Developer
Sonic Team

Released: June 17, 2003
Genre: Platform
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

5
5
5
7
5.8

Supported Features:

Just when I thought my days of racing around 3D landscapes collecting infinite amounts of rings and other assorted collectibles was over SEGA comes through with a new game for the Nintendo GameCube. Well, perhaps “new” isn’t the word, more like an enhanced DVD with bonus features, or in the exact words of the title, Sonic Adventure DX Director’s Cut.

In an attempt to update this four-year old title the Sonic Team has thrown everything onto this disc they could think of. Hey! Where’s my running commentary? This jam-packed disc contains the original 1999 Dreamcast game along with these exciting new features:

• Play as Sonic or five of his closest buds
• More than 30 expansive 3D worlds with enhanced GameCube graphics
• 60 Mission Modes for increased gameplay
• Connect to your GBA for bonus games and features
• Sonic Game Gear games
• Progressive scan mode for HDTV
• Dolby Pro Logic II Surround

Sonic Adventure DX starts with the same opening movie that rocked Dreamcast gamers back in 1999, and thanks to some excellent sound and video updates has never looked or sounded better. Not much else changes from the opening credits to the closing credits as far as gameplay mechanics.

You still control Sonic in a 3D world, although you are often so restricted in your lateral movement that it often appears to be a game on rails. In fact, most of the action segments make no attempts to hide their racetrack like nature. You’ll race along very defined paths going through checkpoints and collecting hundreds of gold rings while attempting to destroy or avoid any enemies in your path. One wrong touch and you lose all your rings. There is nothing more frustrating than getting within sight of the finish line with 400+ rings and get sucker punched by a coconut throwing monkey in a palm tree and lose all your rings.

You get to choose from several characters, only a few of which are available at the beginning. Others will become available as you progress through the adventure with the primary characters, Sonic and Tails. While generally the same, the game does unfold a bit differently based on the character you are playing. After going through with the speedy Sonic and Tails everyone else is like playing in slow motion.

Levels are a mix of expansive 3D worlds that you are free to explore at your leisure, but within these are mini-area that are frantic speed zones full of accelerator pads, bumpers, pick-ups, and objects more typical to a pinball machine than an adventure or platform game. You’ll bounce off multiple spring pads, run across a floating pier as Shamu does back flips destroying the walkway behind you and in perhaps one of the most exciting scenes, actually run up a twisting section of path caught inside a tornado. It all happens at the speed of sound and can make you sick if you aren’t careful.

Sonic has always been a great platform game but when you trying to saddle him with the slow and plodding nature of an adventure title, things are going to get, well, slow and plodding. You don’t take your all-star sprinter and put him on the cross-country team. Sonic is best played at high speeds when you have little or not control over your character of choice. Only during these frantic periods does the camera function with any semblance of intelligence. Walking around in adventure mode will have you fighting one of the most crippled cameras in 3D gaming history (VEXX has been dethroned), and when the camera isn’t getting hung up on the environment Sonic will stick to anything he gets next to.

Almost everything that was wrong on the Dreamcast is still wrong on the Cube. While I commend SEGA’s ambition to bring one of Sonic’s most original games to a new platform I think they would have done better to fix the existing problems rather than trying to dazzle us with new features.

The designers have made some valiant but futile attempts to update the graphics with some new textures and a better water effect but it just doesn’t cut it. The added clarity of progressive scan support would normally be appreciated but here it only enhances the primitive nature of the game.

Considering the simplistic nature of the graphics combined with the age of this game and the exponentially more powerful GameCube I am at a loss to explain away the horrible framerates that crop up all too frequently – an issue that was never even an issue on the Dreamcast. In a game that prides itself on being FAST, it’s hard enough to control Sonic at high speeds during the highest of framerates. When it drops below 30 you’ll be ready to toss the controller in despair.

The sound effects include the full range of platform sounds, beeps, whirs, dings, the jingle of gold rings, and they are all clear and just as perfect as they were in the original. The voice acting is still just as cheesy and insulting as ever and no attempt is made to lip-synch the dialog with the animation. It’s not really important and you’ll dismiss these oversights as quickly as you can skip the conversations with the A button.

Kudos for the outstanding Dolby Pro Logic II mix even though there were several other aspects of this game that required more attention than the sound. I never had any complaints about the Dreamcast audio, but the added clarity and 3D surround won’t be lost on home theater aficionados.

If you are really hard-up for a platform game or really want to play a Sonic title and have already conquered Sonic Adventure 2 then go ahead and check this out. There’s some fun to be had if you don’t mind stepping back into time.