Sonic Heroes

"When this game first came out, I was extremely happy, but then..."

When I first heard that Sonic Heroes was coming out for the Xbox, and the Playstation 2 I was thrilled that sonic was about to make his debut to the recent systems. I went straight out to buy this game, and for some reason I saw that every copy of Sonic Heroes was still there. That should have been enough warning for me, but I was so eager to buy the game that I had to. No matter what the price was, etc. Soon, I brought the game home, and began to play it right on the spot. I played the game for 2 hours straight, and was so happy with it, snuck out of bed at night to play it some more.

Soon however the game grew boring. I'm not sure what caused this, but if I had to guess I would say, the game got hard which was new to me because all the sonic games that are out (the ones that I have played were a breeze to play on.) Whenever I think about not playing Sonic Heroes anymore, I think to myself “You stupid dope…why did you give up on this game!?” As I think this I suddenly remember that sonic games in my opinion get boring when they are hard to play or beat. When the game is easy, it allows you to experiment with the game and do many other things. So I finally decided to give up on this game. Giving up on a sonic game was a new experience for me because I considered myself to be an expert on sonic games way back in my day.

Graphics 8/10

Even though I lost interest in this game quickly, I have to give some credit to the very good graphics in Sonic Heroes. First of all, let's start of with the land the land that surrounds you while you play the game. In the land around you, everything is colorful, and easy to see. Also, the background has improved drastically from the older sonic games. For example, in The Hill Top Zone in Sonic 2, the mountains in the background look like cardboard cutouts. However in Sonic Heroes on the level with mountains the mountains don't look quite real as in other games, but they were severely upgraded from the old days. Now we go onto to the characters. The characters look superb. They are, like the area around around you colorful and very easy to see as well. The illustrations on their face, and also their facial expressions are awesome. They finally worked on and got down a great Tails look. He looks finally like a little 6-year-old fox that has a fun personality. So I have to say to Sonic Heroes…good job on the graphics.

Game Play 7/10

The game play is unbelievably cool…at first that is. Throughout the first three levels, playing this game is getting a first class ticket to video game heaven. Then comes the hardness, and with the difficulty comes boredom. You're probably now wondering how, if a game is difficult can it be boring? Well, in this game playing certain areas in a level over and over again can easily get you bored of it.

Another thing that I would like to bring up is the teams. The only fun team to use is the speed team which consists of the three main characters in the game…Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles! The teams should have been split up so that every team would have different members with their own different personalities and uniqueness. Doing this would have created an increased fun factor, and if this did happen my score would probably increase by one or two.

Controls 4/10

The controls in this game were a pain in the place where the sun doesn't shine if you know what I mean. When I first played the game, the controls were extremely difficult to get used to. Even when I did get used to them, the controls didn't seem to fit. So throughout my whole experience with this game the controls wern't good, and I didn't know them half the time.

Sound: 6/10

The sound in this game is above average compared to some other games, but I actually think that the sound in the old sonic games was definitely better. In the older sonic video games, you can here every little thing that goes on in a level. In Sonic Heroes however, you can only hear the things that the specific character that you control does. This does stink a little, but it's better than no sound at all.

Overall 6/10

The graphics, and game\play, I think are easily the best things about the game of Sonic Heroes. However, the horrible controls, and the very tedious replay ability brings this game smack down to a 6. These features balance each other out to form an average game, and that game is Sonic Heroes. The reasons I gave the overall the rating I did was because of three reasons…

1. The graphics and the gameplay were both great, and fun. If everything was as good as them, this game would have been awesome.

2. The controls for this game were weird, and take forever to get used to.

3. I played this game for a while, and it got old. I haven't played it for a few months now, and I don't plan to play it soon.

Buy or rent: Toss up

Some people might just buy this game thinking that this game will be awesome. Others just but it to have it. If the second reason is your personal reason than please do not buy this game. If you are looking for around 3 hours of pure entertainment than go right on and buy Sonic Heroes. If you are having second thoughts on this game, than rent. That way if you really like it you can buy it and if you feel the same way I do you will thank yourself for not buying Sonic Heroes.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/04, Updated 03/14/05