XBLA Retrospective Part I - Braid

I figured I might as well start this retrospective with the game that first made me properly realise what XBLA was capable of.  When Braid was first released, many balked at the 1200ms points price that has since become the norm.  I guess they can be forgiven because prior to Braid there hadn't been many games released that were worth 1200 points, but to put things in perspective that's less than £10.  I'd probably put Braid in the top 5 games I've played this gen, so yes it's definitely worth spending £10 on.

The first thing that strikes you about this game is the absolutely outstanding soundtrack and art style.  Seriously, you could probably print off some screenshots of this game and sell them in a gallery.  The levels and backgrounds are bloody beautiful and highly detailed.  There are no original pieces of music in the game - the developer's thinking behind this was that someone had probably already made the perfect music for it and it would be easier for him to achieve his vision that way than to try to explain what he wanted to someone else to custom make it.  I assume he got what he wanted because the soundtrack matches the theme of the game perfectly. Check out an example here.

On face value Braid is a 2D platformer where you play as a young man called "Tim" and try to save his princess.  The truth is, both the gameplay and the story have a lot more depth than it would first appear and the further you go the more intriguing they both become.  There are a lot of obvious (and nice) nods to Mario and while it's clearly inspired by the platformer cliche that Mario has created, the game actually has very little in common with it.

Quite early on you're introduced to the idea that Tim can control time - at the start this is pretty simple stuff, hold down a button and time goes backwards, erasing any mistakes you may have made.  The clever thing about this is that this gameplay mechanic ties into the themes presented in the story - Tim obviously has a lot of regrets relating to the "princess" that he wishes he could undo.  Another nice touch is that your traversal of time also affects the soundtrack so you'll hear the music and sound effects scratching back and forth as if Tim was really a red-headed DJ rocking the glowsticks in Ibiza.

As the game continues on your ability to control time becomes more advanced depending on which of the 6 worlds you're playing through.  As these abilities come in to play the game becomes more like a puzzle game than a simple platformer and this is where the game comes into it's own.  One world sees you controlling time with your movement - walk forwards and the world around you advances, walk backwards and time goes backwards - while another gives you the regular ability to reverse time, but doing so creates a shadow of yourself that will repeat the actions you have just reversed.  This effectively means you can be in two places at once and leads to some truly mind bending puzzles.  One really nifty (though small) use of this can be seen here, though if you don't want to spoil the hair pulling fun and incredible relief at actually figuring it out I wouldn't bother looking.

One of my favourite things about Braid is the way the story is presented - it's not thrown in your face the way that 90% of games are.  It takes time and a bit of thinking on your part for it to fully unravel and this mystery is what really drives you onwards in your journey.  The worlds and the puzzles themselves serve as metaphors for the story, which has a number of levels to it for you to figure out.

When you reach the end of Tim's journey and your own journey you will be left with a game that really sticks with you.

If you need all that in a checklist format, here you go:
+ Great graphics
+ Great sounds
+ Great story
+ Great gameplay
- Once you've played it you can't rewind time and enjoy it for the very first time again.

At least I can't enjoy it for the first time - some of you probably still can.


If my review wasn't your cup of tea I apologise, but I can guarantee you will enjoy Soulja Boy's take on it (yes, that Soulja Boy).




And be sure to check out the trailer below!

A Fond Farewell to XBLA

As the Xbox 360 enters the last year of its life I think it's fair to say that it (along with the PS3) will go down as a fantastic console.  This generation there have been far more multi platform games released than ever before with very few 3rd party exclusives being released on either console.  Sure, you had the Halos, the Gears of Wars, the Uncharteds, the Infamouseses's and a few driving games but the majority of the big hitters that will define this generation landed on Sony's big black box and Microsoft's smaller white (and then black) box at around the same time.

In years past choosing a console boiled down to what games you wanted to play and while that's still a factor this gen it became more about the other things - which controller you preferred, free online or not, what console your friends had, whether you wanted a Blu Ray player or not.  For me though, one thing that has set the Xbox 360 above the PS3 is the Xbox Live Arcade (or XBLA, pronounced "ksbla").  What started off as a place for Geometry Wars and a load of crap, eventually blossomed into the place where Microsoft would nail down some of the best titles not available on a PS3.  Wise move? Probably not, but it works for me.

