Last week, I reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog's 2011 outing, Sonic Generations. When I finished the review, I gave the game a grade A. I get the feeling that, after I do this kind of stuff for awhile, I think people will get the idea that I'll like pretty much anything that has Sonic's name on it. Allow me to put those thoughts to rest early by reviewing a Sonic game that I DON'T like. Specifically, Shadow the Hedgehog. (Before you read any further, I'm just going to warn you; this review is going to be lengthy. You may also have had to have played Sonic Adventure 2 and/or Sonic Heroes to understand some story elements.)

With that said, let me start by showing you the very first trailer for this game when it was announced in 2005. Well, the first one for the Nintendo Gamecube, anyways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYIxmcUtmmE

When this trailer popped up, a lot of people thought it was an April Fool's joke. Nobody could see Shadow the Hedgehog packing heat, holding guns, and fighting aliens. But then, later in the year, we found out that the game was actually real. Unsurprisingly, the game failed among the Sonic Fanbase, me included.

But, before I explain why that is, let's start with the story. We begin by seeing Shadow the Hedgehog staring into the evening horizon. While he does this, he ponders with the thought of what happened on the Space Colony ARK 50 years ago, when it was raided by G.U.N. and Shadow's best friend, Maria Robotnik, was shot and killed. However, since Shadow can't remember anything, he questions who Maria even is. But, before Shadow can get the idea to ask Sonic or his friends about it, an alien race called the Black Arms begins to invade Earth.

As the aliens begin to run through the nearby city, the leader of the race, Black Doom, confronts Shadow. He tells the hedgehog that the Day of Reckoning is on it's way and tells him to bring him the seven Chaos Emeralds "as promised." Shadow questions what Black Doom is even talking about, but instead of Black Doom explaining things the him, he just causes some random explosions around Shadow and leaves him to find the emeralds. From that point, Shadow makes it his goal to recover the emeralds and find the answers to his past.

The main concept of Shadow the Hedgehog is branching storylines. Each stage contains a maximum of three missions; Dark, Neutral, and Hero. Depending on which missions you choose, not only will it lead you to different stages, but also to a different ending when the storyline is complete. There are ten possible endings for the player to reach, and to get to an ending, you'll travel through six stages, depending on who you all yourself with.

This would be a fresh concept in a Sonic game, but there's just one little problem with it; there's a final story that has Shadow ultimate stop Black Doom, and save the world from the Black Arms. I apologize if you're angry at me for spoiling it for you, but this final story makes the entire concept of the game completely pointless. What's even worse is that, in order to get to the final story, you need to get to all of the other endings to get there. This means you have to play through the game TEN TIMES. Because, like I said, you have to complete all ten endings if you want to go for the final story.

As if the game didn't sound bad enough, I've gotta talk about the game itself now. In this game, you play as Shadow from start to finish. Shadow to get through stages using quite a number of techniques. Shadow can jump into enemies and use the homing attack, which are effective, but there's something wrong with the homing attack. If you try to spam the homing attack, you won't be able to deal damage with it. Back in the Adventure games, you could pretty much spam the homing attack as long as you were in close range with the enemy you were attacking. Here, you have to wait until Shadow and the enemy recovers from the attack before it can deal damage. It breaks any sort of flow or pacing you could have while on the move.

There's also the spin dash and melee punches and kicks, which are both not very useful. If you want to do the spin dash, Shadow will have to come to a complete halt. After that, he has to charge it if you want to gain any sort of momentum with it. Like the homing attack, it breaks the pace. I could easily classify the spin dash as the most useless attack in the game, but that honor goes to the melee attacks. In case you aren't packing heat, and for some reason don't feel like jumping into or using the homing attack on enemies, Shadow can preform a combo of three punches and kicks. However, these attacks deal a poor amount damage, as well as have terrible range.

Along with that, we have what's probably the most ridiculous mechanic in a Sonic game; gunplay. Although, while I find this concept just outright silly, the gunplay is actually not that bad. Enemies have health bars in this game, sometimes big ones at that, but with a gun, you can kill them in a matter of seconds. Sure, the jumping and homing attack work wonders on enemies as well, but the game really wants you to use guns, and they work pretty decently. Though, there's no manual lock-on function on these things, which is kind of a shame.

Finally, Shadow wields two Chaos powers; Chaos Blast and Chaos Control. You use these powers by filling up one of two bars, a red bar and a blue bar. If you do bad things, your red bar will fill up, and if you do good things, your blue bar will fill up. When the red bar is maxed out, Shadow can preform Chaos Blast, an explosion attack that completely demolishes everything caught in the radius. When the blue bar is filled, Shadow can preform Chaos Control, allowing you to zip by a large part of the stage.

Though, neither of these abilities are rather useful. When you fill up one of the bars, Shadow is not only invincible, but he also has unlimited ammo until the meter runs out. Personally, I prefer unlimited ammo over the Chaos powers, but that's just me.

Although, it's hard to utilize all of these combat techniques when the control is bad. Shadow always feels like he went skating in butter before starting the adventure. This is most apparent when he's going at high speeds. I constantly find myself jumping all over the place to regain my composure and get some decent footing.

Though, despite the slippery controls, that's not the worst thing about the game. That honor goes to the overall level design. The neutral pathway is all about just getting to the goal ring. It's a simple pathway that I think most gamers can get through without much trouble. As soon as we venture into the dark and hero missions, the issues of the level design slowly start to reveal their ugly selves.

To start with, the mission structure is just terrible. Most of the missions consist of Shadow having to collect or destroy a large amount of items or enemies. Let's take the first level, Westopolis, for example. The hero mission requires you to find and kill all 45 aliens in the level. There are ONLY 45 aliens, so if you miss one, you're going to have to do some backtracking and spend possibly another two and a half minutes to locate it, possibly longer. To top it all off, there's no radar of any kind. You're completely blind when looking for whatever it is you're looking for.

Second, the textures. A lot of the levels just look bleak and/or uninteresting, with at least one ugly shade of purple or gray in every one of them. It also doesn't help that these textures are recycled over and over. For example, Mad Matrix looks almost exactly like Digital Circuit and Lost Impact looks exactly like The Doom.

Lastly, the levels can get way too long. Like I said, the mission structure is absolutely terrible. If you don't keep your eyes peeled, you'll probably be spending fifteen minutes to half an hour on a single stage. Take stages like Lost Impact, for example. To complete the mission, you to destroy every artificial Chaos in the stage. The level itself is just a confusing maze, because nothing stands out. There's no Eclipse Cannon room, there's no space view, there's no main bay, there's nothing here. Because of this, you could potentially take a good chunk out of the day just completing the level.

In a nutshell, Shadow the Hedgehog is just a terrible excuse for a Sonic game. I could be talking about how bad the soundtrack is, the terrible multiplayer, the Expert mode, the characters suddenly swearing, and a lot of other things. But, if I did that, I'd be here for hours. Shadow the Hedgehog is a mixture of terrible level design, an insane amount of monotony, awful controls, and a lame story. Combined, they make for a terrible video game that only the most desperate of Sonic could find any sort of enjoyment out of.

Overall Game Grade: F

Next Review: Sonic Colors

(Disclaimer: No, this review blog is not just going to be about Sonic. I'm just reviewing Sonic games until I get to Sonic Lost World, which will be the final review of 2013. When 2014 starts, I'll review more things beyond Sonic.)