Shadow the Hedgehog

"Disappointing in every area"

It's always sad to watch something you once liked descend into a miasma of bad quality and little apparent effort, unfortunately however, that's exactly what the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has done, and there's no reversing the trend here in Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow is the latest 3D action adventure from Sonic Team, and sadly it, like its predecessor Sonic Heroes, suffers from a general malaise of poor design and implementation.

The most damning fault with the game is the control you have over Shadow's movements. The quality of control in a videogame can best be expressed by the difference between what the player expect the character to do in response to a given command, and what actually happens when the command is input. The level of control a player has is influenced by the physics of the character's movement and the position and motion of the game camera. Shadow is a big let-down in these areas. The Hog himself accelerates to top speed extremely quickly, making fine adjustments to his position very difficult, and the camera frequently has a hard time keeping up with his progress through the levels at high speed, making some environmental hazards more difficult to avoid than they should otherwise be. Trying to backtrack through levels is similarly hampered by a camera which has its own ideas about where it should be pointing, never mind where you might be wanting to go.

The poor control extends to the biggest new addition to the game, Shadow's arsenal of weaponry. Since you cannot make any fine adjustments to Shadow's position, aiming your guns is a matter of pointing him vaguely at the target and hoping the intermittent aiming assist will pick it up and let you score a hit. There is a command which locks Shadow facing in the direction he is going and allows for strafing, but since there is no way to actually change his direction other than running in the direction you want to be looking and hoping it was the right way, there's really little use for it. There is, of course, no way to stand still and aim your weapons, so using them at anything other than point blank range is futile.

Also added were a cursory few vehicles, which are for the most part redundant, as Shadow can move around quicker without them and they offer no better protection than the rings Shadow can collect. Unless they are absolutely necessary for the completion of a level, they will likely go ignored by many players. Control of the vehicles is marginally better than whilst on foot, but still unsatisfying. The two new powers Shadow has access to in this game are similarly ignorable, neither of them are useful to your progress through the level, the "light side" power, Chaos Control, usually means you will skip mission objects, and the "dark side" power, Chaos Blast is of limited use because there are rarely sufficient enemies to make it worthwhile using.

The issues with game control would be damning even if the rest of the game were superb. That, unfortunately, is not the case. The levels that Shadow's adventures take place in are poorly designed both as gaming areas and as graphical environments. The preponderance of infinite drops that has plagued the level design since Sonic Adventure is out in force, which combined with the poor controls will lead to the level layout itself being your principal opponent in the game, not the enemies that fill those levels. The levels do occasionally have multiple routes, which is an improvement over the previous 3D Sonic games, but there is still very little room for exploration as the levels are, with one or two exceptions, still strictly linear affairs. They aren't much to look at either. The opening level's city, for example, is uniformly decked out in dull shades of grey and brown, with extremely simple textures which are often bettered even on the PlayStation 2, the weakest of the three machines the game is seeing release on, and the buildings are all square boxes with windows, This not only makes for a poor impersonation of a city, which are usually comprised of wildly differing buildings in many styles but also a deeply uninteresting gaming area. You won't want to stop and look at the scenery, there's nothing to see.

The lack of interest in design encompasses the enemies, which whilst they are reasonably varied in type, none of them are particularly memorable foes, lacking the design detail and flair shown even in the original Sonic the Hedgehog. The alien enemies, for example, are near featureless black shapes with red extremities. The enemies are also for the most part singularly non-threatening. Shadow can ignore them if he is moving at full speed, as they have no hope of keeping up with him, and their attacks only cause him to drop ten of his rings, rather than all of them, as in previous games.

Things look up a little on the sound and music front, being at the least average. The effects for the weapons are a reasonable effort, though they lack any real punch or weight. The music is easily forgettable, but you at least won't reach for the remote to stop your ears bleeding. The game voices, provided and recorded by the crew of 4Kids entertainment are similarly average, none of them stands out as bringing any real personality or character to their roles, but they chew through the game's awful dialogue without sounding too bored or incompetent. Xbox players can replace those voices with the Japanese cast, whose delivery carries a little more energy and character, and who have been used for the roles since the first Sonic Adventure by resetting the dashboard to Japanese, but this comes with the caveat that all the screen text will be in Japanese as well, so completing the missions can be a little hit and miss.

The game's story, as delivered by intermissions between the levels, branches depending on how you choose to complete those levels, and each path carries some new information about Shadow's creation. By the end though, there is a tendency not to care any more, as each predictable revelation arrives in turn, and the story feels fuzzy and disconnected from previous entries in the series on which it supposedly builds. The game will answer any lingering questions you had about Shadow if you've been following the story of the Sonic franchise, but those answers will feel weightless and irrelevant as soon as you have them,

In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone as a purchase or rental. There are many other games that provide a similar experience, most notably the Ratchet & Clank games on the PlayStation 2, which are made to a much higher quality, and will provide far greater entertainment for your money. If you are unlucky enough to find yourself with a copy, or simply can't sleep without knowing all there is to know about Shadow, the game will take a few days to finish, but only a few hours to stop being interesting or fun.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/06