10 Great Years Brings Us This. Thank You, Sega! Update 8-22-01

It seems as though mascots come and go for some companies. Then, there's Sega. Sonic the Hedgehog has been around for 10 years, and still going strong. Sonic Adventure 2, his latest attraction, is one of the best games to grace the fading Dreamcast.

The whole story started when the military mistook Sonic for an EVIL black hedgehog (talk about stereotypes). Anyway, Sonic breaks free and finds out about the EVIL hedgehog, named Shadow. Sega sure stuck with the stereotypical EVIL character, didn't they? That is the beginning for the Hero side.

The Dark side starts with Dr. Eggman (WHY, Sega, WHY? Couldn't you have called him Robotnik???!?) fighting through a heavily guarded base. His goal: to find the mysterious project that his grandfather was working on when he died. The project's codename was...........SHADOW! Now, it's all coming together.

Well, I didn't expect a great storyline, but I did expect good everything else. I almost got it. There are three different characters on each side. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles make up the Hero side, while Shadow, Eggman, and Rouge make up the Dark side (copyright infringement???). Sonic and Shadow's stages are super-fast, high-octane rides through mainly linear stages. Those are my favorite. Tails and Eggman pilot giant robots and move through stages where you blow up robots trying to kill you. The stages are quite linear, like the aforementioned stages. The Knuckles and Rouge stages are not nearly as fun. You must explore vast stages to find pieces of the shattered Master Emerald or keys. Very annoying and boring.

Controls are simple. Analog thumbpad: move. "A" button: jump. "B" button: attack. "X" button: see "B" button. "Y" button: change function of "B" and "X" buttons. "L" and "R" triggers: move camera. Simple, huh? It gets better. When a character finds a special powerup in a stage, he or she learns it and you do too.

I have finished about half of the game so far, mostly on the Hero side. It's just because the stage 5 Dark stage is really tough. You play Rouge, the bat. She has to find three keys to get into Eggman's base. There's a giant area to search, and all the time, there's these annoying giant beetles that shoot homing lasers at you if they see you. Not my idea of fun.

The graphics of SA2 are amazing, even when you're rushing down a hill at approximately 250 mph. Everything's detailed quite well. The music is also quite good. The stages where you play as Sonic and Shadow were superb. My only real gripe with the music is that it loops, which gets really annoying on the Knuckles and Rouge stages.

Aside from story mode, there's a 2-player mode which I have not ventured into yet, a stage select mode, where you can choose the stage you want to play, a kart racing mode (only available after a certain stage), and CHAO raising! CHAO are cute little creatures that you must raise by feeding them nuts and letting them play with animals and robot parts. They'll change if you give them a lot of the same animal or robot part. They're so cute. And you can race them.

Well, I guess that covers most of Sonic Adventure 2. If you want my opinion (which I hope you do, since you came here), I think that this is one of the best games ever for any Sega system, and one of my top 10 games of the newer systems. If you like bad cameras and searching for 15 or 20 minutes for keys, get this game now. Even if you don't, like me, get it for the speed and shoot-em-up stages. It's worth the $40 to get it.

Well, its August 22, 2001. I've finished the Dark game. After the Rouge level, it gets much easier. The rest is pretty easy, including a really good Eggman level, where you can fly!

I'm also through the Hero game except for two stages. I've discovered the most difficult part of the game hands down. In Stage 15, Crazy Gadget, about halfway through, Sonic has to get through this room with different colored surfaces. There are gravity switches that take Sonic up, down, left or right. My problem is on the second block. You have to jump on a spring and land on another block. The problem is that you're in outer space, and if you fall you die. It's also really tough to find the right angle to jump. After dying 15 times at the same place, I decided to get mad. I can't stand it. If anyone can help, please post a comment. Don't email me, please. But please post comments.

thanx.