Sonic the Hedgehog, what's happened to you? Your games have slowly degenerated from Sonic Adventure, leading up to the crap game Sonic the Hedgehog for the PS3 and Xbox 360. How is Sonic's latest adventure on the Wii? Read on to find out.

Storyline
Yet another Wii game with a lackluster story. Erazor Djinn, an evil Genie with a serious chip on his shoulder, is absorbing the power of the Arabian

Nights book and only the blue blur can stop him. Along the way Sonic will
run into friends and foes from the real world assuming guises as storybook characters such as Tails being Ali Baba and Knuckles being Sinbad. A lot more work could've been put into the story, which doesn't end very well at all.

Gameplay
The part most reviewers a reading. Sonic is totally on rails in this game and you steer him left and right while holding the Wii-mote NES style. As Sonic runs, you steer him away from enemies, press the 2 button to jump and the 1 button to brake. Sonic's trademark Homing Attack is handled by thrusting the Wii-mote forward when locked on to enemies.

Controls are great, more responsive than Excite Truck, but often lead to frustration. Particularly when you have to stop to kill enemies in the side missions. You'll often find yourself unable to stop fast enough to attack the enemies, collect rings etc.

Missions are also flawed. The basic 'Get to the Goal' mission is fun, but once you get to the 'Collect 99 Rings', 'Destroy 5 Genie Eggs' and other such missions, you'll absolutely hate the controls. Often the Homing Attack will not lock on and you'll be sent plummeting off a cliff, into the ocean or other such black holes. And falling off more than once restarts the entire mission, but keeps the time you've already played. This is frustrating and makes getting higher medals arduous and annoying.

Another frustrating part of the gameplay is the way you advance the storyline. You'll watch a cut scene, race to the goal and watch another cutscene. Then you'll have to play several very difficult side missions before another world is unlocked. And all the missions don't vary at all. Genie eggs will become Dinosaur eggs instead, that sorta thing. It seriously detracts from the whole experience.

Make no mistake, this game is really fast, when you're not turning Sonic. Often trying to turn will steer you into an enemy, off a cliff or into some random object the developers decided to drop in your path. You'll become frustrated once you reach top speed, only to crash into a barrier and slow all the way down. Plus the amount of times you have to stop to defeat enemies, jump across a chasm, perform a homing attack etc is annoying and frustrating.

Presentation
The best part about the game is the in-game graphics. Water is beautifully animated and Sonic's world is presented in the way it should be: colorful and full of life. In 480p and 16:9 Widescreen this game completely passes the Gamecube in graphical ability. Blur effects are awesome and realistic looking.
Cutscenes bite hard! They're presented just like Red Steel cutscenes, only without the budget. It seems like Sonic Team just slapped these together and placed them into the game.

Scores:

Storyline: 2/5 Two years of developing for something like this?

Gameplay: 2.5/5 Too frustrating to play without throwing down the Wii Remote

Presentation: 4.5/5 With better cutscenes, this would've been a perfect score.

Overall: 2.7/5 (Not Recommended)

If Sonic and the Secret Rings is this bad, then I can't hope to imagine what Sonic Next Gen was like. Is this the best 3D Sonic yet? No. I only recommended this game to those with extreme patience skills and lots of time to memorize the courses.

Dude, i fell your pain...You probly read my reveiw of this game and i thought it sucked to....But, i had to compinsate for the die hard sonic fans...

Meh @ teh review. I rented it and I still <3 the game, I'm not a sonic fan so I didnt expect anything good, and I have it I give the controls a 4/5 its really easy to learn, and fun to play. The missions are kinda annoying but they get you new things to unlock. The Cutscenes are BS but I would live with them the game is awesome.

I'm diffenetly getting this game to give it the Alex review. I'm gonna go into without any expectations and just see if the game runs well, if for the most part it's good then balance the good and the bad to see what a final score would be. I just think that this game will be fun and I want to review it fairly.

Pretty nice review though Rooster.

I don't think it sucks. I just don't think its the best game ever

Best 3D Sonic ever...
Who'd have thought that the game where Sonic runs for you would be the most fun.

I wasn't really directing it towards you don't worry. I know that it's not the best.

I think your review was a little harsh. But you're right, it's definitely not the funnest or best game for the Wii yet. There's some stuff that's really frustrating about it (like the controls and controlling Sonic). But overall I think it's fantastic.

Its fun, just annoying at times. I like the Sonic series and was able to enjoy most of the Sonic games, except for mainly Shadow the Hedgehog, which was terrible

This is the best Sonic game I've played since the Dreamcast versions 1 & 2. I think if people want an extremely easy game, then they should go elsewhere. One thing you didn't explain is that in many situations there is more then one path you can take during most of the missions.

As for the cut scenes, the game is based on the Arabian Nights, so your looking at pages from a book...

I really like this game, and love the controls. Do I find it frustrating...yeah sometimes, but I'm not the type to put a game down because it gives me a challenge.

I will be reviewing this game tonight as I write my Godfather review.

Beware, I went in to playing this game after hearing so much that was good about this game and I've come out burned by utter annoyance... its gonna be rough.

D:
I say it's worth at least a 70%. 60% maybe.

This post was last modified: 03-27-2007 09:16 PM by Kindrik.

My friend told me it wasn't too great either. But I would still like to play it, just to see.

They are terrible controls, i wouldnt say great, maybe a little unique. really really bad controls. you u did say that later

This is one of the very few I have traded in. The controls are just terrible...probably the worst ive come across since ive had my Wii.

So in the end is it worth the price of the game.........truly it depends on ones playstyle, i know mine it probably wouldn't be worth the money but you do have those devoted sonic fans

If your a sonic fan then you buy almost every game despite the majority of them sucking. But seriously if your not a die hard sonic fan. I dont reccomend this either.

I was so disappointed by this game. I tried to like it, I really did. You don't know how excited I was at the prospect of a good Sonic game. For a brief period I was more excited for this game than I was for Brawl. Then I played it and I felt betrayed...