Sonic Generations

Sonic has received much criticism over the years. His gaming franchise has gone downhill with some poor releases and his popularity on the GameFAQS Character Battle has seen him lose to various inconsequential characters over the years (However, that competition’s integrity went flying out the window when the L-Block from Tetris won the damn thing.)

That said, Sonic Generations is the most fun I’ve had with an Xbox360 Game for a long time.

The premise for the game is that Sonic is having a birthday party when it is crashed by some evil time demon thing. In order to get back to his party, Sonic must destroy the time demon thing, however when the time demon thing destroyed his party, it caused a rip in the space time continuum which enabled two Sonics to exist at the same time! (I’m not going to go into the obvious paradox here.) They combine forces to battle through levels in 2D and 3D to face the enemy and restore the flow of time.

When I played through the levels for the first time, I was reminded about how bad I am at speedy platformers, but this stops being a problem as the all the levels take less than ten minutes to complete, meaning that replying levels isn’t too much of a repetition issue. Also, there are several different ways of getting through a level so finding the fastest way is a challenge in itself.

 The graphics are simple enough but they’ve done exactly what they should have done and kept it simple like the Sonics of old. This also means that there are very few glitches and this might be the first time I don’t complain about glitches ruining my gaming experience.

The in game music I enjoyed, but everyone who was around me while I was playing cried their eyes out about how annoying it was. It is definitely a case of if you’re the one playing then you don’t notice it.

Achievements – 1,000 points – 49 Achievements

It’s nearly a perfect review, however it fails on the achievements front, albeit only slightly. We’re back to my problem with secret achievements that aren’t story related. A few examples include the fact that you have to kill the final boss without taking damage. This achievement is a fuck-ass for two reasons: number one, why is it a secret achievement and how on God’s Green Earth am I expected to be able to know that the game wants me to do this? Number two, it was impossibly difficult to realise when the boss actually hit me.

There were other secret achievements but these were covered by the fact you had to collect all the red things so it wasn’t too much of an issue.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Sonic Generations gets a thumbs up from me. It was an enjoyable game and challenging enough to give me a feeling of satisfaction upon completion. I’m a little disappointed that I have to give it back to my friend.