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To begin with, not much has changed in the world of Sega Hedgehogs. The graphics that this game displays are not much better than those seen years ago. Though the gaming systems have improved (dramatically) since then, there is not much of an improvement with this new installment of the Sonic series. The dramatic cut-scenes are uncharacteristically blocky, reminiscent of my neighbors Commodore 64 graphics. Maybe its not that bad, but I am disappointed in how the characters don’t have an updated, sleek appearance I would expect. The game graphics are not consistent to those I remember as a younger gamer. Just because many of today’s games are more bleak and moving towards a darker side, doesn’t mean every game has to go that way. The moving camera on the right analog stick does give the gamer a little more freedom to look around, but in a game that is supposed to be fast paced, who has time for this? With the power of the XBOX, Shadow does not utilize its power as its predecessor once did.

Controls work fairly easily, but can be clumsy at times. By using the analog sticks along with the four buttons, it is easy to move Shadow along his path. Jumping and firing are easily controlled with a button. Along with that, firing on your enemy (whoever that is?) is as simple as point and shoot. This makes the game easy to pick up and begin playing. Though I am not the quickest person in picking up the button sequences of games, this one took me a bit longer to feel comfortable with the different moves, offenses and defenses it gave me.

Game play itself is where Shadow the Hedgehog really takes a turn for the worse. With the power of the new gaming systems, games like Shadow allow the player to move somewhat freely around the alternate universe they are playing in. This sets up with unlimited opportunities to excel. Sega did not take advantage of this. While playing the storyline mode, you have the option to fight against the Black Alien Army, or Earth’s Army or….See this is where I totally got lost. I had an eye (well a camera the evil guy called an eye) follow me and kept telling me to shoot the humans, while all the time these aliens continued to fire at me. If I shot the humans, my Sonic friends (when did he get so many?) then yelled at me for doing that. Then I had humans and aliens firing at me. By the end, I guess it was just shoot anything that moves. Frustration revisited. As I tolled through the many levels I found it annoying that the Hedgehog had weapons to use. This became too time consuming and took away from the level of play in the game. One of the nice memories of the game of the past was not having weapons. The levels, though there were many, did seem to have a repetitive feel about it. Many of the same obstacles came up and you didn’t have total control of how the game moved. You just seemed to be pushed in many directions that didn’t give ambiguity to the game.

I found Shadow the Hedgehog to be a disappointing play on the XBOX system. I will admit, I haven’t played a game in the series since the second one in the mid 90s was released, but it does not seem like I missed a whole bunch from it. The graphics were average and the storyline not that great. The simple controls of the past were easy to use, but the game at time still became infuriatingly out of control. It is still aggravating those checkpoints are far apart and that many charms of the game (special equipment) becomes overused. I was also disappointed that guns are now in the world of Sonic. A note to video game creators, I believe people will still buy games if they don’t have guns. Unfortunately this made the game unplayable to an early age gamer, one who should be playing the Sonic series. This might be a decent game for an early teen learning to play video games, but as an adult or a young child, steer clear of this game.