Dreamcast
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A new console's flagship needs to be a great game to buoy the system; Sonic Adventure is such a game.
With a massive and beautifully executed world, Sonic Adventure is an appropriate evolution for Sega's hedgehog franchise. The game has two main phases; action stages and adventure fields. Adventure fields involve running around looking for items in one of three main areas. Action stages involve running around courses really quickly and picking up rings; in other words, classic Sonic gameplay in at least three dimensions.
The visuals in the game are superb. Sonic leaves footprints in the sand when running on a beach, and the dolphins jumping over him are surrounded by spray. The environments are full of detail and interactive inhabitants. The game's palette is extremely large based on the system's 128 bits, and it makes for seamless gamescapes. The Dreamcast's graphic chops are evident in the breadth and depth of this game.
The storage size of the Dreamcast's GD-ROM medium is evident in the amount of sub-games on this disc. In addition to the vast action and adventure stages, there are also minigames on the disc. You can snowboard, fish or play whack a mole with Sonics instead of moles. But the chao-raising minigames are the best of the bunch. You can hatch eggs in gardens within the game, give the resulting creatures (called chao-s) animals which they can emulate and then race the chao-s against each other. You can race your chao-s with people around the world with the Dreamcast's online capabilities. But the most magnetic feature is the ability to download a chao into the Virtual Memory Unit and play the minigame Chao Adventure in the bathroom, standing on the hood of your car or wherever you want to play it. The virtual pet can fight other chao-s it encounters, and you can feed it to better its stats. To get fruit to feed it, you must win an addictive little game of concentration. Simple and insidious.
On the down side, you can not skip cinema scenes in Sonic Adventure that you have watched before, and the music seems bought at some third generation grunge fire sale. But otherwise, the game is massive, has a wide range of playing types and boasts the finest visuals of any game like it. Sonic Adventure will likely be the best selling Dreamcast release title and that only makes sense; it has something for everyone.
- Ted Watts
09-10-99
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