Yup, I'm going there. Sonic 4.

If you had asked me a year ago if I ever thought I would ever get to review Sonic The Hedgehog 4, I would have hospitalised myself laughing at the stupidity of the idea. They say a lot can happen in a year, and now, 16 years after Sonic 3 & Knuckles was released, Sonic The Hedgehog 4 has come speeding onto our screens in an effort to recapture those glory days where Sonic was king of the mountain.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding this game, some of you may be aware of it, some may not, but to briefly set the scene, Sonic the Hedgehog has had a veritable smörgåsbord of bad games since his last 2D outing in 1994. Sonic Adventure, while generally considered a good game, did have it’s flaws, while every 3D adventure since then has been bogged down with pointless gimmicks, broken gameplay, and annoying characters – yes, I’m looking at you, Shadow.

This all came to a bit of a head in 2006 with Sonic the Hedgehog, a game that held high expectations for many fans - only to end up suffering from extremely broken gameplay, more annoying characters, beastiality, and loading screens an Atari Jaguar would have been proud of.

Sonic Unleashed attempted to address these issues with a simple plot, returning to th e core characters, and coming on leaps and bounds in terms of gameplay - unfortunately a certain warehog and a man that resembled Morshu from the Phillips CDI Zelda games ment that unfortunately, this game wasn’t the one to restore Sonic to his throne.

It’s understandable then, that after being force fed a game that ranked only 20 places away from Big Rigs Racing, fans and general gamers alike are sceptical of Sonic 4 – expectations for this title are exceptional, and no matter how good it actually is, for some, it will never be good enough – but the question is, objectively, how good is this game?

This is a tuff question to answer. I have my own opinions on the game, largely positive, but what about the average joe who may never have played a Sonic game since 1994?  I tried to find out.

The first person I forced into playing this game was Dave – now Dave is, as anybody who knows him, easily bewildered by video games. He did have a Sega Mega Drive and the classic Sonic games however, so he seemed an ideal choice for a random test. His verdict? He found it simple and fun to play, enjoyed the fact it only had one action button, and surprisingly, he’s actually not that bad at it, either. He also found the special stages a lot of fun, aquiring a chaos emerald!

I also had my brother have a play – his first words where “woah, this isn’t sensitive enough” – but after a few moments he got into the swing of things and, surprisingly, quite liked the game, even though he hates the old games (crappy graphics and annoying sound, he says).

There’s no point hiding from the facts when it comes to this game – the gameplay is not a 1:1 of the Mega Drive games. Now, the issue has been blown somewhat out of proportion by the Sonic faithful, but anyone expecting to pick this title up and play somthing that feels like Sonic 1-3 will find themselves in for a surprise. Wheather that surprise is good or not is entirely down the player.

There are some physics oddities in the game, and these tend to crop up if you try to play the game like a Mega Drive title. Yes, you can make Sonic stand on a wall, and yes, he does uncurl when going up ramps, and yes, when you jump, he does loose momentum when you let go of the direction button, all things that the old games generally did not do, however, once you get past the fact that it’s different to play, you start to realise that it’s not nessasarily any worse to play.

Sonic’s moveset from Sonic 2 is present, including the spin dash, however, the homing attack from the more recent games (first introduced in Sonic 3D Blast for Sega Mega Drive) has also been included. Sega’s PR machine has been trying hard to push the homing attack as “optional”, and insist you can completely ignore it if you choose – but trust me, this just isn’t the case. The game will force you at a number of points to use the homing attack to proceed, and in general it feels much more natural to use it, as jumping simply isn’t accurate enough,  due to the loss of momentum when letting go of the directional pad.

The homing attack is well implemented and fun to use, however, as long as you’re comfortable with the fact that it’s there and able to accept it as a much more substantial change to the gameplay than Sega would have you believe – it’s not a bad gameplay mechanic, but it’s different.

The gameplay feels much more natural during the second half of the game, as Lost Labyrinth and Mad Gear provide many more platforming challenges suited to the new control system, and these levels do give you that same satisfaction you felt when playing the previous games. During these levels, the niggles are practically gone, whereas Casino Street and Splash Hill’s loops and curves, combined with it’s relative lack of platforming challenge, only serve to highlight the differences.

As for the levels themselves, they’re a bit of a mixed bag – Lost Labyrinth and Mad Gear are the superior of the four main zones, featuring the most unique elements and challenge. All of the stages in the game are brand new, but they do borrow heavily from previous 2D games. Splash Hill is quite clearly supposed to be your typical Green Hill Zone – and frankly, who would have expected anything less? This level delivers as a nice dose of nostalga, and adds freshness to a familiar setting.

