WARNING: This game may cause blindness and/or death.
*Runs away*
Imagine. It's the year 2006. Sonic the Hedgehog was going to celebrate his 15th birthday, and to mark the occasion, Sega was going to create a new game that they said would be the best of the modern series yet. And unfortunately, the whole world took those words seriously, and the hype surrounding this game got kicked into overdrive and it never slowed down. People were saying this would be the greatest Sonic game yet, one of the best games of '06 and everything in between. And for a good reason, actually. Sonic was the only person seen in every screenshot Sega released. It was exactly what the fans wanted: Sonic running fast, kickin' Eggman's ♥♥♥, with no stupid old or new side characters to slow him down. It was going to be Sonic's triumphant return.
But then, Sega released this screenshot.
WTF?! Who the hell's he? And what's with the fire tornado?!
And then the entire world instantly knew that this was going to be just another pile of hedgehog $#@%. Little did we know that it would be the biggest pile of hedgehog $#@% yet to come...
I think it's safe to say that the plot in this game makes less sense then all the Resident Evil games combined, so rather then try to explain it, (Which would double the size of the review) I think we'll just leave it at that.
Graphically, this game was quite the looker at the time it was released, but it looks dated by today's standards. Some parts of the game actually look worse then some others. The town stages, (Think of them as a hub world) which you visit everytime you complete a stage, look wonderful at a distance, but when you get closer, you realize that the textures all look flat, dull and devoid of any creative use of colour. The "action" stages look good in certain areas, but most of the textures are once again, flat and dull. These bad textures are usually in places I never went to when i was speed-running the stages. It's as if Sega was hoping no one would stop to look at these blurry textures or take the routes where they actually tried to make the game look good. Here's a better idea Sega. Rather then make all these additional routes to take and do a half ♥♥♥'d job at making them, why don't you just make one route that looks great? Ever thought of that?!
All this grey is just depressing... 
The voice acting is a complete joke, but I guess anything with 4Kidz (You know, the dubbing company that ruined One Piece? And various other once great animes?) VA's would. All the characters sound annoying as hell, and the script sounds like it was written by 8 year olds. (So the script was written by 4Kidz, too?) Tails, as usaul, sounds like a constipated girl, rather then a boy, Shadow sounds like a Solid Snake fan boy, Knuckles sounds like he's been constipated his whole life and don't get me started on Silver... As bad as the voices are, the music is actually pretty good. Not Sonic Adventure 2 good, but it's good enough. The music in the town stages are nice and relaxing, (Probably to help take your mind of how ugly the game is) and the action stages have fast paced music that really encourages you to go fast. (Which is hard to do in the first place due to the horrible camera) The real stars of the show are the theme songs for the 3 main characters. (Sonic, Shadow and Silver) Luckily, 4Kidz VA's don't sing in those songs.
"Weeeeeeee"-*Splat*
This game can be borderline unplayable at times. There are many glitches in the game that can and will kill you. In the Flame Core stage, there's a 90 degree wall that you have to run across to get to the other side. Most of the time you fall right off it even when you're at top speed. Controlling Sonic is harder then balancing an elephant on a toothpick. Sonic is quite slow compared to his older appearances and this really deals a massive blow to the game. The load times are the longest I've ever seen in a game, even longer then Fallout or The Elder Scrolls games, but at least it doesn't load every time you die. Worse still, every character has the exact same levels with some slight alterations, severely limiting the games replay value. Shadow's and Silver's stages are not much better either. Shadow is practically the same as Sonic, only slower and more combat is involved, which is easy as hell because of how broken he is. Silver, the slowest character in the game, is completely useless because he needs objects to throw at enemies since he has psychic powers. But if he is a psychic, can't he just pick the enemies up and smash them against the ground? Oh, but that would make it too easy. THEN HOW COME SHADOW IS SUPER EASY?! HUH?! *Ahem* Sorry about that outburst.
"Behold my totally overpowered paralyser move!"
Overall, this is the perfect game to celebrate Sonic's 15th birthday, because it has everything the Sonic games are about
: Flawed game mechanics, annoying and unnecessary side characters and stupid plots. You can tell the plot is stupid because Sonic dies and is brought back to life by a human princess kissing him.
You. Are. $#@%ING ME.
Graphics: 5.5/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 2/10
Lasting appeal: 2/10
Overall: 3.5/10
Sonic the Hedgehog
Linear Mode
