Sonic the Hedgehog was really big, you know. Bigger than Horace ever was and definitely bigger than Zool. He almost won the 16-bit console wars too (if ever there was such a thing), and -admittedly- is still recognizable enough to sell the odd overpriced copy. Then again, everyone can see the character and his truckload of silly overacted friends aren’t doing half as well as expected and -that’s the ugly bit mind you- usually star in some shockingly dreadful games.

Now, as I’m not one to necessarily demand a return to Sonic’s 2D roots and 90s gameplay form, even though you have to admit that Sonic Rush for the DS was the best Sonic for what felt like ages, I think Sega should realistically have a long hard look at Sonic’s current-gen outings. Try to figure out what they can do right and what they simply should do away with. And you know what? It’s as easy as having a look at two 2007 games.

The first one is simply called Sonic the Hedgehog and debuted on the Xbox 360, though a virtually identical PlayStation 3 version did promptly follow. Oh, yes, and it is such an astonishingly awful game you’d think it was meant as a bloody interrogation tool for a consolized version of hell. Also, despite its title, this abomination has nothing to do with the implied return to form you might be hoping for. On the plus side though, Sonic the Hedgehog Next-Gen could probably also serve as a developer’s map of the things designers should avoid: tons of horribly unfunny Sonic Team written dialog, an overly complex control scheme, graphics without style or flair, a silly soundtrack, weird missions, a horrid camera system, pointless exploration bits, exhausting loading times, an interesting selection of bugs and glitches, a badly judged difficulty curve, nonsensical ideas regarding save points and only a few moments of fast platform (almost) properly Sonic action, that unfortunately aren’t that good anyway.

On the other hand, the other extreme if you wish (you know, to, uhh, justify this post’s title) we have Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii, an impressively better game that really tried to focus on the basics that helped define and elevate Sonic to classic status, while also trying to keep up with the gaming mainstream of today: it’s in 3D and uses the Wii Remote. Happily it also offers a simple -almost intuitive- control system, great speed and what can essentially only be described as 2D gameplay. It is thus a fun game that feels properly Sonicy. Mind you, it’s not perfect, not by far, but definitely a step in the right direction. And it does spare us those anime cartoon anthropomorphic animals that aren’t Sonic…

Posted on February 5th, 2008 by konstantinos