The Splash Hill Zone boss, however, will give you a sense of Deja-Vu, as it is pretty much exactly the boss from Sonic 1′s Green Hill Zone. The boss battles are probably the biggest let-down in this game for me, they’re all rehashed from previous bosses, and although they feature new attacks as you get towards the end, by the time Robotnik starts doing these new and exciting moves, you’re only one hit or so away from victory, and that makes it rather pointless.

Casino Street is probably the closest level in the game to a previous one, as it more or less looks exactly like Casino Night Zone from Sonic 2 . Casino Night was the most popular game possibly of all the 2D games, so it seems natural that a casino-themed level be included in Sonic 4, and Casino Street does bring enough new level layouts and gimmicks to keep it fresh, again while providing that nostalgic value. It’s a good comprimise between reliving the old days in HD, and also getting somthing fresh, it really is a nice ballance that, to be fair, is a hard line to walk. Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers will esepcially enjoy playing Casino Night’s music while playing Casino Street for an extra High Def nostalga kick. Act 2 is also especially enjoyable, with an interesting card gimmick that’s fresh and enjoyable – and flying through the sky on a deck of cards? That’s awesome.

Lost Labyrinth is where things start to get interesting. While this level clearly takes ques from Labyrinth Zone, much like Hydrocity from Sonic 3 or the axed Hidden Palace from Sonic 2, graphically, Lost Labyrinth’s design is the most unique. The background art on this level is simply amazing, depicting a lost underground civilisation, with the light shimmering in from above. There are several new gameplay mechanics in this level, including the falling bolders, some of which you have to balance on as you run along on top of them, and some of which you have to run away from. Act 2  is probably the most unique level in the game, and possibly of any 2D Sonic to date, as you use a flaming torch to find your way in the dark and light dynamite to blast through walls. Act 3 is very much the underwater level of the 3, which is good news, by the way, as by the time you got to Act 3 of Labyrinth Zone on Sonic 1, any hair you did have was on the floor.

Lost Labyrinth also has the most original boss level, where a completely new boss mechanic has been devised – hurrar! This zone is, quite easily, the best overall level in the game. Oh, and it has Orbinaughts. Those are awesome.

Finally, we have Mad Gear, the obligatory industrial zone and home to some of the most annoying badniks in the history of the universe. This level is quite clearly a take on Metropolis from Sonic 2, and sure enough, those Slicers and Shellcrackers will have you screaming at your TV before very long. There’s not a great deal of originality to this zone, but it does offer the best platforming and some awesome level music, making it a pleasure to play.

Speaking of music, the soundtrack to this game is sumiseable in one word: awesome. The retro samples really take you back to what made Sonic music great, and the tunes are memorable and catchy . Playing Splash Hill with Green Hill’s music or Casino Street with Casino Night’s music, however, does highlight one thing – we do remember the old music with rose tinted glasses. It seems apparent to me that the music in the new game is of no less quality – or cheesyness – than the old tunes, it’s just they lack the nostalga value right now, and I think that’s why some people do find them hard to accept and enjoy.

Special Stages in this game are also a lot of  fun, they’re very similar to the Sonic 1 special stages, so if you’re comfortable with them, you’ll be comfortable with this – the only difference is this time, you control the maze, and frankly, it’s much more fun this way.

There are some other fun things to do with this game, including achievements / trophies (a few of which are quite hard, makes a change from the Sonic 1-3 achievements) – and leaderboards, which at the moment seem to be suffering from the usual spot of cheating (can someone explain to me how The#1SonicFan has not been banned yet?).

So, how do I summerise my judgement of Sonic 4? Well, I don’t. I’ve not played it all yet. This is merely the first part of a much larger game, and while things are subject to change, I won’t make a final verdict on a game that’s only mid-way through development. I will however say that Episode 1 is a good start, and although dissapointingly short, it does leave me wanting for more and looking forward to Episode 2. It delivers a lot more than it misses, and once you get used to some of the changes, you do realise that this is the best Sonic title since Sonic Adventure.

Danny’s “Retro” Rating:

Retro Review: Theme Hospital

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, it’s time for a refreshing dose of Retro Review, the half-column blog-thing which takes the very best of the worst of computing history, regurgitates it a little bit, and spits it back out.

I’m pretty sure you’re all going to remember this one, today I’m taking a nostalgic look at Theme Hospital. For those who decided they preferred the shade of a large bolder during the late 1990′s, Theme Hospital was a simulation game that, as the title suggests, allowed the player to build and run their own hospital.

