You know, short of some absurd peripheral jabbing you in the face every time a button is pressed, it’s hard to imagine a game more intent on ruining your fun than Sonic. Much has been made of Sonic’s fall from grace since his appearance on 360, though the tragedy of the situation is that such a pool of unadulterated bile masks moments of (admittedly quite retro) joy, once you get the mop out and put some effort in.

Everything starts out suitably sunny and carefree as our hero bounds along the opening shoreline, chased by the obligatory whale, but no sooner have you questioned the subtlety of the reference than several other almost decade-old cracks start to show. Most noticeably of course, there’s barely a visual effect in the entire game a PS2 would break sweat over. What’s more, the jagged, low-res visuals that do put in an appearance cause intermittent slowdown even outside densely-populated areas. Even the draw distance falls around halfway towards your horizon, making some (in the event) inexplicably open-plan levels a magical mystery tour of appearing items and enemies. Were Andy Crane’s gurning mug still delivering gaming opinions to CITV viewers, this would be acceptable. Today, it most certainly isn’t.

Its technical errors stretch beyond mere visual glitches, too. Loading times are so intrusive you’ll often see a one-line movie book-ended by 30 seconds of sitting at the screen, scratching yourself. Instant deaths, a staple of the series’ 3D era, are also present and incorrect, causing players to plummet into multiple endless chasms for the crimes of actually wanting to take control of the action rather than watching what is effectively a chain of cutscenes or for lacking the psychic ability to interpret some pretty woefully signposted speed sequences. Even the supposedly-helpful camera changes during some boss fights tend to occur at the exact moment that a precise jump needs to be completed.

On the up side, there are fewer moronic artefact hunts to be undertaken, and the structure of most regular action levels, in which a pair of Sega’s absurd animal clan will take on stretches in turn according to their abilities, staves off boredom through repetition. The background story makes up in outright bizarreness what it lacks in quality (human-on-hedgehog intimacy proving most amusing), whilst sections of Sonic’s adventure roll back the years to simpler times, where speed mattered more than attitude. Overall, a huge disappointment.

Dave Shaw