Get Ready, Set, ..... Heyyyyyy! You're running in the wrong direction!

Ever heard of that super fast blue rodent who’s been around for … quite a while. That’s right! Sonic the Hedgehog is back and on the Playstation 3. As a famous franchise, Sonic had attracted me to try out this new version on a next-gen console. I was expecting quite a few surprises to be in store for me, as Sonic celebrates his fifteenth birthday on my screen.

Right idea, wrong expectation. Sonic the Hedgehog for the Playstation 3 is a big disaster. Choppy gameplay and slow frame rates crashed Sonic’s party. I don’t think he was too happy either.

Storyline

Sonic is out to save the world once again. With Princess Elise, who rules the land of Soleanna, hiding a terrible secret of the Chaos Emeralds, which are “the Flames of Disaster.” Princess Elise is kidnapped by the evil Dr. Eggman. Oh no! What will happen if Dr. Eggman learns about the Chaos Emeralds and finds it? It is up to you to find the Chaos Emeralds and save the world from ruin.

Gameplay

Sonic the Hedgehog offers essentially a single player mode and a multiplayer mode. This is primarily a fast paced action and adventure game.

The single player mode features three main characters: Sonic, our blue buddy; Shadow, Sonic’s ultimate hedgehog rival; and Silver, this cool time-warping dude who wants to enjoy the party as well. Each character is given special abilities and there are tons of tedious mini-games that you’ll have to go through to unlock these abilities (Sonic with his super speed, Shadow with his bike of painful death, and Silver with his telekinetic powers). Sure, this might sound intriguing and new, but it doesn’t mix well with the path that the Sonic franchise has come along all these years. First of all, these abilities don’t have any major impact on the storyline or how the game plays, making them all “for show” only. Second, the mini-games above mentioned are boring and quite frankly, could make the game slightly better if left out completely. Every character also has his “own” storyline, which pretty much differs in only 3 or 4 maps throughout the entire game. After a while, you’ll probably feel like you’re replaying Sonic’s story over and over, with some different, but unimportant abilities.

The multiplayer modes include a two-player tag and battle mode. I was somewhat amused by these options, but they tire out fast. Really fast. How long can you run around playing tag anyway? Also included are some unlockable “character episode” extras that don’t add up to much at all.

Still have some hope left in the overall interface? Well, forget about it. Sonic the Hedgehog for the Playstation 3 features terrible camera options. The full rotational camera is horribly designed – it will crash into buildings, tress, and other structures. Also, the camera frequently switches viewing angles for no reason whatsoever. This makes playing as any of the three characters seriously stink. For example, Sonic with his blazing fast speed requires at least some skill to maneuver. Finally, after a gruesome tussle with the controls, you have Sonic under control. And…. BAM! The camera changes its angle and your dead because you’ve crashed into a wall of a building.

Seriously, the load times are gut wrenching. Loading various maps and the cut-scenes are just seriously gruesome. Load times often feel as if more than a minute long. If you’re impatient, stay away from this blue fellow’s adventure.

Graphics

I have to admit the graphics are decent and the texture work is fairly nice. You’ll probably dismiss all the eye candy after a while though. There is occasional stuttering and quite a few bugs. Shadows will flicker, characters will shake, and other weird glitches. When exploring several fairly empty maps, the game suffers from frame-rate problems, often slowing down so much that I had to restart the system.

The cut-scenes look fairly good. However, this becomes somewhat irrelevant because the gameplay itself is flawed. It’s like adding icing to a bad cake – it still ends up bad.

Sound

Don’t expect anything great in the sound department either. The tracks are repetitive and quite annoying because the audio, too, suffers from lag.

Controls

The controls for the most part, were frustrating. It was hard to adjust in time to match the quick camera angle changes. It was largely confusing and frustrating.

Online Features

There isn’t an online multiplayer yet, but the game does offer several downloadable “extras” including a “very hard mode” for all three characters. I expect this mode to contain somewhat harder features, but I didn’t bother spending money on this because I was very frustrated already with the gameplay.

Final Thoughts

Sonic the Hedgehog for the Playstation 3 feels like the developers were in a rush to set up our blue rodent’s 15th birthday party and messed everything up. Although some features are decent and unique to this game, the whole truck load of technical issues destroyed the party. I think Sonic is quite depressed. Don’t bother to buy this game.