The game was developed by Bullfrog Entertainment, who had huge success with an earlier title, Theme Park. Creating and running your own theme park, of course, is a very appealing idea. Theme parks are, by their very nature, creative places. Bold, colourful, musical, loud, and in general, designing a theme park is quite a lot of fun. I’m sure we’ve all at one time or another caught ourselves daydreaming about an idea for a theme park ride that we’d like to create.

So, to build on the success of Theme Park, Bullfrog decided to create a new game in the same vain, and what better place to set your much anticipated sequel than…..in a hospital…. the one place nobody ever wants to go. I don’t think many people daydream about designing their own hospital ward, as a general rule of thumb, except perhaps Katie Price, but there wasn’t a “disastrous plastic surgery” ward in the game, so that doesn’t count.

Despite this initial setback, Theme Hospital does actually provide some fun, with it’s strange surreal humor. Patience who come to your hospital suffer from all sorts of strange illnesses, including Bloaty Head, Slack Tongue, Fractured Bones, Serious Radiation, Hairyitis and Baldness, something I’m suffering from quite badly at the moment.

The layout of this hospital is dumb.

Unfortunately the size and shape of the hospitals in the game are so bloody awkward, I often feel like killing the patients instead of trying to cure them.  All rooms have to be a certain size and shape, and invariably there’s either too much or too little room to fit everything in. The result is strange dead ends, blocked areas and passages that Bloaty Head sufferers get lost down, before they curl up into a ball, and die.

But never-mind, there are some other awesome aspects to this game. Did you know for example, all the competing hospitals in the game are named after famous computers, mostly fictional ones? There’s one called Deep Thought, from ‘ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, and then there’s ‘Colossus’, the British supercomputers used to break German codes during World War II. My favourites however are HAL, named after Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Holly, who is of course the computer in the British sitcom Red Dwarf.

There really isn’t a lot to say about this game. You basically just keep building rooms and treating people, with increasing difficulty, until you reach the final level, where you’re instantly swarmed with 20,000 patients, an earthquake, and have to build a hospital in a building shaped like a hideously deformed penis.

Just incase that isn’t enough hospital fun though, Codemasters and DR studios released their rip-off version, Hospital Tycoon, in 2007.  Basically a Theme Hospital for the 21st century, it features almost identical gameplay, but with fancy graphics, no sense of humor, and a lack of nostalga value. And that makes it worthless. And that’s why you’ve never heard of it before.

Danny’s Retro Rating:

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Retro Review: David Bellamy's Endangered Wildlife

Well I am quite bloody drunk right now Sir, so what of coourse do I share of my mental genious than to say I have discovered a brand new idea for a pivoting topic point of blogging. Here is the amazing review of really bad software, video games and gadgets from the old days. I SHALL CHRISTEN IT, THE RETRO REVIEW.

First up, as per the title, David Bellamy’s Endagered Wildlife, for Windows 3.11, 95, and Macintosh Whatevercrapitwastheyhadthen.

For those not familliar with David Bellamy, he is a large bearded man who, for many years, fronted some namby-pamby shows on the TV about pandas. He later went on to do these very disturbing advertisements about Dettox disinfectant. Of course, with the Bellamy bandwagon at full roll, a video game release was inevitable.

Now the first thing to mention about this game is that, rather unpredictably, David Bellamy has absaloutely feck all to do with it. His voice, photograph, not even his name appears at any point except on the Compact Disc cover. This is, of course, something of a major dissapointment.

The plot opens up with a poor quality video of a pod crashing in what looks to be the surface of Mars. Then a video message is beamed into your brain, of two really cheesy actors in bad Star Trek costumes. They claim to have come from the future using some mumbo-jumbo technology, and have come back in time to warn us that the Pandas are all dead in the future.

Oh fucking n0es! – it’s now your job to meddle with the timeline and save all the forest-life from extinction. Now, to acomplish this task, you have to partake in one giant wordsearch puzzle for each endagered species that requires rescue. Now call me crazy, but, I’m not entirely sure what they hope to accomplish there. Now if we could sort Afghanistan out by doing a wordsearch and some really stupid mini-games, then the world would be a far better place.

Along the way you have to partake in various wordsearches, jigsaw puzzles, and watch various video clips of monkies randomly eating Bamboo. Once you’ve completed each puzzle, you move onto the next animal until eventually Bill and Ben pop back up on the viewscreen and say “cheers”. They then fuck off back too the future without so much as offering a cup of tea for your efforts.

Overall then, this game is severly lacking in any real substance. Duke Nukem it is not, with it’s cheesy MIDI soundtrack and total misrepresentation on the front cover, this game is bound to bring hours of sheer boredom too any household.

My grandparents love this game, by the way.

Danny’s Retro Rating: