Review:
Sonic the Hedgehog - One man's memorial

There will always be things that take us back to our childhood. Like warm summer days in the park, the apple and blackberry pies my Grandmother still makes, and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Yes, Sonic was one of the first games I ever really remember getting really addicted to, and just had to finish. The rings, the speed, and all those mechanical animals with real animals inside, I just had to see what happened at the end. So for days I would run, jump and collect my way through zones and acts, to face off against the evil Robotnik and save the day.

Fast forward a few years, to the release of Sonic the Hedgehog on the current generation consoles. I ran home with my chromed cardboard sleeved copy, giddy as a school girl. I jammed my copy into the drive, cursing the drawer for moving so slowly and almost begged the game to fire up.
After about 2 hours, I turned off my console, lay down, and had a little cry, mourning the loss of a once great hedgehog.

So what went wrong? Ok, the basic staples of a great Sonic game were all included. Iconic blue hedgehog? Check. Weird mechanical enemies? Check. Robotnik? Check. But something was missing, and something else was all too prevalent.

The game had lost its charm. It was no longer the simple game of running, jumping, collecting and saving that it once was loved for. Now I had to talk to people to find out what to do. There were side quests to finish. There was a shop... Since when did Sonic have to buy things?

It was a strange, disorienting feeling that swept over me. But perhaps the worst thing was the feeling that they had accidentally called this game Sonic the Hedgehog, when they really ment Sonic the loading.

Just about everything requires a loading screen. Talking to some one requires a loading screen before AND after a short conversation. Jumping into a level requires a nice long loading screen, and dying mid level, which is a rather frequent occurrence with multiple ways to die instantly, requires a good long load too.

I know games have to load, but this often and for the amount of time this game requires? It doesn't really make that much sense. Bigger games that do much more don't require as many loading sequences as Sonic, so I cant even begin to to justify and defend this game.