Reviews// Sonic the Hedgehog (PS3)

Once upon a time you were a wide-eyed, pre-pubescent youngster. It's true. We promise. And in among the joys of your life such as Thundercats, Fruit Pastilles and fish fingers there was probably this nippy little Hedgehog called Sonic. And all was well with the world... and sometimes, wouldn't it be nice to go back there, just for a little while? Yes?

Well tough. You can't. Not on your shiny new PS3, at least.

For the record, I really wanted to like this game. Like many who grew up through the 90s, I've got fond memories of sitting indoors, not playing sports and endlessly liberating forest creatures from the innards of robots. I was also firmly of a mindset that said speedy little hedgehogs were way cooler than fat, middle-aged plumbers with moustaches. All seemed well when I was in the world of Sega. Unfortunately, Sonic The Hedgehog on the PS3 does not provoke the same sense of dopey euphoria.

In a move likely intended to take the franchise back to its roots, SEGA has dropped any appendages to the game's title, leaving it plain and simple. This outing from the Blue Blur, however, is about as close to SEGA's classic early Sonic games as a donner kebab is to meat.

SEGA comes dangerously close to setting the game in the real world, to start with. Sonic's out to save Soleanna, a world full of (it feels icky just to write this) humans. What's wrong with fluffy little bunnies an other assorted cuteness? Blue hedgehogs in over-sized shoes look a bit odd running round and chatting to a bunch of folk who look they're on holiday five years in the past. Creepier still is Princess Elise. She'd look perfectly at home in Final Fantasy XII, but when a teenage girl's making eyes at a hedgehog... well, it's weird. Also updated are the baddies. Gone are the floating ladybird thingies that crap fireballs, these guys wouldn't look out of place in Mobile Suit Gundam.

Similarly, SEGA has gone out of its way to make this a plot-driven game. When you're chasing something called the 'Flames of Disaster,' however, it becomes difficult to feel engrossed. A Sonic game needs nothing beyond the flimsiest of wraparound stories, and badly voiced cut-scenes should be banned. Basically SEGA's overreaching in terms of both what it can and should do with a Sonic game, and it jars.

If too much realism and poor plotting were the only complaints, however, I'm sure we'd all be able to live with it. Unfortunately, they're not.

Graphically speaking, Sonic the Hedgehog comes up short once again. As has already been indicated, this reviewer wasn't looking for startling realism. What would have been nice, however, would have been something that doesn't look like a dusted off PS2 game.

There are some stunning pre-rendered cut scenes on offer, but unfortunately the attention heaped on them wasn't carried over into the main game. The colours are bright, but they (more than is reasonably!) often border on garish.

The bright hues of the first level give it a feel of Seaworld, in fact. I was expecting to get smacked in the face by a gutted fish at any moment.

By far the most annoying graphical feature, however, is the framerate. Play will grind to a halt for seconds at a time while the game catches up with itself. On a cartoonish game running on the PS3 that really, really shouldn't be happening.

That isn't the only glitch, either. When a character takes a knock and loses its rings, it disappears for a few seconds except for its shadow. It happens so consistently that I "ummed" and "ahhed" about whether it might be a game feature before deciding that there's absolutely no plausible reason for it since the character's still perfectly vulnerable to attack.