Customer Reviews

Sonic Generations (PS3)

As a fan of the series for 19 years, Sonic Generations is a great way to celebrate the 20th anniversary! Playing through 9 levels cherry picked from the series history as old-school 2D sonic and the newer 3D style creates lots of nostalgia, particularly when you spot a piece of level design from another level that didn't make the cut. (The final level from Sonic Colours feels a lot like the classic 'Scrap Brain Zone', for example.

The game is fairly short, but each level has so many secrets and alternate routes as well as online leaderboards it becomes hard to put down! The difficulty curves nicely for younger children (and those of us with no hand-eye coordination), and the music remixes for each Sonic play style are absolutely fantastic!

Cannot recommend it enough!

A... good Sonic game? A GOOD Sonic game?! What crazed Bizarro world parody of Earth is this upon which I find myself? After so many years of the has-been hedgehog turning out terrible game after terrible game (Last year's surprisingly good 'All Star Racing' excepted I guess, but it wasn't strictly a Sonic game) it seemed not unreasonable by this point to just roll your eyes at the very idea of a new Sonic game (Although some of us still kept coming back for more every time. Not my proudest moments.)... but believe me when I say that Sonic Generations is easily the best Sonic game since the series moved to 3D. I'm sure the irony of the majority of the game being based firmly in 2D play mechanics is lost on no one.

Foregoing the pointlessly long winded narrative structure of the majority of the 3D Sonic games, Generations' story is kept as minimal as possible, using only the bare minimum of cutscenes to establish the story that sees some sort of time travelling monster causing havoc for both 'classic' Sonic (As he appeared in the Mega Drive Sonic games) in the 'past' and 'modern' Sonic (The Poochie D-esque annoyance he's become today) in the present. With the two stranded in a white 'limbo' outside of time and unaware of each other's presence there, they both must travel through levels revamped from every Sonic game from the very first title right up to last year's Sonic Colours, each played in 2D for classic Sonic and in a hybrid 3D/2D mixture for modern Sonic that has the appearance of the 'daytime' levels of Sonic Unleashed in execution, but are significantly better put together here. This essentially gives you every level presented in a Mega Drive era fashion (Gameplay wise at least) and also in a full 3D fashion, and it works fantastically.

The 2D stages adhere surprisingly closely to the play mechanics of the original Mega Drive titles, correcting the missteps that made the recent downloadable disappointment Sonic 4 such a bad idea by actually making it play just like the older games, with none of the new nonsense tossed in (Goodbye homing attack) for these levels aside from the visuals of course. It actually FEELS like Sonic 3 to play, which is just how you'd want it when the game is aiming for what this one is. The 2D levels are fun, well put together and do real justice to their originating sources. The 2D altered versions of levels from 3D Sonic games have some really cute touches to them as well, with Sonic Adventure 2's 'City Escape' being a real highlight in my eyes. The 3D hybrid levels with modern Sonic take a fairly different approach, but not so much as you might expect. There are a lot of 3D sequences, yes, but at least half your play time in these levels will also be spent in 2D... except that these modern levels DO feel a lot more like Sonic 4 in execution but with several tweaks that make it a lot more fun to play such as the 'speed boost' ability that sends you flying forward at ludicrous speeds, with you having to collect rings to keep the boost gauge full. It cannot be overstated how great the sense of speed during these moments are, most especially when controlling Sonic in the full 3D segments. There are some of the usual niggles in here like suddenly appearing obstacles, traps or enemies that you will usually be going too fast to possibly react to in time and some control annoyances with the 3D bits, but beyond that, I was amazed by how intuitive and easy to handle the controls were in the game. I think what highlights best just how much better this game is than what came before it is the level 'Crisis City'... a post apocalyptic, lava filled city level which is lifted from the 2006 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game. In THAT game, Crisis City was a deeply frustrating level where you were constantly being bombarded with sudden pitfalls, tons of enemies and a level which seemed to go on forever in addition to the poor controls the game itself had... and in Sonic Generations, this level is recreated for modern Sonic in such a way that it LOOKS identical to see in motion, but the tighter controls, more focused, reasonable length level design and challenges that don't feel cheap make it a completely different experience to play. I died something like 7 times before finishing this level in the older Sonic game... in Generations I did it in one shot with minimal hassle... which in a way brings us to one of the main problems with this game: difficulty.

This is not a hard game. The challenge is fairly minimal throughout, with enemies proving to be little more inconvenient than jumping over a stone in front of you. The bosses are a little harder, but still aren't up to much, with the best I can say about their difficulty being that some of them are looooooong. One of the later boss fights where you have to battle Dr Robotnik in some sort of big flying dragon type robot went on way too long for my liking, lasting longer than any regular level of the game I had done up until that point. Then on top of this the final boss of the game is absolutely infuriating. Not because it is actually hard or anything, but more because the way it is designed is just horrible, and really ruins everything that the game did so right beforehand at the worst possible moment. There is also a point to be made about how short the game is, as apparently it took me just over 6 hours to complete... and that's with doing a whole bunch of the challenge levels too, rather than just blasting through the story. I'd be very surprised if it took the average player of reasonable skill more than 10 hours at the most to get the Platinum trophy for this one. Which may sound fairly decent for a Sonic game (Especially when you consider that the original Sonic the Hedgehog, included on the Generations disc as a bonus, is barely ONE HOUR long in it's entirety) but still felt very 'slight' to me. There is replay value here though, and at the end of the day it is very enjoyable to play, but worth full retail? Debatable.

Graphically, the game is just marvellous. The characters and levels are brightly coloured and super fast moving with rock solid performance from beginning to end. I did find that the lighting looked a tad 'odd' in places, but beyond that, it's a superb looking game. The soundtrack is pretty great too, made up of numerous remixes of various Sonic soundtracks from throughout the character's history. The... ugh... voice acting is what you've come to expect from a Sonic game at this point, but Sonic Team made the very wise decision to not have 'classic' Sonic talk at all, which works perfectly thankfully and makes for some amusing physical comedy that is streets ahead of the crap you get from modern Sonic's repellant 'supporting cast'.

All in all, this is a really great game. It's fun, it's easy to play and provides a genuinely enjoyable nostalgia trip charting the history of the Sonic series (Both good and bad) in a really well judged manner. It is very light on content though and the difficulty is pitched very low, but these are probably minor gripes (now that the game's price has dropped quite a bit at least) against the fact that this is easily the best Sonic game since his Mega Drive days. It is superb.

First off, I thought everyone should know that this looks fantastic in 3D, so if you have a 3D TV you're in for a real treat.

Sonic games in the past few years have been pretty bad, Sonic 4 was terrible, the music was hideous, just plain nasty, so much so you had to turn it off, but also they messed up the game physics, all momentum was removed from the game and it simply didn't play right, it wasn't Sonic. You had no choice if you wanted your Sonic fix; you had to return to Sonic 1/2 and Sonic CD. When Sonic Generations was announced I had little hope. However I was wrong, very wrong, now I can get my Sonic fix without returning to the 90's!

Graphically the game looks great, it really is nicely polished. I really like the music, it's a compilation of original Sonic tracks (from Sonic 1,2, Adventure and even one track I noticed from Sonic CD) but revamped to sound fresh and new but maintaining the original sound, it sounds great and works really well.

There are some really cool bits, one bit in particular - Sonic finds himself at the top of a building on a spire, real high up overlooking the town, he slides / grinds down a rail towards the ground at great speed; the buildings on the ground rushing up to meet him! You really have to see it but it looks amazing (its a moment where the graphics, music and game-play all come together to make you feel epic!!), maybe the 3D made the difference here (providing greater perspective), but it really stood out. There are plenty of bits which wowed me though, even made me smile. Plenty of time has been spent on this game and it shows.

The slight problem... well, if you're familiar with Sonic games of yore then you'll know you need fast reflexes as well as responsive controls. Well the controls sadly aren't responsive enough, there is a noticeable delay when you jump. However, you find yourself compensating for this after ten minutes, but there are times when I've died because of this delay which is really annoying. Some people don't notice this delay, but if you've played original Sonic a lot you'll instantly detect this delay.

There is one other thing, more personal preference really, but there are too many level where you can fall to your death very easily, too easily. I hate falling to my death, it sickens me! Most of the time its down to not being able to jump fast enough because of the control delay when jumping.

All in all, I'm very happy, finally a 21st century Sonic that I actually want to play!!!

If you look at the list of acts you might think this game is not very long..wrong!

Once you complete each set of 6 acts (3 with original sonic, 3 with new style sonic) it opens up challenge acts - some of which are the length of entire levels, some are mini levels which are the same theme as the main act but different design. There are 90 challenge acts! On top of this there are battles with other characters (such as Shadow) and boss battles - these are to collect the chaos emeralds.

If you want to go for the platinum trophy you will need to collect 5 red rings from each act and get S rank on them all - the ring collecting is quite challenging and had me resorting to youtube for help.

I absolutely loved it and hope for another installment - my only negative comment would be that when you are working on 100% completion, act 1 (old sonic) is usually much easier for challenges and red rings than act 2 (new sonic) - when I am in one zone I would prefer to find the level of challenge the same.

If you are buying this for a very young player, although the boss stages aren't overly difficult - it could prove an obstacle as you can't progress further if you get stuck on a boss level (and there is no difficulty setting).

