New Sonic Doesn't Disappoint
Houston Hughes
Issue date: 3/3/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
Of all the great video game mascots of the past who have fallen into hard times as of their latest incarnations, perhaps the greatest decline has been in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" series. First appearing in 1991 in the game "Sonic the Hedgehog" for the Sega Genesis, it seemed at first that every game he touched, Sonic turned to gold. However, more recent games such as Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes have been less well received, not to mention the near-universal panning of Shadow the Hedgehog. And the most recent of Sonic's outings, Sonic the Hedgehog for the X-Box 360 and Playstation 3, despite amazing cut scenes and a solid story, suffered poor reviews from critics who felt it was just the same formula as had been used in both "Sonic Adventure" games as well as "Sonic Heroes." But now we have been graced with yet another Sonic game, this time for the Nintendo Wii: "Sonic and the Secret Rings." How does it stack up? Well… it doesn't suck.
The basic premise of the game sounds like a bad joke. One day, Sonic is awakened from his sleep by the sound of a woman named Shahra, who turns out to be a genie from the world of the book 1,001 Arabian Nights. It seems an evil genie from inside the book, named Erazor Djin, has become so powerful he has begun to erase all the stories and absorb their power, and is even threatening to come into the "real" world. Sonic agrees to be transported into the book to put him in his place. When he meets Erazor, Sonic is shot in the chest with a burning arrow that will end his life once its flame is extinguished. Erazor will only put out the flame if Sonic brings him the Seven Sacred Rings, which, it just so happens, are the only things with enough power to stop him.
So off you go, on a quest to find the seven rings and stop Erazor Djin. Not only is the story cheesy, it's also told in an odd storybook fashion, as opposed to using CGI cut-scenes. This might not be such a problem, except that in the middle of the game there is one single cut scene, so wonderfully done that it makes you want to break your controller in frustration over why they didn't animate the rest of the cut-scenes, or at least a few more of them.
The basic premise of the game sounds like a bad joke. One day, Sonic is awakened from his sleep by the sound of a woman named Shahra, who turns out to be a genie from the world of the book 1,001 Arabian Nights. It seems an evil genie from inside the book, named Erazor Djin, has become so powerful he has begun to erase all the stories and absorb their power, and is even threatening to come into the "real" world. Sonic agrees to be transported into the book to put him in his place. When he meets Erazor, Sonic is shot in the chest with a burning arrow that will end his life once its flame is extinguished. Erazor will only put out the flame if Sonic brings him the Seven Sacred Rings, which, it just so happens, are the only things with enough power to stop him.
So off you go, on a quest to find the seven rings and stop Erazor Djin. Not only is the story cheesy, it's also told in an odd storybook fashion, as opposed to using CGI cut-scenes. This might not be such a problem, except that in the middle of the game there is one single cut scene, so wonderfully done that it makes you want to break your controller in frustration over why they didn't animate the rest of the cut-scenes, or at least a few more of them.
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