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dkirschner's Sonic Adventure DX (PC)
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| [December 8, 2014 08:00:52 AM]
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I've been plowing through games from Humble Bundles, the Team17 one (Worms) and the Sega one. This is obviously from the Sega one. Apparently the game was hailed upon release as demonstrating what was aesthetically possible in video games in the late 90s. Visually, it has aged well. Although this is, I believe, a port of a port remastered in 2003, it looks great. It's a very colorful game with an interesting soundtrack.
Like every Sonic game, you stop Eggman, or Dr. Eggman, or whatever his name is, from carrying out his nefarious plans. This was the first 3D Sonic game and even has open world elements. You control Sonic and have limited abilities. You can run around, spin, jump, and do a jump attack. Given how good the world looks, it's a shame there's not more interactivity available...but I have to remember this was 1998. I played a couple of the "levels" where Sonic is racing around getting coins. Although the game is 3D, the levels function essentially as 2D levels. Like, although you can move along X, Y and Z axes, you're stuck on a rail doing so.
The set pieces for these levels are really awesome. In the first one, Sonic was racing along a boardwalk. The camera moves in front of him and you see whales jumping and crashing through the boardwalk behind him. The sense of speed is fantastic and still impressive today. It was cool to watch, but like I said, I didn't feel as if I was doing much to control Sonic besides pressing forward and doing the occasional spin.
You can play as different characters. Each has some different abilities (i.e., Tails can hover and float), and from what I read, they all have slightly different storylines, sort of like 5-6 perspectives on the main Eggman narrative. Sounds pretty cool and ambitious.
But, I never made it that far because I am stuck in the 'open world.' It is very difficult to navigate because the camera sucks. I can rarely see where I am going and have little control over the camera. You can move it in 45 or 90-degree increments, but like Alien Breed that I recently played, this is difficult to do while also trying to run and spin and attack, especially as fast as Sonic is. And the camera is slow to respond when you do try and move it. It's just unnecessarily difficult, the kind of thing that would be so much easier with a controller and the ability to freely rotate the camera with a stick. I ran around the open world section for 15 minutes without ever figuring out anything that I could do. I found some ledges, some mysterious orb that I released from a waterfall, some NPCs, but I couldn't DO anything. I thought I may be able to reach some ledge by jumping, but the camera position at that point makes it so I can't see where I'm jumping.
Anyway, neat game to poke around with. Made me nostalgic for old Sega Sonic games that I used to play as a kid!
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dkirschner's Sonic Adventure DX (PC)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got Bored
GameLog started on: Saturday 6 December, 2014
GameLog closed on: Monday 8 December, 2014 |
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