Sonic Adventure 2 Release info and impressions

The time is upon us my friends; Sonic Adventure 2 is finally released. Launching with the Dreamcast, Sonic Adventure was a much-polished version of its Japanese counterpart and was able to garner higher scores because of such improvements. It featured Sonic and friends in a full 3D environment and delivered what was promised with Sonic Xtreme for the Saturn.

What was just hinted at during the 3D level-selection portion of Sonic Jam was fully realized when Sonic Team unleashed the blue hedgehog's debut on the Dreamcast. With some of the most amazing action seen in a game, many were upset that there were more adventure and RPG elements involved. While I was never a big fan of Sonic, I really got into Adventure because of this very feature; it made the world seem alive and offered more to do than random running and jumping. However, seeing as how Sonic has always been about action, I can respect people not wanting to run around talking to people just to rush through so they can go nuts and get some rings.

Hearing these complaints, Sonic Team set out to please, and please they did. Gone are the adventure elements that I enjoyed, but set in place is now a Dark side. I got a chance to play a bit of it today with a friend and now to advance the story, the adventure is replaced by action - this should please quite a few of you out there. While I wasn't certain about this feature, I can see how it works and it does so quite well. So in an interesting twist, the full story isn't realized until gamers play from both perspectives.

In talking with other friends, it seems that a popular strategy is each person picking a side: one play for the bad and one for the good. Playing as the bad, gamers can rhomp around in Dr. Eggman's various creations of robotic destruction, emerald robbers, and even Shadow - a military created evil Sonic. The good side is the characters that everyone knows and loves, Sonic and his pals naturally. In playing I must say that the graphics are even more impressive and the camera angle complaints of the original seem to be almost eliminated. The sound is also an improvement as it is a really cheesy Jpop soundtrack, so in the middle of a level you will hear a woman singing (as best she can) "I wanna feel loooooooooooooooooooooove", it's weird, but it works.

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