OK, so technically it's still "games" but just go with it.

Some of the best memories I'll have of this generation have come from XBLA.  I've played a lot of excellent retail games, but I've also played a lot that I've chugged through for 8-12 hours enjoying the gameplay and then pretty much forgotten the entire bland story.  I enjoyed them, but they didn't really stick with me afterwards and I had no real desire to go back and play them again.  On the other hand I've played through a number of 4-6 hour XBLA titles that really stuck with me and I've replayed numerous times - not to get some useless collectables, not to unlock some achievement points - just, you know, for fun.

I'm not dismissing games like Assassins Creed 2, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Halo Reach, Dead Space, Red Dead, Mirror's Edge - those games gave me great memories and created such a great atmosphere that they'll stick with me for a long time.  But there are some XBLA games that matched or bettered the experience I had with those games, something I never expected when I first tried the Marble Blast Ultra demo and then got stuck with it in my Games Played list.

The sad thing is that I know plenty of Xbox owners that have never downloaded a single arcade game. You never see ads on TV for them or hear people talking about them or see them in a shop.  So they go largely unnoticed, which is a real shame.

Over the next 12 months I'm going to run a retrospective of some of my favourite XBLA titles that I've played in the last few years (not just exclusives), so feel free to read them and hopefully I'll point you in the direction of an amazing game you barely even knew existed.

Review: SSX (Xbox 360)

Huzzah!  My first game completed of 2013!  Hopefully this year I'll be able to clear my backlog a bit more than I did last year and I've started off by finishing off a game I started not long after it came out last Spring.  With any luck I'll also be firing out reviews more frequently and to help me do that I'll try to keep them pretty short and to the point.  So, time to hit the slopes...

SSX is the first Snowboarding game I've spent any serious time with since 1080 Snowboarding on the trusty old N64 and it's fair to say the two games couldn't be more different.  While 1080 took the approach of a somewhat realistic simulation (apart from the giant pandas), this reboot of SSX sticks to its roots with an over the top arcade approach with crazy tricks galore - they even thrown in a rewind mechanic lifted straight from The Sands of Time.  One of the most challenging parts of 1080 was lining up your board after every jump to make sure you landed perfectly - trying out tricks was a calculated risk and you knew every one could ruin your whole race.  In SSX as long as you let go of your trick with enough time to spare your board will automatically adjust and you'll be pretty much guaranteed a clean landing.  That's not a criticism of the game, just an observation.

Doing tricks is piss easy for a reason.  You're being encouraged to do crazy wild tricks because it's part of what makes the game fun - you try to fit in a trick at every possible chance because it builds up your boost meter which can be vital in a race.  Apart from your boost you have no real way of increasing speed other than hitting a steep bit of the mountain and if you're stuck on a relatively flat bit having lost your momentum you can end up going pretty slow.  Fill up your boost meter and you'll trigger a "Tricky" which gives you unlimited boost for a short time and access to even crazier tricks.  Fill up your meter again before the Tricky expires and you'll trigger a super Tricky which allows you to go even faster and pull off the craziest tricks in the game.

The campaign of the game is based around a series of "Deadly Descents" that tale you on a tour around some of the world's most famous mountain ranges.  You'd be forgiven for thinking you were riding the same mountain range the whole game though because none of them make a huge effort to distinguish themselves.  There are tons of runs in this game but I can't remember any of them standing out to me and making me desperate to return to them.  I was happy enough to leave them behind and get on to the next one.

The campaign is presented with a cheesy narrative that's acceptable enough to drive the story - Team SSX has to conquer the Deadly Descents before their arch rival Griff.  Fair enough.  Each mountain range is traversed by a different rider, someone supposedly an expert of the region.  Something that bugs me about this is to play as them you have to beat them first - so you travel to this region, beat the master and then Team SSX decides that instead of the rider who has just won a race they'll stick with the loser and you then play as them for the rest of the region.

