“Suffers from some serious bi-polar disorder”
The positivity party may be over.
Quick on the heels of a 6.4 GameTrailers review already widely questioned by fans, we have GamesRadar honing in on wildly fluctuating difficulty as the key factor in its 7 out of 10 score. That would be considered normal under most circumstances of a Sonic game, but in the face of so many high scores, it seems downright mediocre.
The game may have been lucky to achieve that, if closing remarks in the review are any indication. US writer Matthew Keast alludes the game’s replay value with unlockable Wisps are a saving grace:
[....] something unexpected and really cool happens after finishing the game: it becomes more fun. We mentioned before how certain powerups become unlocked and available in previous levels. Well this isn’t just a minor bonus toy to play with once you’ve finished the game. These powerups open areas of levels completely inaccessible before – and some of them are huge. So the game becomes more than a speedy platformer after you complete it – it becomes an exploration adventure. It makes levels that drove us crazy the first time around into playgrounds and archeological digs. It’s a feature that elevates that game significantly above our initial feelings about it (which frankly weren’t very positive).
Much of the review is spent dissecting the game’s leaps and dips in difficulty throughout, something alluded to in previous reviews but never in the depth seen here. In one example, Keast explains the frustration with dodging the crab mini-boss in Aquarium Park:
So, we get to the crab-robot again. Now the Navigator informs us we must press B, which activates Sonic’s dash. All righty! We press B. The robot hits us anyway. Uh, what? Now the Navigator tells us to move from side to side. We do so. Smack. Dead. Four times in a row, dead, and back to the beginning of the level. This happened over and over until we lost count. Turns out we had to hold the B button down for an arbitrary amount of time, even though a single tap of the button caused the prompt to disappear and triggered the next prompt (move side-to-side) which was in fact completely incorrect for the situation at hand. See, the side-to-side prompt is supposed to tell you what to do after successfully completing the dash, but just triggers anyway regardless of what happens. So we did what the game told us to do, and died over and over.
This is what we were talking about when we said sometimes Sonic Colors hates your guts. After the traumatic crab-robot, the game gets in a worse mood and throws the same robot at you again, except this time with no checkpoints so if you die during an even longer chase sequence, you go minutes back to the beginning every time. It’s utterly infuriating.
Compliments were afforded to the game’s visuals and exploration. For reference, GamesRadar awarded Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I a 9 out of 10.
As the floodgates of criticism open, it appears more likely we’ll see the overall average of Colors settle near the high 70s/low 80s percentile. That’s not bad by any means, but it can deflate what still remains a very festive environment in the lead up to Sonic Colors‘s launch. We’ll continue to pass along any noteworthy reviews.
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I’m glad most of the criticism is directed at things like difficulty spikes, rather than something that actually matters to me personally. I’d rather have a game challenge me unfairly than have poor controls (slippery prompts aside), level design, or camera issues like previous games.
I get the feeling the reviewer had been playing too many quick time events when it came to this game (pleasantly devoid of such things)
After finding the average of all the previous reviews (well, 9 of them), you get an 8/10.
It’s an 8.6/10 counting the ones 8 and higher (excluding the two 7s and the 6.4).
r they retarded??? they should know already from playing sonic unleashed that if the boost button pops up u have to HOLD IT DOWN to get away from the giant monster chasing u. and besides, it’s the same for the rest of colors, HOLD it down to boost. it probably wasn’t even that hard, they’re just retarded.
Well, that guy is kind of stupid for not doing something as simple as boosting.
If you don’t want to do what the navigator says just press the Boost button and get the butt out of there, when you get to the robot, you’re given Wisp power.
Meh, these guys love to say they’re frustrated with anything.
The only difficulty there could be on the game, is the final level and that’s it.
This is going exactly like Unleashed was, before the game came out everybody was givin it 8/10, 7/10, 9/10 etc… and when it came out those freaks, those stupid and dumb “games experts” diss SEGA and Sonic all the way…
I couldn’t care less for those reviews and only want SONIC and SEGA I LOVE YOU, I’m considering not buying Kinect just to buy a Wii and Colors (I know I sayd his already a few times, but this time is for shure) ahah
SEEEEGGGAAAA
“There is a God, and he’s a Sonic-fan”
Now that I think about it, aren’t 6.4/10 and 7/10 mediocre to good scores? So, this doesn’t really mean that they are giving Sonic Colors BAD scores like in the 4s or 5s.
Of course, this might change by the end of the week, not that I would care anyways.
I’ve just been onto Metacritic, the score is 80, BUT they havn’t added ONM, NGamer and the WiiMagazin (is that right?) scores yet. Should be looking mid 80′s in the end.
Also, Black Ops (the supposed game of the year) has scored 8.5 from IGN, the same as Colours. Interesting…
Remember back in the day when games didn’t suck because they were actually challenging? Well those days are gone, because game reviewing sites like this would actually prefer being spoiled by Nintendo’s Super Guide instead of getting more joy out of getting their ass kicked by a difficult level and then kicking its ass right back.
He got up to Aquarium Park without knowing how to boost properly?
Wow.
They have 4 and colors score reversed. ZING
…… clearly, this guy shouldn’t be reviewing sonic games if he doesn’t know how to boost x.x, geez, in terms of sonic, not knowing how to boost is almost the same thing as not knowing how to dash in any other game o.o
“There is a God, and he’s a Sonic-fan”
Sometimes I believe that my very existence confirms that fact, but the majority of the rest of the fanbase probably believes the exact opposite. About my existence, that is.
@darkclarkson
Well-noted. So much for game of the year for either of those games. Then again, I doubt anything other than Mario Galaxy 2 is winning that award anyway. But it goes to show that Sonic can finally catch up to these overrated FPSs.