Anyhow, how is sonic hero's? I almost picked it up at release, but heard so many bitch about it, that I didn't. The video's look awesome to me.. Maybe I should pick it up? What's your professional dark like impressions dark?
As a fan of Sonic, I don't know how accurate an opinion I can give.
The game is flawed, but enjoyable. Most of the stages are almost TOO lengthy and I didn't even enjoy all of those stages initially. This past vacation, however, I decided to go ahead and conquer the game. I ended up having a blast. Once you come to grips with the team mechanics and learn to handle some of the flaws, it actually becomes really enjoyable. Rather than just attempting to reach the end of a stage, you should try to reach the end of the stage in the most stylish manner possible.
The thing is, until you learn how to really play the game, it just doesn't seem that exciting. Yeah, it's one of those games (though not as demanding as you might think). It isn't that it is difficult to get the concept down, it is that you must become extremely quick at switching characters and handling challenges tossed before you. Much like Sonic's stages in SA2 (even more so), these stages are mulit-layered affairs. You have the "high road" and the "low road" as well as a middleground. Staying on the high road is often more challenging, much like an older Sonic title. Keeping to the highest path is sometimes difficult, but it is actually quite a rush. You certainly do much more than "hold up" like some people have suggested.
I managed to complete the four main stories, earn the 7 Chaos Emeralds, unlock and finish the final story, and net a bunch of A grades.
As noted above, there are some flaws. Sudden death is possible at points. For example, you might hit a jump pad and land on something above you. If you are holding up, you might launch forward...and off into the abyss. It can be avoided, but there are plenty of times when something like this happens and it can drive you crazy. The camera occasionally throws fits as well, but it generally functions OK.
Visually, the game is absolutely stunning in prog-scan. This is, without a doubt, one of the best examples of what progressive scan output can do for a game. Not only is it incredibly sharp and clean, but the colors are just so vibrant. I can't believe how intense the colors are! Beautiful! The game does still manage to look very solid on a normal analog set, of course, but it isn't quite as impressive. The draw distance certainly slaughters the two DC games, though. You can see pretty darn far ahead of you at all times and it really helps give the areas a sense of place lacking in the DC games.
The audio is decent as well. I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot and the sound effects are classic...but the voice acting is total shit (Cream, Big, and Tails are so annoying that I wanted to throw my Wavebird at the TV). Once again, Jon St. Jon lends his voice to a Sonic game and handles the voice of Espio. In case you aren't familiar with Jon, he provided the voice of Duke Nukem. It is always quite a laugh to hear a character in another game talking ALMOST like Duke.
Really, though, whether or not you will enjoy this title depends on how you felt about the other 3D Sonic games. It makes improvements overall and lacks any of those TERRIBLE levels from SA1 and 2...but at the same time, a lot of the issues people had with those games still remain. If you enjoyed those, you'll probably like Heroes...if not, I doubt it will do much for you.
