Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - All GameCube Games

[Ashley]

I will admit I thought this was for the GameCube version before I went looking and realised it was the N64 one but whatever...

One little touch I like about the Japanese box art is how it's made to look like a postcard

The stamps are the most obvious of course, but the little red boxes for the postcode is a neat touch. 

 

[Cube]

The Simpsons Road Rage

Move your keister, Meister.

• NA release: 19th December 2001
• EU release: 17th May 2002
• JP release: N/A
• Developer: Radical Entertainment
• Publisher: EA
• NGC Magazine Score: 52%
• Mods Used: Widescreen Code

 

The Simpsons Road Rage is a shameless rip off of Crazy Taxi. Which makes me feel somewhat guilty because I like Road Rage more than Crazy Taxi. The basic premise is identical: you’re in a taxi, pick up passengers and race to their destination before the time runs out, following the guidance of a large arrow at the top of the screen. There are a few differences.

 

 

The core driving is much simpler. Spinning around and turning is very easy, but there are no special moves like Crazy Taxi’s dash. Some of the other nuances of Crazy Taxi are gone, such as how parking close but safely next to the person you pick up is important. In Road Rage, the timer pauses when picking people up, so it’s not something you have to worry about. This makes it simpler to play, so it’s easier to enjoy initially, but not as deep.

 

 

But there are things it has going for it. The game captures the style of The Simpsons extremely well, with loads of references littered everywhere. And as this was made during the golden age of the show, so much stuff was a reference I still remember, even though I haven’t seen the show for many years. The voice acting is also true to the show, and while some lines do get annoying after a while, you unlock new characters at a steady pace, opening up new interactions to listen to.

 

 

Which is another thing the game does right: stuff to unlock to keep you coming back. On top of the large cast of Simpsons characters, there are also six maps to unlock, covering various locations in Springfield. Some have things in small spaces, others are more spread out, and the Power Plant is just awful. Each map has plenty of shortcuts to discover to help you out, so learning the maps is still vital for a high score. One odd thing is that on the minimap, these maps are all connected, so I wonder if they were attempting having them all available in the Sunday drive mode. There’s also a woeful missions mode, only worth it for the cool extra car for Homer.

 

 

While the amount of copying is appalling, it’s just so much fun that you just want one more go, especially with the destruction you cause and being able to hit Simpsons characters and watch them bounce around. Again!

Fun

Quote

But beyond a few smirksome lines from the Springfielders, and the odd bout of engagingly frantic two-player action, Road Rage is disappointingly average. The graphics are straight out of the PlayStation 2 textbook, with no real feeling of solidity or finesse, and certainly unworthy of Nintendo’s glorious new console.

Steve Jarratt, NGC Magazine #68

Remake or remaster?

It would be nice to see a re-release of this in a Simpsons compilation.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play The Simpsons Road Rage.

[Hero-of-Time]

I played the hell out of this back when it was first released on the PS2. Sure, it was a complete ripoff of Crazy Taxi, but driving around Springfield and listening to all of the sound bites was hilarious. I actually preferred this over The Simpsons: Hit and Run.

[Dcubed]

Wow! Road Rage came out that early in the system's life!? I remember it coming out much later!

Wow! Animal Crossing came out that early in the system's life? I remember it coming out much lat... oh... right... Europe localisation... Yeah, that was a rough wait!

[Cube]

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle

High speed battle with Sonic and Shadow!

• JP release: 20th December 2001
• NA release: 12th February 2002
• EU release: 3rd May 2002
• Developer: Sonic Team
• Publisher: Sega
• NGC Magazine Score: 70%
• Mods Used: Widescreen Code

 

With Sega dropping support for the Dreamcast early, it was only a matter of time until Sonic appeared on a Nintendo console, and it was on an enhanced port of his latest adventure with an improved multiplayer mode and many tiny tweaks to smooth things out (such as removing the Big the Cat Easter eggs). With Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic came over to GameCube during his attitude years.

Which means an amazing soundtrack, from Escape from the City to Live & Learn, alongside a snarky Sonic and a gloomy newcomer called Shadow. The story is cheesy but enjoyable, and you play through the story from two angles – the heroes and the villains – before the final part of the story and its epic finale. 

