Full Review

6 December 2005 - Yes you read that right, Sonic is so last decade darling. But can the new Shadow take Sonic's crown? We take a look and find out.

First appearing in Sonic Adventures 2 and then more recently in Sonic Heroes. He is the darker of the two hedgehogs with an unknown past and everyone out to get him.

The story follows Shadow struggling to unveil his true identity: was he created to save humankind or to do the evil bidding of the dark side? His only clues are his own forgotten memories, and those secrets can only be unlocked through the powers of seven Chaos Emeralds which you must battle through countless levels to find.

The gameplay is classic Sonic stuff with the majority of the time you charging at the screen, trying to get past the bad guys and collect as many rings as possible before you reach the final checkpoint.

Thoughout the levels certain characters are talking to you, but there is so much additional noise, like gun fire (yes you can now fire guns in this version), explosions and the soundtrack that you never really have a real idea of what is going on unless you stop to pause. Trouble is, do this and it inevitably involves your demise.

Not that it matters much anyway, as for the most part you can keep charging forward missing most of the bad guys and still get to the end to complete the level with little effort.

VERDICT
Shadow is more of the same from the Sonic team, just with a Sonic that is black rather than blue. Strangely, Sonic, Knuckles and the rest of the team join you in the levels, but never seem to really offer any benefit apart from giving you advice which you can't hear anyway.

So should Shadow the Hedgehog be on your list? If you are a Sonic fan then the level design and gameplay, which hasn't really changed since the last outing, brings more of the fast-paced action packed adventure to your screens once more.

For the rest of us, this is probably way too confusing and old school for us to really understand what is going on.