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Sonic Heroes Review - Gamecube

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the gaming world's oldest mascots who's outings are legendary. However, since the movement from 2D to 3D, the old mascot hasn't had the best of luck. His company became a software-only company, his 3D outings haven't lived up to expectations and he hasn't seen a fully new game in years. But things have started to look up for the little fella in a full new outing on not just the GameCube, but also the Xbox and PS2. Unfortunately, it still isn't the best it could've been but does make people relive his older days when his games were all about speed.

Gameplay

Sonic Heroes basically sees you take control over a team of three characters at the one time as you go through fast paced levels which resemble the old 2D Sonic games. However, there are actually four different teams that include; Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose, and Team Chaotix who all have memorable Sonic characters, with the exception of a few that the more hardcore fans will only remember. But what makes these teams different is that they each have different difficulty levels with Team Rose being so easy it can be considered insulting to some, and with Team Dark being the most difficult.

Although each character is different in their own way, the same law applies for each team. Each team must have one character that has speed abilities, one character that has flight abilities and one character that has strength abilities. As the player, you have full control over all three characters as you work your way through levels, however, the leader of the three is who's abilities will take the spotlight. Don't worry though because you can actually switch between them by pressing Y or X buttons in order to take advantage of all three. But unfortunately, this is where both a good point and a low point are present. During the levels it does add some strategy to Sonic Heroes making it more enjoyable but it also slows down the fast running action you were doing while switching between the three characters in order to solve small puzzles. Luckily, you can normally figure out which character to use in a matter of seconds so this isn't such a big problem.

A little bit of combat is required during the levels too, which will fully use the abilities of each character. This is shown by simply having different attacks for each character that has different effects but are impressive nonetheless. An example of this is, Sonic can create tornados which will suck up enemies, while Tails can throw both Sonic and Knuckles at hovering enemies, while Knuckles can make the group hold hands and float atop wind funnels. There's also a charge meter that will let you use an amazing attack that wipes out all visible enemies on the screen and is perfect when you're surround by a whole group.

As mentioned, Sonic Heroes (continued next page)