Once upon a time, there was a beautiful blue hedgehog, who was born into a world of media mogul madness. The blue little critter was wonderful and happy, and provided hours and hours of entertainment to the blushing fanboys who had nothing better to do with themselves in the early 90s. The astonishingly beautiful young stallion captured the breath and the imagination of those previously captivated by the less-beautiful exploits of Italian plumbers and evil dragons stealing balls of light. Freeing his friends from the clutches of the evil mad doctor, the stunning young thing sped his way through lands thick and thin, each more glamorous, colourful and sprite-filled than the last. From green hills to labyrinths, casinos to mystic caves and angel islands to marble gardens, this charismatic, spiky-haired ray of light in the platform world captured the imaginations of many, myself included (could you tell?).
Admittedly, there were initial resistances to the relationship between me and my spiky little pal. Mega Drives were rare as Mew back in the days when that blue bundle of love hit his peak. Not only that, copies of games sold like hot cakes in an arctic cafe. But, on 12th November 1995, the planets aligned, the clouds parted, and from the womb of God himself (also known as ?GameStation?) came Sonic The Hedgehog 3.
?But Wilkopops,? I hear the gibbering masses cry. ?Why, Wilkopops? Why do you review such an old series and not talk about the original game which started this whole lucrative world-renowned franchise??. Well, the answer is simple. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is single-handedly the greatest God-given game given by God which has ever had the misfortune of being placed in the hands of us, the ridiculous unworthy masses.
Sonic 3 Intro Screen
Well now I?ve got the tricky and totally unnecessary introduction out the way, let?s delve into the game shall we? It is easy enough to pass Sonic The Hedgehogs 1, 2, 3 and ?& Knuckles? off as those games which were ?so bad they were good?. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Games like Space Harrier II were so bad they were good. Games like Sensible Soccer were so bad they were good. Games like Frogger, Space Invaders, hell even Pong were as mind-crushingly bad as they were brain-bogglingly addictive (I?m surprised at myself to find that ?bogglingly? is in fact a word recognised by Microsoft Word).
The fact is, ?S3? is one of the very, very rare games which can bring you back to play it numerous times a day. Whilst it?s not exactly ?DMD? difficult, and it doesn?t take 60 hours of gameplay to finish, what it does do is challenge the player to better themselves and improve their gameplay every time they play. I won?t insult you all by telling you that there is a ring system, a score system and a time system, because if you didn?t know you aren?t a video gamer and you deserve to be castrated for failing to realise the basic core of Sonic gameplay. Whether subconsciously or not, Sonic 3 constantly pulls its audiences back for more.
Sonic & Tails Make Their Way Through The Ice Cap Zone
The plot is relatively simple enough. Following a battle with Sonic, the evil, moustachioed stout Dr. Robotnik has crash-landed his Death Egg on Angel Island, a mysterious place full of strangely different areas (sound familiar?). Sonic arrives on Angel Island not long afterwards, where he immediately loses all the Chaos Emeralds he collected in Sonic 2 to Knuckles The Echidna, the sole inhabitant of Angel Island and single-handedly most kick-ass video game character ever created (after our little blue hero of course). From there Sonic must find his way through 6 different zones, each split into two different acts, finding each of the Chaos Emeralds, avoiding Knuckles and defeating Robotnik at every turn. In essence then, much the same formula as each of the previous Sonics. However, each of the levels are up to 4 times as large as any of those seen in Sonic 2, and each of them are more challenging and puzzling than the last. Very rarely in the video game industry is a sequel better than the original. However, even rarer is it to see a threequel come out superior than each of it?s predecessors.
However nearly-perfect as ?S3? is, it is only that, nearly-perfect, it?s fundamental flaw being the special stages. The special stages involve controlling Sonic (for the first time in 3D) as he runs round a spherical area of irritation, running through blue spheres and desperately avoiding red ones (the latter of which end the stage). This is quite possibly the single-most irritating video game level I have ever come across. Sonic can only run in one of four directions, in parallel with the squared platforms on the ground. And with that, running into red spheres towards the end of the level (as Sonic infuriatingly decides to run twice the speed as at the beginning) is an almost certainty, particularly in later levels. I can understand why the programmers decided to challenge the player by having Sonic hurtle through the later stages, searching desperately for the Chaos Emeralds, but rather than coming off as testing the whole ordeal becomes a grating annoyance, it?s only saving grace being that by some manner of luck you manage to collect all the blue spheres, you can relax and marvel at the sight of a beautiful, shiny, 8-polygon delight waiting for you at the end.
But maybe I?m being overly harsh, or perhaps I?m just a dire gamer who can?t face challenges. Either way, the special stages are a mere blemish on the face of an absolutely fantastic game, without doubt the best in the series. Granted, you won?t get much out of playing this on a 32-inch HDTV other than some really stretched sprites. And you won?t be playing for hours trying to discover all the hidden unlockables and completing all the irrelevant side-missions. But in those hours, you?ll know you?re having fun playing a video game, (mostly) stress-free, and after all, isn?t that the exact reason you buy video games? And Sonic 3 will provide the most fun couple of hours you will ever get from any video game ever (infuriatingly irksome special stages aside).
I thought in my first review I?d go for something not entirely mainstream, but at the same time something popular and something memorable. So, being the difficult bastard I am I went for Sonic 3, for no other reason than it is a truly shining game, and a truly shining example of video gaming being a fun waste of an hour or two. I?m not a fan of scoring systems, but I suppose if you had to push me, I?d say Buy It. Twice. I may have only been 3 when it was first released to the European market, and I may have only been 5 when I first played it, but Sonic 3 started my love affair with gaming. And I suppose it?s reminiscent of that old cliché. You never forget your first love.
