haxxiy

User Score
6.0

Presentation - 6.0
Gameplay - 3.5
Value - 6.5

Forget Sonic, the time has come for Shadow to star in his own high speed action game and for those of you who have never heard of Shadow, his first appearance was in Sonic Adventure 2, with his most recent escapades in Sonic Heroes. The basic plot this time round is that Shadow has forgotten who he was, how he came to be and what his true identity is. Pretty normal stuff for an amnesic hedgehog but there is hope because the only way to unlock these forgotten memories is by recovering all seven Chaos Emeralds. Just to make things difficult for Shadow, his planet is under siege by a dark force who claims that Shadow is part of their race and that he must help them recapture the Emeralds for themselves. So, torn between his dark past and his present hero status, he must decide where his loyalties lie.

Shadow The Hedgehog is not your typical Sonic game, yes there are rings, chaos emeralds and high speed action but that is where the similarity ends. For the first time ever within a Sonic game, you are able to use weapons, that’s right, you can pick up several weapons to blast away the enemy and if that wasn’t enough, you are also able to pick up many objects within the environment such as poles and debris and use them to either throw or swing. On top of all that, Shadow can also drive several vehicles such as jeeps, motorcycles and alien crafts to either plough through the level or the enemy. Like I said, it doesn’t sound very Sonic to me. What I remembered back in the good ol’ days of Sonic was that the game was fast and you needed to jump onto the enemies head to kill them off and complete the level as quick as you can, but in Shadow, the only way to eliminate the danger is to either shoot them. Trying to attack them any other way usually results in you losing rings. One bad point is that the good guys and the dark monsters attack you all the time even if you are on their side, which means trying to choose a certain path of good or evil is usually hampered.

As for speed, that is nearly impossible as most areas have ledges which you can easily fall off and die but there are times when you can let loose and zoom around at warp speed. The core of this game lies in the fact that you (the player) have the ability to choose what kind of path Shadow will take – good, evil or plain selfish. By pressing pause within the game, you are able to see what the three mission parameters are but you don’t even need to complete these to finish the level. There are some hidden keys lying around which will unlock another area for you to explore if you can actually be bothered to look for them. The main reason I say that is because the most frustrating thing about this game is the camera. For starters, you can not invert the horizontal axis like you can in most games, so unless you are used to this cack handed viewing, you will get annoyed when looking around or in battle. Another major negative point about the camera is that in some cases it switches to a view that is totally inappropriate for that moment, a good example is when you are being chased by a big monster whilst sliding down a pipe only to be told you must switch between the three pipes and collect the stars. It would be nice and helpful if you could see the stars ahead of you instead of being able to view the giant monster chasing you. Sonic is all about control (OK…this is Shadow) and the general feel of the game is rough, it’s great when moving fast but if you are trying to navigate small areas, it is rather cumbersome.

Talking about graphics, Sonic games have always been colourful and fun to look at and Shadow does not disappoint in this area. Each level is unique and even though they are fairly linear, the lay-up never feels duplicated and the frame rate never drops. Of course, this game has come out near the end of the Xbox’s life and one would presume that graphically it would be superb but that’s not the case here, don’t get me wrong, they are nice and all but not superb. As far as the sound is concerned, you'll met lousy voice-overs, poor script and one of the most annoying soundtracks ever makes this one hell of a nightmare to listen to. The weapons sound good but that’s the same in most games. Oh, and there is the lame loading times that makes you wonder if your console isn't actually equipped with a floppy disc reader instead of a (random number)x DVD drive.

I wouldn’t class this as a game that belongs within the Sonic franchise but as a unique game featuring Shadow and all his friends including Sonic. The basic principles of Sonic have gone because of the vast array of weapons and vehicles. It is worth renting out because it will last you a fair amount of time but I wouldn’t buy it. It’s a shame as the game has full of potential but fails to deliver on the multiple paths of good and evil.