SimonM7

It's not really all that weird or difficult. Just break, charge a jump and hop over it. Simple as that. That bit got me too though, I thought I needed a powerup to break it with or summat. But nope, just a good ol' jump'll do the trick. I have to say, I'm lvl 22 now and all the upgrades are coming together (there are tons of things to get to grips with) and it's really starting to feel... you know.. Genuinely good. Of course I just airsurfed on a cannon ball, there's really no arguing with that.

While actually reading stuff that pops up on screen normally addresses confusion, orb thingies make you go faster and leveling up unlocks new skills/lets you apply more skills to one ring. Hmm, is there a way to turn around or is that just a really, really frequent glitch?

I see what you mean, motion, and it's the same thing I was talking about earlier. The game is seriously limited and thus the levels feel incredibly samey despite *looking* different. I miss a lot of stuff from the other 3D Sonics in the way of pacing and variety of things you do. Especially from the first Sonic Adventure. Try not to think about it like that though. This is an excercise in something new - not a proper action adventure game. This is like Sonic 2 bonus stages stretched across a full game with some massive roller coaster things going on, and in that sense it's pretty damn cool. edit: though I do not experience your crazy input problems, mind. Just your comments about content.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the Adventure games aswell. Especially the first one because I thought it had an incredible flow and a really memorable story aswell. It played well thanks in large part to being slow though, and it had way more different things to do, like climbing the icy spikes in Icecap or riding the stone snake thingy in Lost World. It mixed things up well and you got a sense of going fast without going incredibly fast. STH is slow too in a way, but it has way more precision based stuff like grinding and jumping off of rails and returning to them. The homing attack controls are vastly improved and let you target pretty much anything, giving you more freedom to get off the beaten path then return to it safely. In general, once the characters are off the ground and fighting, STH wins in sheer control precision with me. Oh and fighting needs an extra mention. Wait until you have the slow motion upgrades and stuff with Sonic, bump up the difficulty and shred some Robotnik henchmen! Sliding to make the huge robots trip -> X bounce to make them fly into the air -> homing attack them in the air and watch them spin/explode. Sooo satifying.

Rule of thumb; never sell a console.

Good point, it's surprisingly awkward to control at first. Soon enough their comments about keeping it simple get completely laughable as you hold down two buttons and turn the wiimote upside down to get Sonic to charge a jump straight up. It all takes some getting used to, to say the least.

Yes and no. Thing is, the upgrades help out *a lot* in addressing almost all of your concerns. Sonic gets faster, easier to control, and gains a lot of abilities that will make some of your early issues with the game disappear. The fighting is mostly clunky though, especially if you got into STH at all, and none of the extra homing attack upgrades redeem that. I wouldn't say it kills the flow, because you'll be constantly moving even when you dispatch of enemies, it's just that it feels sort of forced. Especially since the camera tends to freak out during those moments, often opting for a twitchy overhead perspective that doesn't really seem intended at all. But no, I'd say it gets increasingly smooth as you upgrade Sonic, and it gets increasingly rewarding to play because of that aswell. It all has a bit of a steep learning curve though. In that regard - and many other - it feels a lot like Sonic Riders.

Honestly, after Riders and this it's obvious that the UGA team should be in charge of any future Sonic endeavours.

Shadow combat rocks. Light daggers for the absolute win.

All hail the comeback king! http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=73643

@ Fierce_Link Well if you half read what I'm saying you'd notice that I'm not on about exploring. There was such a thrill when you arrived at enemies in STH because you could dispatch them in a huge number of excellently satisfying ways. Combat was always a highlight of the 3D Sonics to me, whether it was about climbing a cluster of enemies to reach other paths or if it was to kill X amount of enemies to open a door. Here they slap enemies in your face alright, but you need to take them on in the set order with controls that don't even begin to give you the same amount of satisfaction. Yes it works here that combat is simplified to this extent, but it's taken loads of fun out of one of the 3D Sonics' main strengths by essentially removing it alltogether. But yeah, like I implied with my Riders reference this game isn't about the same things as the previous 3D Sonic games, and I'm evidently super solo in enjoying the previous games based on their merits, so ho hum. I am still thoroughly enjoying this though, and it's a complete and utter must buy to anyone remotely into Sonic. Or hedgehogs. Or blue things. Or wiggling the wiimote.

Jordan, I'm not saying STH is better on the whole. I think this is the best Sonic in years but it's DEFINITELY dumbed down combat wise. I don't even know how you can say it isn't. It's dumbed down in the same sense Jet Set Radio Future was dumbed down, which is to say it's not neccessarily in a negative way. Since I really loved the mechanics that are stripped from this it's negative to me though. Not in regards to this title perhaps - that'd be like complaining about Riders having airboards - but in regards to 3D Sonic games on the whole, yes. If they ditch the combat mechanics of STH entirely I'll be miffed. It's mostly at the prospect of every Sonic game adapting this formula that I'm a bit reluctant.