After a few terrible games (notably the 3D PS3 debut of Sonic The Hedgehog), the SEGA guys have really found their feet with the last few releases. After spending years trying to force Sonic to move with the times and embrace a more advanced three dimensional mechanic the fact remains, Sonic The Hedgehog simply works better in good old fashioned 2D.

Thanks to a couple of excellent Nintendo DS titles (Sonic Rush Adventure 1 & 2, and Sonic Colours) they decided to revert to old school Sonic on major platforms and what we got was a real treat. First we were treated to the under-rated 2d/3d mixture of Sonic Unleashed, a half lightning fast half puzzle game. Then we got the fantastic Sonic 4 which was a full return to 2D heaven. And finally we got this...

Sonic Generations is a collection of old and new classic Sonic levels. Could it recreate the things we remember so fondly from our time as kids? Dangerous territory there indeed.... But actually, it's incredible detail only improves the maps you probably remember from your childhood, such as Green Hill and Dr Robotnik's Metal Zone (I mean, Dr Eggman). The gameplay is fast and furious. Old Sonic is tiny and compete with little pot belly, which only makes the game better, whereas new Sonic is rather lanky and stupendously quick. You'll be met with a classic level followed by a series of special challenges in that zone (beat the clock, etc) to unlock the classic boss fight so this feels more like a Sonic exhibition game than a full story-driven feature but that's no bad thing at all. This is basically nostalgia all the way and rightly so. Both Sonic charachters get to play through the same maps, which means when playing as new Sonic you will get to see stuff like Green Hill Zone switched up into 3D and it actually works quite well, as the developers focus on speed and those "I'm going so fast if I hit an unexpected wall here I'm deaaaaaaad!" moments which Sonic games were built for.

You'll have your favourite Sonic no doubt.... My 5 year old son tells me that 'big Sonic' is the best, but I know where my loyalties lie.

The biggest compliment I can give this game is that those classic Sonic levels where you are being chased by the ever-rising water level STILL scare the hell out of my 5 year old boy the exact same way they used to scare me some 20 years ago.

It's been a while since I purchased a Sonic game but after reading the good reviews I thought I'd give it a try, I was not disappointed.

The game revisits 9 stages from previous Sonic games from Sonic The Hedgehog to Sonic Colours. Act 1 is for classic 2D Sonic gameplay and Act 2 is for modern 3D Sonic gameplay. Most of the stages are great and beautifully done but you'll probably dislike 1 or 2 of the stages (I dislike Planet Wisp and Sky Sanctuary but even those stages are well done). However, the boss stages aren't as fun as the main stages. The last boss in particular was terrible and I thought it could have utilised 2D - 3D switches much better.

The game isn't very long if you rush through all the stages but there is plenty to do if you complete all the challenges, collect red rings, unlock all music and art and collect all the trophies. The graphics are excellent and the unlockable artwork is nice. The music is fantastic too, there's a classic and modern remix for each stage and you have the option to change the music for each stage to something you unlock (There's typically 1-3 songs to unlock for every sonic game). My only other complaint is the loading times. You can't install the game on your hard drive and the game loads every time you switch characters and save, this did annoy me at first but since the loading times are fairly short I got used to it.

Overall there were a few minor things I disliked but the game is great fun and I hope there's a sequel.

20 years ago, a gaming legend was born. Not only would he become the rival of Mario, but also one of the greatest video game characters of all time. Sonic The Hedgehog first debuted on the Sega Mega Drive on June 23rd 1991 and has become an icon to many since then. Now the year is 2011 and it's the 20th Anniversary for the blue blur. To celebrate, Sega have given us not only one of the greatest games in the series history, but also one of the greatest celebrations of a franchise's history ever. Sonic Generations brings together fans and gamers young and old to celebrate this Hedgehog's 20th anniversary, and it does it with style and pure fan service.

The plot is as basic as it gets. It's Sonic's Birthday and his friends put together a party to celebrate. Suddenly a mysterious entity appears out of the sky and sucks in all of Sonic's friends. Sonic tries to stop this being but is easily knocked out. He wakes up in a strange dimension where everything has lost its colour and notices locals that look very familiar to him. Not only that but he also meets up with his younger Classic self. It's up to both Sonic's to rescue their friends and figure out what's going on. It's a very simple tale that works well and has plenty of references and injokes of the series history that fans will appreciate.

The gameplay is split into two styles for both Sonic's. Classic Sonic plays like the Mega Drive games. 2D style platforming with momentum based physics. You'll be collecting rings, jumping across platforms and destroying badnicks just like the good old days. The old TV box powerups are back such as extra rings, extra lives, invincibility and more. Classic Sonic's controls are solid and handle just like they did in the Mega Drive games. He has a new feature by pressing the square button to activate the spin dash, but for those who prefer the old way of doing spin dash, it's still here. Classic Sonic is represented perfectly and his gameplay will please those who loved the old games.