Each range is finished off with a "Boss Level" which kits you out with a gimmicky tool that is only useful on that one run - a wingsuit, a headlamp for traversing the dark, pulse goggles so you can see the ground even when you're blinded by snow or an oxygen tank that you need to manage your use of to avoid blacking out.  These add a nice change of pace to the game and although some of the equipment can be fun I'm glad they didn't shoe horn them into every race.

I enjoyed SSX in short bursts when I fancied something light hearted, fun and without too much thinking involved.  There isn't too much challenge from the game until the last few races and by that point they were quite infuriating with blind drops around almost every corner and opponents that almost never falter.  Once you crack the "final race" and the credits start to roll, you're hit with the real final race, a grudge match with Griff.  It took me many attempts to finish the track, never mind win the race and it stopped being fun after a while.  But the feeling of achieving that perfect run and actually winning the race was brilliant, making it totally worth it.  I sat back smugly and waited for the oh so familiar achievement pop to happen and then... nothing.  No achievement unlocked - what the hell is up with that?

Oh well, minor gripes aside this is a fun game without being spectacular.  If a snowboarding game appeals to you then try it out and I think you'll enjoy it, but it's by no means a "must have" game like 1080 was back in the day!

E3 Quick Reactions

E3 is by far the biggest event of the gaming calendar.  I could compare it to a bunch of major sporting events - like the Superbowl, the Champions League final, the World Series, Wrestlemania etc - to make my point, but I don't think anyone would really appreciate that.
Every year the major companies gather to get a one up on each other and show us a load of trailers to give us more excitement for upcoming games than in a lot of cases we'll ever actually experience while playing them.

So this is my round up of the game trailers and information that really grabbed my attention this year. I've stayed away from any hardware announcements because in general they need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Assassin's Creed 3
I was hyped up for this game since I saw the first trailer a few months back, but this one here is just incredible. Assassin's Creed is one of my favourite new franchises this generation and AC2 would be in my top 5 games this gen. But the last couple of semi-sequels haven't changed a massive amount despite improving the core gameplay and introducing the most surprisingly great multiplayer since Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. With the huge shift in setting Assassin's Creed 3 looks set to feel like the proper sequel its title implies it is. Add to that improvements to the gameplay such as a much more fluid hop in hop out fighting system and the continuation of a fascinating story make this my most anticipated game of the year!

My only problem so far is our new Assassin's name. He's Native American and wears a hood, and judging by Altair and Ezio you'd expect a pretty cool, mysterious name. But no, he's just "Connor". Doesn't fit the character in my opinion!




Skyrim: Dawnguard
Skyrim was incredible. For my money it's the best game I've played in about ten years. Having said that, I played it too much and after 90 hours and four months of playing little else I just stopped one day and haven't touched it since. I didn't even finish the main quest! Dawnguard looks to be exactly the kind of offering to get me back on the addiction.

Featuring an interesting looking story tied into a group of vampires and the "Dawnguard" determined to wipe them out, a battle that you can choose which side you join, it has got me really excited. Join the vamps and you are promised new abilities that look to be very interesting, but if the Werewolf form is anything to go by I'm prepared to be disappointed by that! Whatever side you pick there are new perk trees, new weapons and new armour, all of which can be carried over to the main game as the expansion is directly integrated to the existing world. There promises to be new dimensions and dungeons to plunder though!

Much like I only completed Fallout 3 after playing through 3 sets of DLC, I reckon Dawnguard will inspire me to finally conquer Skyrim as soon as I've finished joining/wiping out (delete as appropriate) those brilliant/filthy vampires. This isn't just your run of the mill 2 hour DLC though as 15 hours of gameplay are promised!






Hitman Absolution
It's been so long since Blood Money that I wasn't paying much attention to this game, but a gameplay video released a few weeks back put it well and truly on my radar. The game looks gorgeous and the stealth gameplay looks like a very good option for people who long for the old days of Splinter Cell. The AI looks to be smart and you seem to have lots of options for attacking each mission.