Hmm. *puts on helmet* Actually, I'm not sure I think this is better than Sonic The Hedgehog after all. Sure, the levels are way more inspired, and because the controls are dumbed down so incredibly, the margin for error is greatly decreased aswell, but most of the time I just don't feel in control - not because the controls suck but because they've taken away so much of it. The reason I liked Sonic Adventure right out the gate was the focus on homing attacks and being able to quickly decide where to go and how to do it. This - despite what everyone says - peaked in Sonic 06. Sonic 06 had BRILLIANT combat and likewise brilliant combat controls. The game sucked ass when they threw you into halfpipes and stuff you couldn't control Sonic in properly, but as long as the levels didn't provide insta-death situations I thought the game was really good. Yeah apart from the presentation issues, load times etc aswell of course. Don't get me wrong, I like this game alot. I like it the same way I liked Riders, but they've taken away something significant with this. Something I found to be the core appeal of the 3D Sonics and I already miss it. I hope this becomes its own series on Wii and that we see increasingly awe-inspiring games using this formula - on the Wii. However, I really want them to pursue what made Sonic The Hedgehog really good at its core and fix the real problems with that on the next gen format instead of applying this gameplay model to all future games. It really is easier to get into and less punishing because it's dumbed down. I can't shake the feeling of disappointment over that fact. But it's still really cool, and once I get further into it and appreciate it for its own qualities I'm gonna love it. In fact, when I come back I'll gush a bit over the good stuff in this. But yeah, had this presentation been applied to STH and its load screen issues and shit town missions had been removed. If the levels had been stripped of the unfair bits where you CAN'T CONTROL the game properly, then that would've been my ultimate Sonic game. This will never be.

Yeah! God, I've been feeling and thinking that for sooo long but I've never put it into words and made it obvious to myself. I find that I can still enjoy playing it - thoroughly even - but I guess it's the overall... LICENSE TO LOVE that disappears. However many people that play a game like this there's always gonna be plenty more who didn't. As long as that is true, the average score a game is getting will determine how "allowed" we are to proclaim it as something really cool. Full Auto for instance. I honestly loved that game. It had bland presentation for sure, and the framerate was a bit awkward, but personally I thought it was fantastic to the point of deserving a score in the 8's region. Now when I state that I loved that game that somehow diminishes my credibility. I suppose therefore I'm less excited by low or average scores, because it has little actual effect on whether I think the game is good or not.

Jordan: I'm sure you're doing the same mistake everyone else was at first. Be sure to PRESS EJECT FIRST. Not the start selection. Press eject and wait as long as you can before pressing start. You'll have to try a couple of times to know the timing.

I'd imagine since the Wii is actually a Wii, the firmware and stuff in it is more in tune with what's going on than the GC chip.

Ah, excellent. Pausing soundless, but you can't have everything! EGM gave this 5.5 or 55/100 or whatever they put in the mag. I wonder why they reckon it's worth less than Sonic 06...

I think there are still some commie... I mean Wiimote haters out there that just don't get the point. I mean HONESTLY, who had even remotely the problems some reviews point out with the controls in Red Steel? So much is about the desire to have a good time with the game you purchased, it's almost as if there should be two takes on every game. One looking at it with the assumption that you're into the subject matter and the general gameplay mechanics, and another for someone looking for "a new game". That'd avoid a lot of people feeling the game was unfairly judged. And be totally impractical aswell, so it's simply a rethorical suggestion.

It's not that odd really. This is just a swap trick, old as time. There's essentially no hardware difference between models in different regions, there's just a block to ensure that you don't run what's regarded "unsupported software" on your machine. N64 would boot the games if you could fit them into your machine, effectively using a piece of plastic as a "region lockout" method. It's really not a mystery. It's fortunate though that it's this simple. I have tons of NTSC cube games and a freeloader that didn't wanna work before.

It's been out since the 20th in the US I think. There's bound to be someone out there ripping it complete with sounds of pausing...and...and coughing.. right now.

One thousand pieces of gold to the one who finds me a gamerip of the soundtrack! Arr!

STH plays a pantload better than both "Adventures", but the speed and level design often let it down. Oh and the host of other superficial design cockups. Playing the levels in the "trial" mode strips it of most of the annoying stuff except cheap deaths, and you can still have a lot of fun with it that way - especially if you bump up the difficulty a bit.

Region locking is about.. regions. Publishing/numbers/marketing efforts. Money really. Your black bar problem is prolly helped by using freeloader and specifically selecting the region of the game by pressing Z before you put it in.

Hmm? Please explain this bit. They're not widescreen otherwise?

I sorted my problem with Mega Collection. Turns out I selected PAL in the freeloader menu out of the habit of booting pal games on my NTSC cube in the runup to Wii. Selecting the US flag sorted my bordery problems. Edit: I'll see if my copy of SADX works... Edit 2: No problems Shadow, you might need to boot it with freeloader though. Be sure to pick the US flag after pressing Z in the menu. Man this game was great, and thanks to its moderate speed it's still really playable. Not nearly as tight lock on mechanics and camera control as Sonic 06, but then it really doesn't need it. It doesn't maaatter now what happens I will never give up the fiiiii-iiiight!