Modern Sonic's gameplay uses the formula of Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colours gameplay. His levels are played in 3D and 2D. While he doesn't have the spin dash like his classic self, he has his own abilities which are the returning homing attack which auto targets enemies, the slide which is used to fit through small gaps, the stomp attack which sends Sonic slamming on the ground and his boost which propels him at high speeds as long as he has enough energy in the boost gauge. He also has a new feature where he can do freelance tricks when he jumps from a trick ramp or a rainbow ring. When you perform tricks, it builds up Sonic's boost meter and can even extend beyond the meter. Modern Sonic's stages are much faster than Classic Sonic's stages and are a blast to play. The controls for Modern Sonic are the best they have ever been. They are much smoother and you feel more freedom in Sonic's movement then he was in Unleashed. The controls are a great upgrade.

The game has a hub world called White Space. The hub world is played from a 2D perspective and you can go around the various levels of the game and take higher paths to find challenge missions. There is a skill shop where you can buy skills to equip to both Sonic's which will give them new abilities. Also there is Sonic's collection house where you can view the extras you unlock.

Each level has two acts. Act 1 for Classic Sonic and Act 2 for Modern Sonic. As you complete levels, you will be able to play challenge missions which have 5 for each level for both Sonic's. As you complete missions, you will unlock boss keys which will be needed to take on the bosses of the game. There are also rival battles with other characters from the Sonic universe. As you beat rivals and bosses you unlock more levels and Chaos Emeralds.

When it comes to level design, Sonic Generations has this nailed. Each level comes from a past Sonic game such as Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1, Chemical Plant from Sonic 2, Sky Sanctuary from Sonic & Knuckles, City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 and much more. These classic levels have been re-imagined with new level design and even nods to the levels original design. There are plenty of alternative paths to take which makes for fantastic replay value and aiming to finish stages in the fastest time possible.

While the main quest will only take you about 4 hours to finish, the amount of extras will keep you busy for a while. There are plenty of unlockable extras such as music, artwork, character bios and videos. You unlock these by finding Red Star Coins hidden in the levels which have 5 in each act. There is also an online mode where you can go for the fastest time in levels you've unlocked and try to get to the top of the leaderboards.

The graphics are absolutely beautiful. The hedgehog engine that was used in Sonic Unleashed once again makes for brilliant visuals, lighting and outstanding character animations. The levels are bright and colourful and the older levels such as Green Hill and Sky Sanctuary really shine.

The soundtrack is hands down the greatest soundtrack in the series history. Classic tunes and vocal songs are remixed and all sound fantastic. The nostalgic feeling you get from them is overwhelming and you'll love every minute of them. The new voice cast who joined last year with Sonic Colours and Sonic Free Riders are still top notch and give solid performances, especially Roger Craig Smith as Modern Sonic.

Wither you are a long time fan who's played the classics or a fan of the modern games, Sonic Generations is the perfect Sonic game to bring both sides of fans together and hands down the best celebration of a video game series to date. Make sure to check out this one. Happy 20th Anniversary Sonic the Hedgehog, and here's to 20 more. 10/10

This game is just great. I didn't think it would live up to my expectations but if anything it exceeded them. You play as two sonics, the modern one we know from the recent titles and his younger, chubbier self, before he discovered dieting apparently. The game contains 9 stages which may not seem like a lot, but there are tons of extras and unlockables. Every stage in the game is great, even stages like crisis city that are very annoying the first few times through, become much more enjoyable once you've learned the stages traps and pitfalls.
The game can be completed in about 4 hours but it's so enjoyable you will definitely want to replay several of the stages over and over. 90 bonus missions are also included to extend the life of the game. The majority of these are great fun, especially the ones that feel like brand new levels. The online mode can be seriously addictive as well. I've lost count of the amount of hours i've spent getting good times in stages, only to spend more time trying to better those times.
Overall, an excellent addition to the franchise. With this and sonic colours, it has been proven that not only can 3d sonic games work, they can be very fun too.

Even for a game that returns the classic sonic in HD, I thought it's even better getting to play as two different Sonics. This game exceeds expectations because of this as you get to play as both the 'Classic Sonic', the popular version which gives Sonic it's stardom and 'Modern Sonic', the character which has evolved over the years in many other Sonic titles.

The same mixes the formula well as all the stages are spilt into two acts, one being played in Classic form and the other being played in the modern form. The popular stages are taken from a few games from the past. The game adds something new in each stage, so even thou the stages are based off something else, they play differently and it's worth taking the time to play thru. With Sonic being still be talked about, I think many players new and old will get the most out of this game and thus being a great introduction to Sonic the Hedgehog for anyone that's new to the series.

What more can I say really. The 3D levels are superb and so are the 2D ones. The music and art direction are both colourful and enjoyable. I personally prefer the 3D to the 2D levels (which I normally find to be the funnest)