360 gaming blog.

“The sequel you’ve waited 16 years to see” claims the description on the Xbox live marketplace. Quite a bold statement and one that intends to play on gamers' notion of nostalgia and the days of the Genesis (Mega Drive). Being a Sonic game the fan expectation is always huge and having been announced well over a year ago fans have been speculating about Sonic 4 for a long time.

This 2D side scrolling platforming game is the latest work of Team Sonic, the team entrusted with earning Sonic some much needed creditability and not to just remind gamers how good it used to be back in the day. This is being touted as a direct sequel to Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles and not just another spin off title. That being the case it’s quite important that Team Sonic get it right.

One big decision they made was to release it in an episodic format via Digital Download. This may have miffed some as it seems like it’s a ploy to get more money from gamers, which might be the case or it might just be that they want to concentrate on small portions of the game, one part at a time.

This Episode contains 4 main Zones. Splash Hill Zone, Casino Street Zone, Lost Labyrinth Zone and Mad Gear Zone with each Zone having 3 acts and a boss battle. This is followed by a special zone at the end of the game and seven special stages to earn chaos emeralds.

Sonic fans will be familiar with the general themes of these zones as they are a mix of ideas from previous games but with a lot of new design ideas introduced as well. Even the acts in a particular zone are quite different from each other as they have some sort of special game play element that is unique to that act making it easy to distinguish between them all.

Some fans are not happy with a lot of the acts for a number of reasons but most gamers will definitely enjoy this game. I found myself smiling, laughing and gasping at certain points simply because of great level design, it really is that fun to play. Most of the acts have several routes through them with the highest route always being the easiest and quickest. Gamers who have different play styles will definitely have different experiences.

One major gripe that seems to have popped up is that the psychics of the game have greatly changed since the originals. It may be because it’s fairly difficult to keep some sort of momentum going. I think that’s a lot to do with the introduction of the homing attack. When you go up a ramp Sonic will uncurl and will go straight up instead of spinning upwards and onwards towards onto the next platform. Also when you let go of the d-pad or thumbstick Sonic will stop immediately meaning the player always has to be inputting some sort of direction. It does bring a much higher element of skill to the game and I definitely found this to be one of the most challenging 2D Sonic games I have played (especially the end).

The main story is 3 to 4 hours long depending on how much you struggle with the later levels. But even after the credits roll there is still plenty to do, especially if you plan on obtaining some of the very difficult achievements.

Summary: Team Sonic have done a brilliant job developing this and I would definitely recommend this game to Sonic fans and gamers who love platforming games. If you aren’t sure then try the demo or maybe just wait for the price to drop because at 1200 Microsoft points it’s a bit steep.

Arctic Hydra 87