Any Shadow the Hedgehog impressions?

[mojo]

Apparantly stores up and down the country have long lines of pre-teens lined outside to buy the game.

[SharkAttack]

49% average score on Game Rankings. Apparently it is the Dreamcast Sonic Advenure Engine running a Shadow game where the camera leads to many ledge deaths and you can't lock on your weapons.

[Il Postino]

Come on you lovely people, I know at least one of you must be the proud owner of a copy of Shadow The Hedgehog by now, don't be shy.

Somehow, this also feels like the right place to ask for opinions on Crime Life. Let's be having you then.

[vertigo]

I saw an ad for this earlier, possibly during WWTBAM.
With guns firing and stuff.
Is that allowed?
Of course, Shadow the Hedgehog shouldn't be allowed full stop, but still, an ad featuring guns n ammo before 9pm?
Sega aren't doing themselves or the industry's image many favours.

[Shozuki]

hmm, played it...

It's plagued with rediculous glitches, and rediculously sensitive controls: nudging the analogue stick in any direction has shadow racing to the extreme angle and usually dieing as a result. To make matters worse is the fact you can't lock on with your guns which sometimes mean you shoot the wrong item/person and if your playing for one of the different story paths it usually means re-starting the level or dieing. As if that wasnt bad enough - the jump attacks can cause the same agrovation as sometimes shadow miss aims completely and sends you plumetting to death. Those points lead to extreme frustration.

To its credit - it has some lovely CG and some pretty fun levels - so long as you stick to just the standard objective. I think if you LOVE the Sonic Adventure style - chances are you'll be able to look beyond the proposterous flaws and have an average experience with it.

Honestly though - I cant recommend it, especially with some cream games arriving soon / out now.

hope that helps

[sj33]

Hit and miss this title.

Bought the game yesterday, and it took me a while to really get into it - the controls are so loose. You never truely feel in control of your character. The tightness that was found in SA2, which I felt was a little lost in Sonic Heroes, is lost to an even greater extent here, and it ultimately results in some infuriating deaths that just would never have happened in previous titles.

The framerate on the game, the XBox version I own at least, can be shockingly appaling at times. It seems to run at anything from 60fps down to below 20 at times, far worse than the framerate fluctuation found in Sonic Adventure DX.
It's all the more painful when you consider that there's nothing particularly graphically demanding here to explain the low framerate - in fact, it's probably the roughest, jaggiest 3D Sonic title yet.
It's not actually the Sonic Adventure engine, it runs on Rendware like Sonic Heroes. Renderware is the reason Sonic Heroes looks graphically inferior to Sonic Adventure 2, btw, and the title seems to feel like a PS2 game graphically.

DISPITE THIS... there's some top ideas in this title. I think the multiple mission structure, changing which stage you plan next depending on whether you complete the 'Dark' mission, 'Good ' mission or Shadows own goal, is a fantastic idea which gives plenty of incentive to play the game over again.
This games implementation of the chaos control was intersting, and I would have liked to see this expanded upon, perhaps a bit of toning down to stop them from being the unstoppable forces found in this title, and a few more different effect maybe caused by other factors you took to build up your gage... what I'm saying is that it's a nice feature that could be a top one if they choose to build upon it and improve it.
There are some nice ideas in this game which means that dispite the above flaws, it can still be an enjoyable game... but there's so many flies in the ointment.

A title with much potential and great ideas, which some may still draw enjoyment from, but ultimately smacks of an under-developed title that really needed a few more months of developement. The good ideas in this title needed tweaking to make them great ideas, and Sonic Team really needed to sit down and work out exactly what they're wanting from this title.
I would not be adverse to a sequal which takes on board the flaws of this titles and goes ways to correct them, and builds on this titles strengths. But approach this title with caution.

[Il Postino]

Originally posted by: Shakey_Jake33
A title with much potential and great ideas, which some may still draw enjoyment from, but ultimately smacks of an under-developed title that really needed a few more months of developement. The good ideas in this title needed tweaking to make them great ideas, and Sonic Team really needed to sit down and work out exactly what they're wanting from this title.
I would not be adverse to a sequal which takes on board the flaws of this titles and goes ways to correct them, and builds on this titles strengths. But approach this title with caution.

Warning: Title Wave Alert

[sj33]

Lol, indeed.
I just meant that there was some decent ideas in there lost in all the crap, that's all.

[Jei]

I've just completed this doing only "normal" stages and i'm gonna be going straight back for more,

As snakey mentioned it has some unique idea's and although it doesn't feel a whole lot different than sonic adventure it's still worth a look into imo. I especially like how u can change from good, to bad through the pause menu, works wonders when ur getting battered and want them on your side


I'm playin the GC version and no framerate issues here which suprised me to say the least.