Sonic Heroes

Sonic Heroes - (PS2, GC, Xbox)
Developer: Team Sonic
Format: PS2, GC, Xbox
Genre: Platform


Is Sonic Back Up To Speed, Or Is This Just Another Disappointing 3D Outing For Everyone's Fave Hedgehog?



Sonic The Hedgehog in two dimensions is still one of the best platform games to pick up and play for half an hour or so. However when we played the first 3D version, Sonic Adventure, it had us scouring the classified adds to replace our battered Megadrive. What went wrong? Somewhere along the way the very essence of Sonic was lost - the game had slowed down and lost its excitement. Can Sonic Heroes replace the Sonicness of the franchise?

The good news is that, yes it can. Sonic Heroes prunes out much of the shooting and hunting stuff from the Sonic Adventure games, but it does retain the large cast of characters. Heroes gets away with this by handing you control of three characters at once, dividing everybody up into four different teams (Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose, and Team Chaotix). Everybody has their own strengths, and the abilities of your team changes depending on which character you have set as the team leader. Blue characters have the most speed (of course), yellow characters can fly, and red characters can bust through blocks that are otherwise impenetrable.

While there's a small element of combat, Sonic Heroes is all about diving around the place at full speed. There are loads of narrow paths to shoot down, with bundles of speed strips, corkscrews, loops and strategically placed bumpers. In keeping with the original feel of the game you'll grind along miles of rails suspended in thin air while frantically try to outrun enemies or rising lava.

The look of the game is classic Sonic including sandy beaches, a firey factory and the uber-cool casino-themed pinball machine levels. Best of all the levels offer different paths to cater to the strengths of the different team leaders, so allowing you to go for whichever of the three team formations you feel most comfortable with.

So, ready for the bad news? While the Xbox and GameCube editions are well put together the PS2 version we played suffers from a terrible camera, rough around the edges graphics and a much slower pace than it should have. We're not sure what went wrong, as Sonic Heroes is the sign that the blue fella is back with avengeance. Just not on the PS2. Yet.