Review by: Mike Thompson

Someone at Sega needs to be slapped for the way that Sonic the Hedgehog has been treated over the past decade. Try to think of a good Sonic game that's come out in, say, the last ten years. Go ahead, take a minute.

See?

That lack of quality is the reason that so many of us were thrilled to hear that the publisher was going to release a port of Sonic Adventure, the beloved Dreamcast classic, for Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. However, the game is a lazy mess that will quickly murder any fond memories you have of the original version.

You begin the game with five playable characters to choose from, each starring in their own single-player campaigns of varying length. Just because there's a vast quantity of characters to play as doesn't mean any of them are really any fun, mainly because none of them handle well. Case in point: while Sonic moves quickly, it's sort of like trying to control warm butter on Teflon. Nothing's precise, and a lot of patience is required. Everyone's favorite hedgehog slips through crowded areas of the game, often overshooting targets at speed; if you want to be accurate, Sonic has to walk. None of the other characters handle any better, either.

Finally, there are some really odd detection physics at certain points, too. I found myself getting stuck on invisible items and walls, and I would occasionally breeze right through solid objects. Also, I don't remember falling through the floor, breezing through barriers, and generally falling out of the world this often in the Dreamcast version. Needless to say, precise platforming is a colossal pain this time around.

There are some parts to this that aren't all that bad. For a twelve-year-old game, the graphics are still surprisingly bright and fun. It doesn't look amazing, but I can think of several games that have aged worse. However, the original 4:3 aspect ratio is still in place, with some rather ugly blue bars framing the picture (which, of course, can't be removed). Admiring the graphics is often a difficult task, though, since the auto camera will only follow your character, while the "free camera" tends to get caught on in-game content. You can adjust the camera with the left and right triggers, though it will still get stuck on walls and other such objects.