I've been bigging up games left right and centre this week. I wrote lots of nice stuff about Super Street Fighter IV, Alan Wake, and Bit.Trip Runner. Well, now it's time to get a little nasty. Let's start with Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
Our toes are dipping into this year's summer, which means we're only so far away from the eagerly anticipated release of the game’s first episode on Xbox Live, PSN, and WiiWare. Sonic 4 represents a welcome return to the series' 2D roots, so much so that Sonic Team saw it fit to make it a sequel to the last numbered game in the series, despite that predecessor being released over 15 years ago.
But it seems people are either blindly optimistic or have incredibly short memories. Y'see, I refuse to be excited by Sonic 4 in any way, simply because the spiky blue git has burnt me too many times. Let's review just how appalling the series has been on our home consoles in recent years.
Sonic and the Black Knight (2009)
- Released for Wii. Scored 54 on Metacritic
- NGamer UK wrote: "Much like a value supermarket sausage, this is 18% Sonic and 82% sawdust. Avoid it."
Sonic Unleashed (2008)
- Xbox 360 version scored 60 on Metacritic.
- Gamers.at wrote: "You can't help but love the daytime levels, but as soon as night hits the game, you will be desperate to turn off your console."
Sonic and the Secret Rings (2007)
- Released for Wii. Scored 69 on Metacritic
- EGM wrote: "While Secret Rings does a decent job at stopping the bleeding caused by the recent 360/PS3/PSP Sonics, it's not quite there yet."
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
- Xbox 360 version scored 46 on Metacritic
- Gaming Target wrote: "It’s just broken. It's so broken in fact that one wonders if they weren’t trying to intentionally botch the game – it’s just that bad."
Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)
- Xbox version scored 49 on Metacritic
- Eurogamer wrote: "Shadow the Hedgehog doesn't really do anything new, and doesn't really give the impression anyone's trying particularly hard."
Let it be stressed that three of those five abominations – Sonic and the Secret Rings was so overrated – were developed by Sonic Team, the team who is co-developing Sonic 4 alongside Dimps. However, the one ray of light in terms of track record comes from these two teams working together. Dimps and Sonic Team co-developed Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure, both critical and commercial successes on the DS, and both offering traditional 2D Sonic gameplay.
But I had high hopes for Sonic Unleashed because it was returning to 2D Sonic and it totally let me down with its werehog nonsense. I really hope Sonic 4 proves me wrong, but at this stage the series has done nothing to suggest anything except another failure on the home consoles.
Why am I writing all this? Because someone has to, that’s why. The hype train will leave the Sega station very shortly, and over the coming months you're going to hear a lot of people get unduly excited about a series that has only been poor in recent years. Someone needs to be the voice of reason.
Even if that voice of reason hopefully gets proven wrong.
For a more in-depth view on the game itself why not check out my esteemed and dare I say rather dashing colleague Brad Hilderbrand's feature on Sonic 4 from earlier this year.
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