At any rate, Were-Sonic then growls, stomps and stretches through typical platform action split between clumsy, stretchy-arm-assisted climbing over stuff and an admittedly decent combat system, which he uses to thump the noggins of any bad guys who blunder past.

The graphics and music are plush and worthy. And there’s nothing horribly wrong with most of the gameplay mechanically – well, except for the seemingly aimless RPG-lite bits in which Sonic is forced to just meander around talking to people. Oh, and Chip, your voracious and slap-worthy new fairy buddy. But it’s bland, typical even with the rubber arms, and seems too much like pretty much any average platform action title released over the last five years.

The main character’s name is SONIC – it’s a reference to how fast he can run. Why must the game include all this other random crap, especially when it isn’t all that polished anyhow? We understand that Sonic runs through levels so quickly that a game without excess junk would be shorter. But we’d happily play, replay, and replay over again a game that lasted only a few hours if it reminded us why we fell in love with this character in the first place.

Here’s a hint: It wasn’t his stretchy arms.

Dec 3, 2008