Shadow needs rehab - ASAP!
Fun: C+
Features: D+
Graphics: D+
Controls: C
Multiplayer: D+
AI: C
Repetitive Value: C
Depth: B-
Music: B- Not quite an album, but good enough.
Presentation: C+
Level Design: D+ Oops! I meant to shoot my partner! Sorry!
Single Player: C+
Overall: C-
Oh boy, I hate writing bad reviews for ya, Sega, but your not leaving me any choice. Shadow the Hedgehog is probably one of the most outdated games in the series. We saw all those loops and corkscrews back on Dreamcast (Yeah, I had a Dreamcast). We saw Shadow getting better treatment on Dreamcast. We saw everything we could see in this game on Dreamcast. And now if you missed the first generation of gaming consoles, you can get Shadow's debut game, Sonic Adventure 2, in remake form on Gamecube. Heard of it? Well, you have, get them. I But if you HAVE played SA2 on Dreamcast, you might understand one of this game's flaws more.
Sega is best known for it's impressive music. I loved the themes for this game (except for the Heavy Metal-Band-That-Forgot-To-Break-Up Almost Dead), one even went to become Shadow's theme in Sonic the Hedgehog. There diffidently are some impressive tunes in this game (G.U.N. Fortress), but some tunes are EXTREMELY quirky (Digital Circuit), and cheap rip-offs of SA2B (Blue Hawk and Heavy Dog). Even if your into these kinds of cake, you probably won't be coming back for a second helping. That's sad, because Sega can make great music like what we saw in Sonic Adventure, Sonic's first 3D adventure on Dreamcast.
Speaking of Dreamcast, this game's graphics make Dreamcast's graphics look like a technology breakthrough. Clay characters, slow down if many guns are roaring and you're pumping lead too, voice acting that sounds like a badly tuned radio, fire that looks more like millions of embers from a wildfire combined, etc, etc, etc, etc. If this was a DC game, I, by all means, would've cared less. But this is PS2 we are talking about, and it's capable of a lot graphically.
This game puts you in control of... hem hem... Shadow the Hedgehog as he trys to recover his memory. Because of that, he doesn't know who to help, and who to hurt. Heroes, or villains. You decide. This is very clever Sega, I'll give you that. However, perfect ideas need perfect execution. 'Execution', meaning the poor level designs. It's easy to kill or heal something you didn't mean to. It's also hard to spot some of the things you want gone. And to top it, sometimes you want to just shoot your alignment character for saying worthless things, or for their aggravating tones (Tails, Amy, Charmy).
Everyone (mostly Shadow) swears like 24/7. No, seriously parents, 24/7. Let me elaborate a little more, 365/12. You'll be saying, "No, no, NO! Bad, Shadow, BAD!" more times than you can imagine. Just picture this on TV. Beeping everywhere. It make ya wanna slap the person at ERSB who rated this game a E+10 instead of a T.
Quick Review: 5.1
Pros: All the new mechanics are clever.
Cons: They just need better execution.
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