Anilrgowda

With a plethora of remakes popping up across the modern entertainment board, the logical conclusion is that producers are running out of new ideas. Hollywood studios are doing it, television studios are doing it, even video game development studios are doing it, so why is it so hard to get it right? Why can’t these leisure powerhouses recapture the feelings that people had when they experienced the original content?

Taking an established franchise like Sonic the Hedgehog, tossing it into a 3D realm, and trying to turn it into something akin to a GTA/Mario adventure is not only considered sacrilege by long-time fans, but also creates problems where there formerly were none, such as the constant need to compensate for bad camera angles. Of course, the inanely idiotic side quests don’t help matters much, and neither do the sleep-inducing towns where Sonic has to run around digging up information about what to do next.

Fortunately, some of the levels in the remake, also named Sonic the Hedgehog, retain the heart-attacking inducing speed that the series is known for. There is also limited, yet still fun, combat mixed in that varies from character to character. For example, Sonic himself can unleash a spinning attack that homes in on enemies. If players can bounce off of every enemy in a cluster and destroy them, a power-up appears that grants him/her an extra life. The pint-sized blue tornado can also perform spinning kicks and downward spinning attacks, but they aren’t too exciting.




Shadow the Hedgehog is also playable, but his levels mostly focus on obtaining and using various vehicles. Throughout his adventure, players will drive an all-terrain buggy packing homing missiles and a swift motorcycle armed with machine guns as well as piloting their aerial counterparts, a glider and a hovercraft. Shadow’s melee attacks are basically enhanced versions of Sonic’s maneuvers, and he can trigger a Chaos Boost that temporarily makes him invincible and more destructive. After just a few minutes of controlling Shadow, he is obviously nothing more than a ‘dark’ version of Sonic, which is probably the most unoriginal (yet still overused) reason to add an extra character in video game history. Maybe in the next game the bad guy will be Sonic’s long lost brother, separated from him at birth... yawn.

Last on the list is Silver the Hedgehog, who embarks on a convoluted mission to travel back in time (to the present day) to save the future. This brings back painful memories of the uber-cheesy movie "Millenium" where Cheryl Ladd got to do the same thing. Only, she didn’t get to use cool telepathic powers like Silver does. Not only can he levitate objects and vehicles off of the ground and toss them about, but he can also redirect certain projectiles. But the real fun comes from picking up paralyzed enemies and flinging them in all directions. In addition, Silver can escape from harm by teleporting short distances, which can really come in handy when surrounded by enemies or falling to your doom.