- Blog #40: What do you know? My 40th blog! The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Here's where things start to go bad. Many people have a bone to pick with Sega, after making a large lineup of Sonic games that suck miserably. We know it's not Sonic's fault that this was meant to be, but it's a problem that needs no introduction on address. Just like Mario, Sonic had his share of good and bad moments in video-gaming. The only difference is that Sonic has had...a ton of bad games made for him, more than Mario. There's a bunch! Which ones were the worst? Time to slow things down, because I'm about to show you the worst of the worst...
Worst Sonic Games
1. Sonic the Hedgehog (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3) - Yeah. Every Sonic fan must know the reason as to why this game immediately gets the spot on the "Worst Sonic Games" list. Before I even begin to review this game, I would like to point out that I am not a fan of the Xbox 360...at all. The same goes for the PS3, but not as much so. This game was all a broken promise. First off, the title is confusing enough. If you're trying to do a search on this game, you're not going to get the right results you're looking for unless you added a "360" or "PS3" at the end of your search. The main problem is the gameplay. It's horrific. There are many glitches in the animations and the controls are very loose. The graphics are not bad, but by now we were expecting a lot more improvement. You're not even playing as Sonic for the whole game, when you should be. There are three different stories to chose from. One that stars Sonic, one that stars Shadow, and one that stars a new character. Silver the Hedgehog makes his debut in this game. He's nothing too special. He has telekinetic powers that can pick up and throw items, but he's nowhere near as fast or as interesting as Sonic. Each story has their own set of characters that you'll eventually have to use in the adventure. Aside from the adventures, the "town missions" in between each level are pointless. Action stages aren't that much better. The camera angles are terrible. You have basically no control over the angling of the camera. Another big problem is that this whole game gets delayed by the long amount of loading time that's spent, leaving the players hanging on a limb. The story is not even worth talking about, because it doesn't appeal to the original ideas of Sonic the Hedgehog. Shouldn't a game that's titled, Sonic the Hedgehog, feature Sonic for the majority of the game? Shouldn't we just be running through stages, playing as Sonic? This game was a mess and it did no wonders in reviving the, already on life-support, speedy hedgehog.
2. Sonic Shuffle - The worst example of copying Nintendo, at the finest point possible. Sonic Shuffle did a failure of a job in creating a Mario Party look-alike for Sonic the Hedgehog. You only have four characters to chose from at the start, whilst most Mario Party games have at least double that amount. You unlock four more, as you progress through the game. I just find that tedious. You go through a few different boards, shuffling cards, while playing a couple of mini-games and collecting Emblems. Whoever has the most Emblems at the end of the game is the winner. The mini-games aren't bad, but you could tell that some of the ideas for them were ripped off. Plus, it's also possible to go through an entire board without playing a single mini-game. Um...aren't playing the mini-games the point of having a party game? If there's a possibility that you don't have to play a mini-game, then you're just playing a board game on TV. You'd be better off playing board games in reality. Get with a group of friends or family! Fortunately, this game was released late on the Sega Dreamcast. So, it wasn't really played by that many people. Once again, the storyline is not worth going into. Besides, there's not much importance in the storyline when you're supposed to be playing mini-games and board games. Nothing special about this game. No fun, no satisfaction, and no speed.
3. Sonic's Schoolhouse - Any video game that has any sort of relationship with Nintendo, Sega, or Capcom should not be made into an educational game. End of story. This game failed in providing explanations. I don't even have anything to say about how poor this game is. It's meant for kids, sure. It's not even a good kids game! I'm sorry, but even giving this one the benefit of a doubt for being a PC game won't help. There were better educational games for the PC, at the time, that had no affiliation with any video-game industry. Maybe I'm being a bit hard on this game, but it's just that there's so many things that bugged me about Sonic's Schoolhouse. What's wrong with Sonic's voice? He's not supposed to sound like what they made him out to be! He sounds like a girl. He's sounds like that Justin Bieber kind of person. I will say that this game beats any educational game that starred Mario. That's not saying too much. Besides, it doesn't seem like Sonic is the kind of person (hedgehog) that even attends school. Not to be encouraging anything, but he should be skipping class and running across the railroad tracks! Also, isn't Sonic supposed to be about speed? Where's the fast-motion gameplay? Was it too much for little kids? The gameplay somewhat resembles another game that I've seen, which is called Wolfenstein 3D. It's another pixel disaster. I don't remember how I ended up finding this game, but I regret ever playing Sonic's Schoolhouse. If you're looking for great educational games for the PC, get something from the JumpStart series.
4. Sonic R - ScrewAttack.com producers said it best when they reviewed this game: "This game can be filed under 'Absolute Suck!'" Taking the lousy controls from entry #1 on my list and pumping them up 10 times over both make this game even worse. I thought Sonic games were about racing anyway. Why make a game that involves a legitimate race course? Well, it was just an idea. An idea that transcended Sonic into a game that was poorly done. The controls are so bad that even tapping the control pad a tiny bit can send Sonic flying. That's no good, especially when you want to have the ability to control Sonic. There are only five courses in this game, which makes this one really short and it could be finished in a day. The graphics are...eh. It's 3D-ish, but the colors are almost blinding. The character selection is fine, but I barely see much difference with any of them. Knuckles can glide, Sonic is a little faster, Tails can fly for a little while. You know, the usual. Now, everyone's remarks on this game all revolve around one minor detail. The music. What's wrong with it? Nothing, if you're not playing a racing game! I think the music would have been much better received by the audience, if there were no lyrics. The songs were ok, but they were not meant for Sonic R. This game was just a huge disappointment. It wasn't really much of a game. I'll be it that it was a hell of a lot better than the likes of Sonic's Schoolhouse and the final entrant on my list. Which is...
5. Sonic Labyrinth - Just as Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis) was meant for the "Best Sonic Games" list, Sonic Labyrinth should be on everyone's worst. This is the SLOWEST Sonic game in the world! It goes against everything that is Sonic the Hedgehog! At least this game gives an explanation as to why Sonic is so slow. Dr. Robotnik/Eggman has replaced Sonic's speedy shoes with a pair of Slow-Down Boots. These takes away Sonic's ability to run fast or jump. They can't be removed without the collection of all of the Chaos Emeralds. So, you're forced to travel around Eggman's maze, in what feels like monotonous torture. In Sonic Labyrinth, there are a total of four zones. Each zone contains three acts and a boss battle. The goal is to guide Sonic through the maze and locate three keys that are hidden throughout the stages. Plus, THERE'S A TIME LIMIT! Are you kidding!? There's a time limit? That's so unnecessary! Your only attack is the spin-dash move. The controls are a bit clunky. When you move the control pad, you feel like you're not pushing hard enough because you're going so damn slow! The music/sound effects make you want to kill a bunny. Boring, stupid, and so freaking slow. Do not buy or play this game. Avoid it!
- As I've said before, there were a lot of bad Sonic games. So much, in fact, that I had some runner-ups that didn't quite make the cut for one of the worst Sonic games. Consider that a blessing, you "Dishonorable Mentions!" The runner-ups are as follows:
~ Sonic Drift & Sonic Drift 2 (Boring. Led to a great game in Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing)
~ Sonic Spinball (Gameplay was fine. Music/sound effects made you cringe.)
~ Tails Adventure (Didn't do Tails any justice.)
~ Tails' Skypatrol (Not that impressive.)
~ Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Game Gear version) (It was way too difficult.)
- Done. Keep on reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment