Sonic the Hedgehog (Xbox 360)
Sonic the Hedgehog (Xbox 360)
Customer Review: Sonic the Hedgehog review
I bought this game hoping against hope that it would be good, that all the reviews I had read were wrong. This was a mistake, which I shall not be making again.
Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast was one of my favourite games, and still is. It was one of the games that really got me into gaming. I still play it every now and then; it really is that good.
When I first heard that there was going to be a proper Sonic game coming onto PS3 I was ecstatic - Since Sonic Adventure 2 there hadn’t been a good Sonic game, and I needed a new fix of speedy goodness. This game was meant to provide it, with wonderful next-gen graphics.
This game has not provided it, for various reasons (although the graphics are very good indeed, this is probably the only really positive thing about this game).
1)It isn’t very fast. For some reason, SEGA seem to have slowed Sonic down. It is so slow that I really thought at the start of the game that there would be some kind of upgrade coming along soonish to speed Sonic back up to his Dreamcast speed. None of the reviews I’d read had mentioned that Sonic was now relatively slow compared to previously, and I still haven’t seen one that has brought this up. Well, I am. To be fair, that’s not a major gripe, though it is vey annoying: I wanted next-gen speeds to go with the graphics (which are very good actually, but don’t compensate for lack of oomph.)
2)The story is poor. it bears no relevance to previous titles in the series and is simply quite atrocious. Again, not a huge deal, but you’d have thought they’d have made an effort with theirfirst next-gen game. Sadly not.
3)The game is chock-full of glitches which are so glaringly obvious you’d have thought any idiot could have irooned them out. Not SEGA unfortunately. There really are some whoppers here. Sometimes, when you’re going along, on foot or on a snowboard or however else, one (either after hitting something or not) stops dead still. To be going along (moderately) quickly, and then to suddenly stop, even if there’s nothing that is visibly impeding one’s progress, is very disconcerting and actually makes you think about just how little effort has been put into making this game. Other notable glitches include a character, for no reason, moving up a slope that they’re supposed to be going down, and then it being impossible to turn them around again, hitting against a wall and falling into the scenery, losing a life (it’s quite difficult anyway without the added handicap of being swallowed up without a trace for no reason at all)
5)The camera is godawful. This has been a problem in 3D Sonic games since the Dreamcast in 1999. That’s eight years! And now the camera is even worse, somehow. It gets stuck very easily and generally conspires against you to make you fall into holes that are impossible to see until you are in them, etc. Not good.
6) To compensate for the general slowness of Sonci in the game, SEGA have put in special “Speed Stages” (I’m not joking, that’s what they call them. The whole damn game should be a bloody speed stage. Sounds like “free speech zone”, it’s ridiculous). In these “Speed Stages”, you can’t stop or go faster or slower, do any of the moves you can normally do, and the sad irony is that it’s not even that “Speed”-y. No more that you’d be expecting for the game as a whole.
7)Gameplay is generally OK, but not as good as in previous incarnations - obviously the whole thing’s vastly slower (in previous games, other characters were almost as fast as Sonic himself, in this, Sonic’s not fast and the rest are just slow). They kept the horrible vehicles form Shadow the Hedgehog, which are just unnecessary and really aren’t fun to drive at all, and to add insult to injury Shadow now moves with a horrid waddling motion which is irritating to look at and, as mentioned above, isn’t fast.
Tails has a little girl’s voice - I don’t know if it’s the same in the Japanese voices, but the English one is the wrong gender and age. It sounds stupid. (Also, there’s no lip-synching. This is supposed t be NEXT-GEN,the least they could do is taking the effort to lip-synch it for the English release. Anyway, Tails controls badly, can no longer hover and has lost the ability to do a normal attack as previously. What this has been replaced with is frankly a joke and I cn’t quite bring myself to discuss it here. Rest assured, it’s awful. All the other characters have their good points, but most are flawed in irritating ways that taint the gamelay. Some bits are so glitchy as to be virtually unplayable, for example, thre is a snowboarding section that is actually beyond my power to describe it, it really is that abysmal.
This may just be my copy, but pre-rendered cut-scenes judder and have slow-down (somehow) if anything is happening much. It sucks, but I’m guessinhg this may just be mine as I’ve seen it running fine elsewhere. Whatever, it’s annoying.
9) Some bits just aren’t well thought out at all. For example, loading screens are very numerous and often the game will, when one has decided to do a challenge within the game world, the game will spend twnety seconds loading, then maybe a line or two is said, then it loads for twenty seconds again. I knew about this before I got it, so it didn’t get me annoyed to start with, but now, it gets me seething whenever it happens. They should have thought it through better.
10) Often, much of a level will simply consist of pressing forward on the analogue stick and not actually interacting very much. the majority of the game is either on a fixed, narrow track or on a rail, and in many areas, it’s possible to just sit back and watch the game play itself, which actually isn’t that fun.
To sum up, this game, while having some good points, fails in most categories to delier, and disappoints far more than it enthrals. To those new to SOnic, I’d say, if you’re interested, get Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2 and a Dreamcast. This is not only cheaper, but you will be playing a much better game. To fans of the series, sorry guys, this is another stinker, I’d advise you not to buy it. This is dross, SEGA needs a kick up the backside for expecting us to go out and buy this crap.
To be honest, this game probably deserves 2 stars overall, but it isn’t just any new game, it’s a Sonic game by one of the best developers on the planet, and they’ve spewed out THIS. So it only gets 1 star.
Customer Review: sonic 360? puh…
when i first saw this game on the market i got really excited and just had to ask for it for christmas this year, after aquireing my 360 console.As soon as i started this game the first thing i loved was the graphics, they are wonderful and i’m glad that sonic hasn’t lost its cartoon edge.
But as soon as i started to play the actual game i wasn’t overly impressed, the story seems good but it has a few patchy parts in where i lost interest fast. The level design is pretty cool in some areas but a few of them reminded me or Sonic Adventure, for example the first stage the beach level was almost EXACTLY the same as the emerald coast level in SA (and i mean exactly)heh it even included the race with the killer whale sound familliar?
camera controls….well sega has never been very good with those. some of the stages where sonics centre of gravity is STRAIGHT FOREWARD you aren’t in control at all apart from jumping and moveing around in left or right directions, these levels are very frustrateing not to mention the in game loading screens, some of them are absolutely needless they don’t need to be there but they are and the little glitches here and there in some levels annoyed me quite a bit. Its now easier to get A ranks and S ranks on the levels which is a welcomed relief, and gameplay is quite fun running smoothly without a hitch and the small tasks you can do to earn rings are usually very entertaining. all in all its a good game but with a few annoying bits and peices here and there.
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Hour Of Victory (Xbox 360) 
List Price: ?29.99
Amazon Price: ?17.55
Used Price: ?10.00
Customer Review: A def for the bargin bucket
To be honest as a big fan of fps and ww2 in particular. I would recommend that anyone who plans to buy this game to consider medical help. It is v pants from the potato headed charater who informs you the germans are comming in the start of the game it just goes down hill. The historical context of the game is so poor, to the extent that one of the officers that you are reminded you can play with has a corparal rank to the blowing up tigers with a tommy cooker (sherman) The concept itself feels appealing until it loads up. why can’t all three climb ropes they are ment to be the best of the best or something. To be honest i would rate this game 0 zero stars but unfortunately there is not that option. spend you pennies on COD 2 or 4 or consider waiting till later in 2008 when some good FPS are ment to be coming out A definate bargin bucket game
Customer Review: Hour of Victory
This game starts off promisingly, but it seems that the programmers got bored of creating the game halfway through. Once you reach Berlin, the game becomes frustrating as you try and navigate through the ruined streets, at which point I became really bored. If you are contemplating buying this game don’t bother, buy Call of Duty 2 or better still buy yourself Call of Duty 4.
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List Price: ?14.50
Amazon Price: ?13.78
Used Price: ?9.74
Neo Se Advanced Controller (Xbox 360) Customer Review: the worst replica controller available
ok, so ive been through a few controllers in my time. Enough said. I bough this from virgin for about the same price as on this site, i have to say it is abvsolute rubbish. The build quality is cheap, it feels too small and the button layout is not anywhere near as good as the official one. Start and back are inaccessible when playing and the triggers and so spring loaded that you have to pull them all the way in to start shooting. The axis sticks are very poor and unresponsive also mine sticks in the up-right position. Very poor, never buying this crap again.
Customer Review: Cheaper, but noticeably worse than the official controller.
I wanted an extra controller for when playing with buddies at home. Since this only happens occasionally, I didn’t want to spend more money than necessary. For the purpose of this review I will compare with the official controller.
Overall feel and design - sits well in my hands, and feels comfortable in general. I don’t like the placement of the back/start buttons though, as it feels a bit awkward reaching them. Still, there is less risk of pressing them by accident like this.
Buttons - feel a bit hard, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I suspect that button-mashing games will make your fingers hurt though. Sensitivy is on par with the official controller.
D-pad - this actually feels more precise. I always had a wee bit of problems with the official D-pad, and especially the diagonals feel imprecise. This one’s better, and should be good for fighting games.
Triggers - firmer and with more resistance than the official controller. Neither better nor worse for any practical purpose. With driving games I actually think it’s easier to maintain exactly the right level of acceleration. If you need to repeatedly press the triggers fast, they can feel a little too tough.
Analog sticks - these feel flip-floppy, imprecise, and not that analog. They are too soft, and movement often becomes all-or-nothing. On shooters this can be compensated by turning overall sensitivity down, and it’s ok. But play any game which recquires precise sequences of movements (trick games, driving, FNR3) and it becomes a major pain. It is a noticeable handicap playing with this controller, which is not how I want my coop or vs games at home.
Conclusions - if a good D-pad is crucial for you, to the point of not caring that much about the sticks, buy it at good value. Otherwise, wait until you can afford a better controller, or you will regret your buy like I did.
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