 

 

Each story comes with three main mission types. Sonic/Shadow have the main platforming sections, with Knuckles/Rogue having a treasure hunt and Tails/Robotnik having shooting sections. This does mean that sometimes you can go a bit too long between the proper Sonic and Shadow stages of the game, due to having too much or the other sections in the game.

 

 

Not that those sections are bad. The Knuckles and Rogue sections are mini exploration levels with you hunting for three parts of the master emerald. They’re kind of like little 3D Mario style levels, where you have to use clues to locate the hidden emerald shards. They’re a nice distraction from the main event, and suit the climbing and flying of the characters well.

 

 

The shooting sections for Tails and Dr Robotnik are the main issue with the game. It’s entirely focused on lock on, as there’s not really a proper aiming mechanic. These levels also tend to go on a bit too long, and they really make you long for the next Sonic level.

 

 

Which brings us to the main stages. These definitely feel a bit janky now, but are still great fun. They’re full of spectacle without taking away too much control, with the more automated sections being short bursts. With some wonderful levels, from escaping a giant truck as Sonic to grinding gravity- defying rails as Shadow (who “skates” in a cool way instead of running), it’s an immense amount of fun.

 

 

In addition to the main game is the Chao garden, where you hatch and raise the little animals you find within levels – a great incentive to replay them. There are some hidden types to unearth as well as training them to compete in fights and races. You can also send chao to a Game Boy Advance for extra training, although this isn’t as handy as the Dreamcast’s VMU, as you can’t turn the device off, but it gets the job done. 

 

 

All in all, Sonic Adventure 2 is rough around the edges but still great for the most part. There’s a lot to love and if you spend enough time perfecting the game, you unlock a neat Green Hill Zone level, a level that is still rarely seen in Sonic games.

Great

Quote

And speaking of next-gen, as GameCube owners, we don’t expect to see the pop-up of the DC incarnation. Given that the native version of Sonic Adventure 2 was running the hardware at redline, you might expect some clipping. But with four times the polygon count, GameCube should be capable of a flawless performance.

Neil Randall, NGC Magazine #67

Remake or remaster?

This game needs a bit if sprucing up and a remaster with some effort put into it.

Official Ways to get the game

Sonic Adventure 2 is available on Steam and Xbox, with the Battle features (Chao Karate and multiplayer extras) as additional DLC.

[Glen-i]

4 hours ago, Cube said:

You can also send chao to a Game Boy Advance for extra training, although this isn’t as handy as the Dreamcast’s VMU, as you can’t turn the device off, but it gets the job done. 

I might be misremembering, but was this only if you didn't have a copy of Sonic Advance? Because I know for a fact that I kept a Chao on my GBA for lengthy amount of times.

[Cube]

5 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

I might be misremembering, but was this only if you didn't have a copy of Sonic Advance? Because I know for a fact that I kept a Chao on my GBA for lengthy amount of times.

Looking into it, and it seems that it worked with Tiny Chao Garden which was in Sonic Advance, Advance 2 and Pinball Party.

[Dcubed]

Yeah, if you had any of the GBA Sonic games, you had access to an expanded Tiny Chao Garden that allowed you to save your progress.

If you didn’t have any of the games? Then you could use the Multiboot version of the Tiny Chao Garden (which obviously disappears when you turn the power off).

Speaking of which, kinda crazy that a 3rd party game was the first game for the console to support the GBA-GCN connectivity feature; probably the console’s single biggest hardware USP.

Nintendo really wasted no time securing Sonic for the GameCube and GBA.  Hell, the GCN port of SA2 was announced the same day that SEGA announced they were going 3rd party; a good 5 months before the original Dreamcast version even launched!  As such, the GCN version vastly outsold the original Dreamcast release as a result, and is the platform that most people likely associate with this game.

Needless to say, what goes around comes around; as Nintendo would receive similar treatment with the eventual release of RE4 (where its original GCN release was kneecapped by the annnouncement of an incoming PS2 port before the OG GCN version even launched).

Edited 21 minutes ago by Dcubed