My Very First Grand Theft Auto

Shadow the Hedgehog defines a new step in the continuation of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog lines of games. The last time Sega had a Sonic game that didn't feature Sonic as a prominent character in a console game was Knuckles Chaotix, waaay back in 1995. Now that more "mature" themes seem to have taken over the gaming world, Sega looked to boost its reputation by having a rough and ready main character utilizing guns and vehicles.

Plot
Shadow, still wondering his own existence and lost memory since Sonic Heroes, is surprised by a large red storm cloud opening above Station Square, dropping a rather large amount of aliens. Shadow, believe that the problems of humans are not his problems, decides to go elsewhere. His mind is quickly changed for him, as the leader of the aliens, Black Doom, tells Shadow that his past could be revealed, but only if he works for Black Doom in collecting the seven chaos emeralds "as promised".

Shadow, not truly trusting the alien, begrudgingly accepts, as Black Doom appears to know who he is. Heading into Station Square starts him on wild ride through many locations. During his travels, he will switch alliances many times, and with each switch and level completed, he'll find out a bit more about himself, though each of the regular six endings give a slightly different view of who he really is.

Gameplay
Taking a hint from many RPGs, the main new feature in Shadow the Hedgehog is the alternate storyline system, fueled by Alliances. In most stages, you choose between three alliances- good, evil, and neutral. (If you go too far good or too far evil, you only have the choice of good and evil.) This adds a good deal of replay for the game, as it encourages you to go through the game again and again, making different choices to unlock all the levels and endings. As an added bonus, when you reach the end of a game you can view the full motion videos for that storyline. There are over 300 combinations of stage movement, each with a unique name.

With the alliance system, you have allies and enemies throughout the game- humans, aliens, and robots. Sonic and his friends will also routinely pop up to give you a hand (if you're working on the good mission) and hints. This would have been a great system to make the game harder and work with NPCs, but everyone shoots at or attacks you, regardless of which side you're currently working for. This means that you often have to take out everyone, again disregarding your actual side.

Another, and more controversial, addition to the game is that of weapons. With few exceptions, such as Tail's robots and planes, the Sonic franchise has done away with weapons for the protagonists, opting instead for physical attacks. The amount of weapons available actually create quite a wide array. There are rocket launchers, lasers, swords, machine guns, and more. Certain environment objects, such as candle racks and street signs, can be destroyed and then used as melee weapons. A few unlockable odd weapons are tossed in for fun, such as the Egg Vacuum (which sucks up enemies) and a wrist communicator to call down lasers from the air.

The third addition is vehicles. The amount of vehicles are few, and don't often play a prominent role. They tend to move a bit slower than Shadow himself, but are useful for ramming through obstacles. They also have limits for the amount of hits they can take, so you can't just ram it into everything you want.

Sega again reverts to getting the emeralds within the levels, rather than having Special Stages to obtain the level. On one hand, this differs from the classic Sonic formula, but, on the other hand, the special stages in Sonic Heroes made for a lot of cringing.

Despite the massive amount of replay, you can get to the last stage, Final Story, with about 20-30 hours of play. This means all levels and endings have to be unlocked, but does not include the collection of keys and rankings. These last two items add some more replay-ability, as does trying to get every story line, but these are not really worth it.

Graphics
The graphics in Shadow are the best of any Sonic game to date. Most levels have a high level of detail, as well as destructible elements with nice effects. The graphics really stand out during FMVs, however. Individual blades of grass flow with the movement of the wind, character movement is fluid and realistic (well, as much as a bipedal hedgehog talking to a hologram of an alien can be), and mouth movement actually fits the voice acting.

Controls
I'm not certain whether Sonic Team just can't do it, or whether they've just stopped trying, but Shadow the Hedgehog again incorporates the poor controls and horrible camera that has plagued every 3D Sonic game. Are the controls better? Marginally, but they still take an otherwise good game and turn it into a massive ball of frustration.

However, with new features comes new frustrations. While you have a large amount of weapons, you have almost no targeting system. You can't lock onto enemies (except where the gun locks on itself, such as rockets), so everyone gets a taste of led. Come upon a smattering of humans fighting the aliens? If you fire your weapon, you'll likely hit both sides. The game does do some auto-targeting- if you shoot close enough to an enemy, the game will "correct" the aim of the gun and you'll hit the enemy instead. However, this still becomes annoying when you are ambushed and don't have time to maneuver Shadow to turn around. If you fire a gun in mid-air, you stay in midair, so you can jump up, start firing, and turn the character around while firing, but even that doesn't make up for controls.

The camera also likes to keep its focus in one location. So if an enemy fires you from some corridor and you fire back, the camera will happily stay where it is while you get hit. You can maneuver the camera some, but little is garnered from that.

Sound
The music in Shadow the Hedgehog also departs from its predecessors- gone is the cheesy lyrical theme songs for levels, replaced instead by moody and mostly appropiate themes, mostly of the rock variety. There are even some awesome orchestrated pieces that are using sparingly through the game (but can be unlocked in the sound option menu upon completing certain endings)

Some of the levels are "clones" of other levels, with different names. These usually appear on opposite sides of the light/dark spectrum, and have different paths, but use many of the same graphical elements. This doesn’t detract from the game, however.

Voice acting has gone up, removing a lot of the cliché. Emotion is given in the delivering of lines, making the FMVs much easier to get into. However, they still managed to give Team Chaotix and Tails some rather annoying voices.

Final Review
While Shadow the Hedgehog brings a lot of new ideas to the table for the Sonic series of games, bad controls, cameras, and AIs severly bog down an otherwise good game. Amazing graphics, voice acting, and an entertaining story keep the user interested, and is almost enough to ignore the faults. Almost. However, the use of weapons to just obliterate enemies, as well as the chance to act as the bad guy, make this a game worth playing, especially if you are a die-hard Sonic fan.

This game gets three stars because it is definitely worth a play through, but not more than a $20 copy or a week-long rental from Blockbuster.