Sonic ‘06. That’s all. No joke. No punch line.
Sonic ‘06.
For those who have had the blessing of ignorance to such a vile mess of a game, leave. Don’t continue reading. A world without the knowledge of this game is a world I would love to live in. Yet, I can’t unsee what I have seen, nor unplay what I have played. For the poor souls who stayed, let’s continue.
Sonic The Hedgehog, or as it’s more colloquially known, Sonic ’06, was a game made during Sonic’s 15th anniversary as a reboot to the whole series ignoring every game prior. This was to be Sonic’s first adventure in HD. As it was released specifically for the PS3 and Xbox 360, what could possibly go wrong? Everything.
First problem comes from just pressing the start button; the opening cut scene looks okay, but for the love of all that is good and holy, why give such good CGI animation when the in-game graphics are abysmal? The only human character Sonic interacts with is not only twice as big as him, her legs are orange when the rest of her is porcelain. Don’t even get me started on how dreadful Sonic himself looks; SEGA made him too slender looking and made him look like a dead puppet. I could talk about all the horrendous graphical issues from the lack of real substance in the over world to the dreadful frame rating on the dead looking towns people, but that would take an entire book.
On the subject of flaws I could talk about to my grave, the story. I’ve never played a game or watched a movie with such a repulsive story. I’m half convinced that a crazed fan of the series concocted some half-baked fan fiction, kidnapped one of the games writers and posed as him until the game was released. The worst part of all is the amount of plot holes that pop up everywhere; the bases of the plot deals with time travel, which should always be handled delicately. But they handle it like a worthless piece of garbage to be thrown away and then incinerated. Yet none of that even matters. Because none of it ever happened. In the last scenes of the game, orange-legs McDeadface (or as she is called, Princess Elise) blows out some flame that makes no sense, yet makes it so that all the events of the game never occurred, effectively meaning the game was a waste. I have a theory as to why the game ends like it does; half way through production, someone realized that what they were making was sinful in every way imaginable, so they just ret conned the plot at the end so that everyone could forget. And while that worked for the story, no one can forget Sonic ’06 for its largest problem. The game play.
The game feels like someone began to make a game, yet never play tested it or even tried to iron out the bugs. All the bland stages have an abundance of glitching surfaces, and the characters themselves handle like they went on drinking binge before they made the game. It can only really be explained by playing it, but that would require playing it. Overall, the game play feels like a chore that no one wants to do because it’s difficult for all the wrong reasons; difficult from just trying to get Sonic under control when he runs too fast to comprehend whatever just hit you. Yet there is something mildly satisfying about succeeding in this game, but not satisfying enough to feel totally accomplished.
I’ve gone on about all that is wrong with this game; is there possibly anything good that could spawn from this game? Kind of. The music is some of the best in the series, and can bring some life to the otherwise lifeless levels. And Silver’s psychokinetic abilities are a cool mechanic, but that itself is so buggy and un-tested that it is more like an experiment that should be worked out in later games, though I highly doubt Silver will ever be playable in a future game after this mess of a game.
I myself don’t particularly despise this game, yet I can’t deny all its flaws. The only reason I still like this game even remotely is because of all its flaws. When I play the game, it brings a sort of sick joy to me that I don’t find in most other bad games. So overall, never buy this game unless it can be found for less then a $1.00. Other than that, just observe it from a safe distance.
