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Sonic Adventure 2:
Battle is a re-vamped version of the Dreamcast second
installation
of the ever popular Sonic.
The single player game is essentially the same game;
Sonic
and Dr Eggman do battle for the possession of the all
powerful
chaos emeralds.
The levels and character are split into various
scenarios.
Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are the good guys while Shadow,
Dr Eggman and Rogue are the bad guys.
When you start the game you will pick what side you wish
to play, the bright and happy Sonic team of the dark
Shadow
team.
Sonic and Shadow (Black clone of Sonic) share the fast
paced
levels, while Tails and Dr Eggman battle each other in
Wallace
and Gromit style "Wrong Trousers" type
machines.
Knuckles and Rogue (A greedy female bat; like most
females!)
take part in scavenging for pieces of the broken Chaos
emerald.
The Sonic and Shadow levels are fast and furious; they
are
undoubtedly the best levels in the game and if not the
best
of the entire series of Sonic games. This is what Sonic
is all about; he's a hedgehog that moves at incredible
speeds,
that's how it's always been.
All this changes when you come to the Tails and Knuckles
levels. The Tails and Dr Eggman stages are "OK"
although they are not by any standards fast and flowing.
These stages consist of hovering around in the
"Wrong
Trousers" while trying to blast the evil Dr Eggman.
These stages are also very easy; you will find yourself
passing the stage on the first attempt.
And now for the Knuckles stages. You are placed in a
large,
sometimes too expansive level. You must hunt around for
an age looking for fragments of the chaos emerald. The
first
couple of knuckles stages are tolerable but when you come
to the third or fourth Knuckles stage you will find
yourself
disgruntled with the laborious job of hunting for another
half hour.
You will find that only about one third of the game
consists
of the fantastic Sonic Stages. This essentially kills all
the excitement and adrenaline you had while playing these
stages.
The game lacks the classic
Sonic game play; more emphasis should have been put on
Sonic,
with less, much less attention paid to other two
characters.
The Chao mini game that featured in the DC version has
made
it over to the Game Cube with some new features. As
before
you feed your little creatures animals. In the DC version
you could only perform limited activities with them.
Now there is Chao Racing, which demands high speed and
endurance
and Chao Karate, which demands brute strength.
These statistics can be altered by feeding the Chao
different
Chao Drives. These are coloured energy sources which are
scattered around the levels in the main game. The
appearance
can also be changed as in the first game. Feed the Chao
a lion and it will take the appearance of a Lion and so
on. These looks can deform if you feed your Chao many
different
animals though. This makes for some added entertainment
although it is only young kids, who will benefit from
this
section.
The big change in the game
Cube version is the two player modes. There are now
nearly
four times as many levels for the Game Cube.
Every stage in the game can now be raced on, with some
stages
having some graphical mixes and enhancements. In addition
to this there are now six new playable characters. This
is a great and should provide many hours of multi player
fun.
The graphics in the game
are slight improvement from the DC version. The textures
and shadows have all been tweaked and the frame rate is
also slightly smoother.
One thing that hasn't been improved is the camera. As in
the DC version the camera view still swings wildly and
can
hinder your view when you need to jump somewhere….
you may not be able to see the target. This is very
frustrating
as you will be jumping in to the unknown.
Unfortunately the sound
hasn't
been improved. Virtually every track in the game is
insipid
rock music with yodelling lyrics. There should have a
health
warning on the box as it could damage your ears and maybe
your sanity.
Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
could have been fantastic but Sonics cling on type mates
seem to drag him down to their level. A Sonic game should
feature Sonic and not a load of other boring characters
with their own tiresome levels. There are moments of
greatness
in this game and for some of the time it's great fun,
plus
there are all the great multi player games. Let's hope
Sega's
next Sonic game will feature more of our little blue
friend
more than this episode.
7.0
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