(by Gareth Hughes, edited by Liz Burton)
When
this game was announced all the way back in early 2005, I remember getting
hyped. Not because it had guns or the choice to be an evil bastard over a good
guy....it was because it had Shadow, one of the very few Sonic characters I
actually liked. But after playing this game, did it destroy my respect I had
for Shadow the Hedgehog? Let’s have a look shall we?
Story:
Unfortunately this game's 'story' was horrible and very forgettable.
As
mentioned before, Shadow is one of the few characters I actually liked, so when
I heard this game would look more into his back story, I couldn’t wait to play
it! The
game starts with Shadow moping about his past and who he is until Armageddon
happens! OH NO! Actually, I wish that’d happened but this Armageddon-looking
thing turns out to be Black Doom (the antagonist) and his alien army who start to attack the
city. Black Doom then approaches Shadow, reminding him of the 'promised time'
and to bring him all the chaos emeralds. Upon hearing this, Shadow somehow
works out that the chaos emeralds are the answer for finding out about his
past. This is the only part of the story that makes sense; the game has TEN,
yes, TEN endings. The cut scenes between stages don’t actually add anything to
the story as you will always be taking different pathways for the different
ending. Even the 'true' ending never really explains who Shadow is, so you just
wasted hours of your free time to find out NOTHING about Shadow at all. Oh, the
other Sonic characters make cameos and add nothing to the overall story.
Story – 1/5
(I actually found this part difficult to write
about)
Gameplay:
After
the semi-decent (in my opinion) Sonic Heroes game, I was expecting Shadow the Hedgehog to
control like that, except with gun play added in. It did, just more horribly
and with unnecessary gun play. You’re going to use your homing attack more than
guns, mainly because with your homing attack you know you’re going to hit your
target 95% of the time. When guns do hit, however, you deal more damage than your
normal homing attack. Running around is very clunky; turning a corner can
result in instant death or running into a nearby enemy and the loss of ten
rings. Running too fast can sometimes result in the map disappearing and you
falling to your death, which happened too many times to me.
Another
thing worth noting is the chaos gauges. If you’re a good boy and do deeds of
good (e.g. heal G.U.N soldiers and kill aliens) the blue gauge fills up and you
can use chaos control. It blasts
you through the stage at top speed, which is useless for 90% of missions except to
get to the goal missions and sometimes boss missions where it freezes time
instead. (To summarize boss missions - all of them are easy with the exception
of Diablo which takes far too long to beat). Being a bastard (e.g. killing gun
soldiers) will fill up your red chaos gauge and when full you can use chaos
blast which is actually useful as it kills most foes on screen; it also deals a
decent amount to bosses too. The whole 'pick your path’ thing is also
frustrating, as you keep playing boring and repetitive missions from each side
(good and evil). Most of the time, neutral ends up being the most enjoyable
mission to play (get to the goal). An example of the missions would be 'find
and heal all the G.U.N members'; when you think you got all of them you end up
spending at least 20 minutes finding the last one. You can also choose to be on
Black Doom’s side for this mission which makes no sense as it would cause a
time paradox in Shadows past.
Gameplay- 2/5
Neutral
stages are the only enjoyable stages.
Music:
Most
of the time, even in bad Sonic games, the soundtrack turns out to be the only
good thing about the game. The same could be said about this, but not all of
the music is great. A lot of it is forgettable and the only decent music pieces
in this game I really enjoyed was 'I
am...all of me' performed by Crush 40 and the beautiful 'Lost Impact' stage
music. The rest of the music is hit and miss but it really depends on the
person listening to it.
Music –
3/5
Graphics:
Even
by PS2 standards this game could have done a hell of a lot better. One or two
stages are nice and colourful but too many stages are bland and boring. Room
designs can confuse the player as a lot of them look the same, which does not
help if you’re doing missions such as 'find and heal G.U.N members'.
Explosions, fire, lasers and all other SFX in the game don’t look very
impressive at all. The game can also suffer horrible frame rate issues causing
the game to look like a power point slide show. CGI cut scenes are impressive
but does not make up for everything else already mentioned in this review.
Graphics –
2/5
Conclusion:
Shadow the Hedgehog was hyped up way too much
by the media and fans. In the end we ended up with another broken and
unplayable game which did not live up to any of the promises made. Even if you’re
a hardcore Sonic fan like me, this is still a game to avoid.
Overall Score
2/5
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