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Disappointed. That is what I felt after playing ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’ after half an hour. Sonic Team are really beginning to disappoint us Sonic fans with their consistent reissues and gimmicky spin-offs and ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’ really is the final straw.
Although this game is terrible, Sonic Team have been listening to the fans… the ones that won't shut up. The Sonic community has recently been plagued with new Sonic fans that have fallen in love with Shadow. I have nothing against these people, it’s the constant ranting about whether Shadow is a robot or a clone or actually died that gets on my nerves and quite a few others as well. Unfortunately Sonic Team has noticed this immense market of Shadow fanatics and has obviously released this title to cash in on this gap in the market. The story revolves around our main hero Shadow who is still suffering from amnesia. At the start of the game, ‘Westopolis’ (seemingly the capital of whatever country the Sonic characters now abide with) is being attacked by a race of aliens lead by the sinister Black Doom. Black Doom offers Shadow to join him in his quest for world domination in exchange for his a little more knowledge about Shadow’s past. Now this is where the gameplay comes in. ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’ plays like any normal 3D Sonic game except now you only play as Shadow. The levels run in a pyramid structure which means whoever you side with in the current level determines the next level you go to. The more evil missions you do, the more you side with the bad guys and visa versa. This is definitely an interesting concept which is obviously done to make the game’s replay value a little better. But when the levels are this tedious you really wouldn’t want to come back and play it again. Most levels consist of boring missions which resemble the terrible Chaotix missions from ‘Sonic Heroes’. You will consistently find yourself ‘killing all the humans’ or ‘collecting objects’ or ‘turning on a set of switches’. Sonic games have always been about fast paced action with beautifully rendered stages full of colour and liveliness. ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’ has none of this. Okay the action can be a little quicker in places but this is very rare and all the stages are very dark and bleak. ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’s’ big selling point is the fact you can use a variety of guns during gameplay. When fans first discovered this there were mixed reactions. A lot of us thought this would be a great laugh and a lot of us thought that this would detract from the usual Sonic gameplay we know and love. Both of these opinions are correct in their own way. I must admit, being a guy with a tendency to play violent games it is quite fun to unload a machine gun into different enemies with a black/red hedgehog. But where this can be fun in places it does detract from the gameplay a lot. Most of the time shooting requires you to slow down but seeing as this is a Sonic game why would you want to do that? A lot of the time it is impossible to slow down properly because sometimes when you pull back on the analogue stick Shadow just turns around very quickly instead of braking. So why would you buy this game? Well you wouldn’t unless you’re a devoted Sonic fan but I’d recommend that even the obsessives amongst us just give ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’ a rent because it really is an abysmal title. The most fun I’ve had with the game is during the multiplayer modes where you control a variety of different coloured Shadows and basically choose whatever weapon or vehicle you want to destroy your friend playing as another Shadow. But why would you buy a game on the fact that the multiplayer mini-game is a little bit enjoyable? If you’re looking for a great Sonic game that includes Shadow as a playable character go and play 'Sonic Adventure 2' because ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’ is quite possibly the worst 3D Sonic to be released to date. 2/10 |