PS: This was my first review and I was a bit nervous about posting it. If you don't like it, just do some constructive criticism instead of "That=Shit" or something, it would be more helpful to me. Also, Sonic 3 was a great game. Discuss it some.
Admittedly, there were initial resistances to the relationship between me and my spiky little pal. Mega Drives were rare as Mew back in the days when that blue bundle of love hit his peak. Not only that, copies of games sold like hot cakes in an arctic cafe. But, on 12th November 1995, the planets aligned, the clouds parted, and from the womb of God himself (also known as ?GameStation?) came Sonic The Hedgehog 3.
?But Wilkopops,? I hear the gibbering masses cry. ?Why, Wilkopops? Why do you review such an old series and not talk about the original game which started this whole lucrative world-renowned franchise??. Well, the answer is simple. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is single-handedly the greatest God-given game given by God which has ever had the misfortune of being placed in the hands of us, the ridiculous unworthy masses.
Sonic 3 Intro Screen
Well now I?ve got the tricky and totally unnecessary introduction out the way, let?s delve into the game shall we? It is easy enough to pass Sonic The Hedgehogs 1, 2, 3 and ?& Knuckles? off as those games which were ?so bad they were good?. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Games like Space Harrier II were so bad they were good. Games like Sensible Soccer were so bad they were good. Games like Frogger, Space Invaders, hell even Pong were as mind-crushingly bad as they were brain-bogglingly addictive (I?m surprised at myself to find that ?bogglingly? is in fact a word recognised by Microsoft Word).
The fact is, ?S3? is one of the very, very rare games which can bring you back to play it numerous times a day. Whilst it?s not exactly ?DMD? difficult, and it doesn?t take 60 hours of gameplay to finish, what it does do is challenge the player to better themselves and improve their gameplay every time they play. I won?t insult you all by telling you that there is a ring system, a score system and a time system, because if you didn?t know you aren?t a video gamer and you deserve to be castrated for failing to realise the basic core of Sonic gameplay. Whether subconsciously or not, Sonic 3 constantly pulls its audiences back for more.
Sonic & Tails Make Their Way Through The Ice Cap Zone
The plot is relatively simple enough. Following a battle with Sonic, the evil, moustachioed stout Dr. Robotnik has crash-landed his Death Egg on Angel Island, a mysterious place full of strangely different areas (sound familiar?). Sonic arrives on Angel Island not long afterwards, where he immediately loses all the Chaos Emeralds he collected in Sonic 2 to Knuckles The Echidna, the sole inhabitant of Angel Island and single-handedly most kick-ass video game character ever created (after our little blue hero of course). From there Sonic must find his way through 6 different zones, each split into two different acts, finding each of the Chaos Emeralds, avoiding Knuckles and defeating Robotnik at every turn. In essence then, much the same formula as each of the previous Sonics. However, each of the levels are up to 4 times as large as any of those seen in Sonic 2, and each of them are more challenging and puzzling than the last. Very rarely in the video game industry is a sequel better than the original. However, even rarer is it to see a threequel come out superior than each of it?s predecessors.
However nearly-perfect as ?S3? is, it is only that, nearly-perfect, it?s fundamental flaw being the special stages. The special stages involve controlling Sonic (for the first time in 3D) as he runs round a spherical area of irritation, running through blue spheres and desperately avoiding red ones (the latter of which end the stage). This is quite possibly the single-most irritating video game level I have ever come across. Sonic can only run in one of four directions, in parallel with the squared platforms on the ground. And with that, running into red spheres towards the end of the level (as Sonic infuriatingly decides to run twice the speed as at the beginning) is an almost certainty, particularly in later levels. I can understand why the programmers decided to challenge the player by having Sonic hurtle through the later stages, searching desperately for the Chaos Emeralds, but rather than coming off as testing the whole ordeal becomes a grating annoyance, it?s only saving grace being that by some manner of luck you manage to collect all the blue spheres, you can relax and marvel at the sight of a beautiful, shiny, 8-polygon delight waiting for you at the end.
But maybe I?m being overly harsh, or perhaps I?m just a dire gamer who can?t face challenges. Either way, the special stages are a mere blemish on the face of an absolutely fantastic game, without doubt the best in the series. Granted, you won?t get much out of playing this on a 32-inch HDTV other than some really stretched sprites. And you won?t be playing for hours trying to discover all the hidden unlockables and completing all the irrelevant side-missions. But in those hours, you?ll know you?re having fun playing a video game, (mostly) stress-free, and after all, isn?t that the exact reason you buy video games? And Sonic 3 will provide the most fun couple of hours you will ever get from any video game ever (infuriatingly irksome special stages aside).
I thought in my first review I?d go for something not entirely mainstream, but at the same time something popular and something memorable. So, being the difficult bastard I am I went for Sonic 3, for no other reason than it is a truly shining game, and a truly shining example of video gaming being a fun waste of an hour or two. I?m not a fan of scoring systems, but I suppose if you had to push me, I?d say Buy It. Twice. I may have only been 3 when it was first released to the European market, and I may have only been 5 when I first played it, but Sonic 3 started my love affair with gaming. And I suppose it?s reminiscent of that old cliché. You never forget your first love.
PS: This was my first review and I was a bit nervous about posting it. If you don't like it, just do some constructive criticism instead of "That=Shit" or something, it would be more helpful to me. Also, Sonic 3 was a great game. Discuss it some.
