Introduction
So why exactly are you playing these games?
Despite the overall reaction on the net, I enjoy most of these games (Shadow just for the sheer so-bad-its-good factor). Sure, these are bad to mediocre Sonic games but not the worst things the industry has spewed out. Still playable by all means (I had no trouble from what I can remember, though I'll find out again with this LP) and I just happen to know a fair bit of knowledge about this franchise, from the usual stuff to the random tidbits. Since my style of LPing is being informative, this will work in my favor.
Okay then. What's the plan?
Well the order will be Sonic Adventure 1, 2 and Heroes. Shadow will be its own thread. Riders is a possibly why?: the story mode is so short so it'll take like 2-4 videos to wrap up + to show those just how things are in the game. It'll be included with the Heroes portion.
So will you be doing the Chao gardens?
Chao gardens are a maybe. As of now, it's too early to bother with them and if we move to SA2 so soon, most of the chao in SA1 would be pretty much forgotten. So it's a "just wait and see" kind of thing at the moment.
Anywho, let's start the LP:
Just click and you'll get more info.
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team USA
System(s): Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, PC
Released in US: January 5, 2004
Released in EU: February 6, 2004
Released in JP: December 30, 2003
2003 was a special year for Sonic, simply called...well "The Year of Sonic" in several interviews. With the debut of Sonic X, a port of Sonic Adventure to the Gamecube (and eventually the PC), the release of Sonic Pinball Party and Battle and a promotion with McDonalds which hasn't been done in 10 years (which also gave us the best sonic-related thing since Sonic in Sydney. Seriously watch this. You won't regret it). Hell, people who bought Mario Kart: Double Dash early got access to a demo of the game.
A lot of hype into a game that would end up being a bust with critics and fans. Bunch of glitches, a love/hate gimmick, and a lot of promise with shitty results. A lot of blame for the gltiches could be since Sonic Team, after putting so much focus on Sonic for Nintendo platforms, would end up using Renderware instead of what they used for SA2 to easily post to all three platforms. Out of the three, the Gamecube being the less buggy, so your experience would be a bit different than whoever played it on a different systems. Still, the never ending chit chat between the characters is still painful regardless.
As you can guess from the name and cover, you're playing in teams. Each team having a speed, flight and power character as well as their own little gimmicks associated with them. We'll try to explain as much during the actual LP itself.
Sonic's buddies are all here whether you like them or not. Cream, who made her debut on Sonic Advance 2 a few year ago, gets her playable 3D debut. E-123, Omega, is introduced here to cover the lack of E-Series robots. And Team Chaotix, composed of Espio, Mighty, Vector and Charmy are reintroduced into the series since their debut in Knuckles' Chaotix.
Another old favorite shows up here as well, with a new temporary look no less, but it's best to wait till he reveals himself in-game.
Now to make this clear: I'm not 100%ing this game. The reward is even worse than Green Hill and getting jack in SA1 feels like a godsend.
Since Heroes will probably be done in 10 updates or less, I'll probably sneak in Riders at some point. That way by the end of this, I'll just be left with Shadow.
So enough chat, let's start this.
Publisher: Sega
Developer: United Game Artists (Under the Sonic Team name)
System(s): Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, PC
Released in US: February 21, 2006
Released in EU: March 17, 2006
Released in JP: February 23, 2006
To think this originally started as a pitch to SEGA from another company. Around the early 2000s when Tony Hawk was still the hottest thing, Visionscape Interactive was working on a Sonic skateboarding game called Sonic Extreme. No relation to that other game with the similar name, but it suffered the same fate. All there was shown was just a few finished mode with music borrowed from SA2 and some graphics from Heroes. The actual engine used would be later added to a Tech Deck game that got a PC released. Both games were found on the XDK dev Xbox. More on that here.
Now as for Riders itself, it's racing game with hoverboards. Plays a bit more like F-Zero and Kirby's Air Ride than Mario Kart. Has a small story mode (which I'll be showing) along with what you would expect from your usual racer. It's a fun little racer if you know what the fuck you're doing.
Introduced were three new characters who would pretty much just stay in this little series. Jet the Hawk, Wave the Sallow and Storm the Albatross. Jet has popped up out of the Riders series a bit (multiplayer character in Black Knight and a "Boss" in Winter Olympics) but otherwise they haven't appeared anywhere else.
For this, I'll just be showing off the game's story mode, in chronological order no less. With me are Fighter Knuckles, MeccaPrime and Toffile as guests.
Not a long LP but just something to keep Heroes from being so short.
