehicles of the game are slow as molasses. On top of this, if you are being loyal to either justice or wickedness, your ally, which will be Doom's Eye or Robotnik for Dark missions and a hero for hero missions, they will not shut up! In the game, sometimes the side you're helping will attack you on a random impulse and honestly you will feel just like killing them! But whenever you so much as touch them, your ally starts nagging your ears off! Plus, the people in this game need to learn how to tone down the language for an E +10 rated game. Even though its only D___, for a little kid playing this, it won't be hard to pick up considering many many people in this game say it! But aside from all this, the game was a pretty good improvement from Sonic Heroes, the last installment from Sonic Team. The gun ability is new, and at times, very very tempting. As in turning on your side and killing everything in your way, EVERYTHING.
Along with game play, you can also choose which side to play on. This interested me cause I used to love those "Choose your own adventure" stories. You can either destroy the world with Black Doom and the Black Arms, or save it from them with Sonic and everyone from sonic heroes. When you're all said and done, you will sometimes unlock a secret weapon. The final 3 bosses are actually not too difficult. But you make up for it in length of missions. The missions range from "Get the crystal" to killing every enemy in the level, to healing every ally in the level. So as you can see, some missions take longer than others, a lot longer. Be sure to take a nice long nap before you play this game, because it takes a while to complete levels compared to the other super-fast-paced Sonic games. Shadow the Hedgehog involves you more with finding things that reveal your past, which is the whole center of the game. Depending on your choice in missions, depends on how and what shadow finds out about his past. You can become a savior of earth, or the exterminator of the Earth! 8 in this department

Graphics: Here was one field I say they did pretty good in! They kept with the usual style which is excellent. As with all sonic team games, the graphics aren't exactly compelling. But the little movies in between some levels have incredible graphics. In the levels, the detail of characters, enemies, and terrain has been pretty consistent with the older sonic team games. But the new thing is bullets. This was a problem for me. Because the bullets were about as easy to dodge as they would be for Neo. A very broad and distinct red line follows each bullet, And with most enemies shooting bullets at a mediocre rate, they're pretty easy to dodge. But the graphics on smoke and fire still stayed very great. So here, I'm gonna give it a 9

Sound: I say they did OK in this field. They had some problems capturing the sound of a bullet being fired, many problems. The pistol didn't sound much like a pistol and a few of the alien guns sounded like the sounds came out of a 1990's sound board. Aside from this they captured voice(aside from some soldiers and shadow repeating lines repeatedly) and other sounds well. 5 for this field

Controls: NOT TOO GOOD. Shadow does not know how too stop running or how to aim! Even though there is an autoaim system for this game, it still is pretty crappy when you have a grenade launcher because they don't have autoaim! Plus, shadow will run off a cliff if given the chance, no lie. It is very hard to stop his feet from flying off of a floating platform. And the jumps need to have a bit more control, I feel like I'm paper when jumping. A little touch of the stick and he's blowing away. 3 for here

Multiplayer: Disappointing, very disappointing. They tried to incorporate a melee type multiplayer, and nothing else. Its very sad because the stages are miniature, the gun range is much smaller, and you can kill someone in seconds if they haven't any rings. Plus, NO RACES! That screws it up right there. 1 for this field

Overall: This game was ok. It definitely could've had some work done in its mechanics and controls, but that's not much coming from the last Sonic Team game! So it was ok, but it was a bit of a disappointment. Rent it before you buy it, trust me.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/27/06