Sonic Adventure DX

Play the polished port from 1999's Dreamcast title: Sonic Adventures ins Sonic Adventures DX

First released by Team Sonic in 2003 for the Gamecube, Sonic Adventures DX is a port from the original Sonic Adventures. Phew, So its got a fairly long history as a game as its now released for Windows PC. This is a fairly typical Sonic game with six playable characters, tons of levels and 60 new mission modes to help extend replay value. There's a ton of replay value with taking different characters on different missions, but it should be noted that some of the heroes are more suited to the game than others. All in all Sonic Adventures captures the fast and frantic game play that Sonic fans expect from a Sonic game.

Game Play

This is platform game through and through, with an emphasis on going as fast as you can while avoiding traps, enemies and gathering up Sonic's rings. Controls are simple and familiar, the player can charge, spin and jump move all with a few controls. There are some variations in the level design and levels typically fall into one two categories; go fast levels and exploring levels. the fast levels are great and fun but the exploring levels are where the speed slows down and the game gets worse. Level design flaws like invisible walls, random doors that open in places full of 'dead' doors and water that may or may not kill your character if you jump in are a few glaring flaws. Sonic shouldn't be walking around anywhere, and these explore levels force him to slow down to search instead of running at high speed. Any character that isn't suited to speed, too, plods through levels takes most of the fun out of the game.

Presentation

Being a port from 1999, the graphics are dated, but the game does a decent job of taking the classic 2D sonic games of yesterday and converting it into a 3D adventure. There's a pretty simple story (Eggman is collecting chaos emeralds in order to destroy the world and Sonic and Co are trying to stop that) that is presented at the beginning with a short CG, but the story is just a premise for all the action and doesn't get any more involved than that.

Pros

• When it's good, this game is great
• Classic game play with classic characters will get you nostalgic

Cons

• The exploring levels are terribly designed
• Some of the characters are nigh unplayable on some levels