Sonic Heroes
Can the classic console platformer play well on PC?
Tags: Sonic Heroes Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jan 4th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic Heroes (title page) | 1-2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Platformer | No | ||
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Sonic Heroes is an interesting title. Released on nearly every platform simultaneously, the game features 12 playable characters – four teams of three heroes each – and some impressive level design that leads to pure, classic Sonic-style game play. But can such a title work on PC as well as it does on PS2, GameCube and Xbox? That, my friends, is the question. While it’s possible to port any game from one platform to another, whether it works well is completely dependant on the five percent of the porting process that isn’t automatic – namely, making the game feel native to each platform upon which it appears.
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And in its PC incarnation, that’s what holds Sonic Heroes back from being an enjoyable experience. The game breaks down in many respects in terms of making the game feel less like a console port and more like a “native to PC” game. Let’s start with the graphics. Unlike the current generation of consoles, whose systems specs were set in stone about four years or so ago, PCs have seen a couple generations of graphics cards come and go, bringing about the ability to unveil far more impressive graphics than what was possible in 2001 and 2002, when the current console hardware was released. However, the graphics in Sonic Heroes is virtually identical, no matter where it appears, be it GC, PS2 or Xbox … or PC. While the ability to use far more detailed textures was available to Sega’s developers, no use was made of this flexibility that only PCs can offer. All the game allows you to do is choose the resolution you want to play at and the presence or exclusion of a few special effects … but nothing that dramatically changes the look of the game.
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Yet it goes deeper than that. Originally developed for consoles, Sonic Heroes has actions “mapped” to certain controller buttons, such as A, B, X, and Y, or Sony’s square, circle, triangle and “X.” Yet rather than create a PC-specific control system, Sega’s Sonic Team chose to simply create a mapping system that assigns those buttons to specific keyboard keys; never mind that, in the game, as well as the tutorial that’s supposed to TEACH you the controls, everything in-game still identifies controls as things like “the pause button,” the “Y button” and so on. The lack of changing such help to PC-specific prompts may have saved Sega time and money, but it makes for a confusing in-game experience that really takes some adapting-to in order to play through the game effectively. Of course, if you have a PC outfitted with a compatible game pad, the experience is a bit smoother, but if it’s not the right sort of game pad? Well… you get the idea of what kind of nightmare that could become.
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Finally, there’s the issue of online multiplayer; to wit, there is none. Even some console titles now take advantage of online multiplayer game play, but not Sonic Heroes; and since the PC is where online multiplayer first began, that’s also another aspect that makes the game feel non-native on PC. While several PC platformers are available on the market, most of those feature PC-style controls and online multiplayer gaming. To make matters worse, there’s only a one-player or two-player mode to Sonic Heroes, which may make sense on consoles but on PC makes less sense; why have four teams of heroes if only two players can play at the same time? On PC, if internet or at least LAN-based play were enabled, there’s no reason why you couldn’t feature four-player or even 12-player gaming. It’s exclusion exposes Sonic Heroes as nothing more than the quickest and dirtiest of quick and dirty ports.
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If you can get past all this, the same great game play, level design and platforming fun that can be found in all other versions of Sonic Heroes can be found on the PC port as well. But the awkward controls, made more so by misleading in-game prompts, are deeply annoying and, for many gamers, are probably significant enough to emerge as “deal-breakers” in terms of making this a worthwhile PC title. As far as this reviewer’s concerned, this is one title that should never have made the transition to PC unless Sega was serious about making it play and feel like a PC title. My best advice? Buy the game … as long as you get it on ANY other platform.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| + Sharp graphics, solid sound work, level-design that will be familiar to longtime Sonic fans. | 5.1 |
| What Doesn't | |
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— Weird control scheme allows you to “map” controller buttons to PC keyboard, but still displays platform-style button hints during tutorial and game. — Graphics look no different from platform counterparts on PS2, GC and Xbox. — Too much of a straight port from the console game to make it a smooth, enjoyable PC title, though if you have a PC with a game pad, you can get by. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| While Sonic is a classic platformer title, the transition to PC is handled too awkwardly and ham-fistedly to be very enjoyable unless you invest in a console-style controller add-on. Our recommendation? Buy it on GameCube, Xbox or PS2. | |
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Tags: Sonic Heroes
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jan 4th, 2005 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