But no one's talking about the gameplay following E3, they're all talking about the trailer posted above that seems to bare no resemblance to the actual gameplay with Agent 47 looking more like Ezio Auditore as he takes out half a dozen Nuns/Whores. Personally I thought the trailer was fucking awesome. No it doesn't represent the game that well but how many of these CG trailers actually do? It was designed to get people's attention and it did. It was slick, over the top and pretty gruesome. And it was pretty bad ass.

Some people complained that it was the most sexist thing they've ever seen, that you wouldn't see a trailer where men dressed as priests stripped down to suspenders. Maybe not, but that's society's problem and the blame shouldn't fall on Hitman for that. It's always featured sleaze and sex appeal but it is rated for 18 year olds. And let's not forget that these women he massacres have come with the sole intention of killing Agent 47. Self defence you could say!






Tomb Raider
The gameplay of this new Tomb Raider reboot looks to have given the series a new breath of life. The last couple of Lara Croft games were good games, but they did look and feel like old games. This one is built on a new engine and looks great so far.

My only problem here is the new Lara Croft they've given us. I get that in a reboot we're going to get a new take on the character but this is too much. Lara has turned from a strong independent leading woman into a whiny snivelling pathetic mess. If she was in a horror movie she'd be killed off before the title sequence.

I get what they're going for, showing the origins of Lara's story before she became the heroine we all know, but there's no way you'll convince me that this wreck of a woman will ever become the Tomb Raider of previous games. Not to mention that her accent is now incredibly irritating where it was once just posh but loveable. 

In my opinion this trailer is much more damaging to females in gaming than the Hitman one that caught so much grief.




Halo 4
Honestly I was preparing myself to fully ignore Halo 4 because as far as I was concerned Halo Reach closed the series out brilliantly. Watching the gameplay demo makes this a very hard beast to ignore! The first thing that's immediately obvious is that Halo looks waaay better than ever before. The jungle level looks amazing and the background looks more full of life than ever.

The demo starts off with Chief facing off against some familiar foes on this strange planet but soon we see some new faces. It seems like the main enemies this time around are a strange race called the Promethians. I can only assume they inhabit the world that Chief finds himself on.

The Promethian knight looks like a really interesting opponent with a few really class moves, including summoning a companion that will protect him with shields and catch and throw your grenades back at you. There are also a whole new set of weapons including the Scatter Shot which is basically a shotgun that has ammo which ricochets off surfaces.

So this basically looks to be the same great Halo gameplay, with the best looking environments it's ever had and a host of new and innovative enemy types and weapons.

Sign me up!




Splinter Cell Blacklist
Honestly it's hard to take much from this non-gameplay trailer and really it didn't excite me very much. It was all a bit blah blah explosion for me. I'm sure more details will emerge though and for now the fact that a new Splinter Cell has been announced is fantastic news. I loved Conviction despite it straying from its roots so I'm looking forward to this one!




Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
We haven't seen anything of this game in a year, but even the mention if it is brilliant. If you never played the original on the Gamecube then you missed out on a real gem. From what I can see this doesn't seem to stray too far from the first game but that doesn't bother me. I'd have been happy with a straight port to the 3DS!

One new gameplay feature is that you use the coins you collect to power your flashlight and Poltergust, which is sure to add a bit of a survival-horror style conservation element to it.




Resident Evil 6
Speaking of survival-horror, Resident Evil 6 doesn't seem to be showing much signs of featuring any. From the CG sequences I've seen this week it seems to have more machine guns than ever before. I'm keeping an optimistic mind on this one, because I love the series but I'm not too impressed so far




Pikmin 3
This is my surprise of the show and brought a smile to my face. Like Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin was originally on the Gamecube and a relatively low profile game. It was brilliant though, great fun, great puzzles, great character and a superb soundtrack.

Shigsy presented this game as part of Nintendo's main conference and pointed out that the high resolution of the Wii U makes the Pikmin easier to manage than ever before. Watch the short video for an overview of this sequel to a really joyful but intelligent game. Not sure it's enough to make buy a Wii U, but it's good to know that it exists!







South Park: The Stick of Truth
Not sure what to expect of this game, it could turn out brilliant, hilarious and fun or it could just be crap and hilarious. I like the approach they're taking though by making you the hero of this story. It'll be fun to play as a South Park version of yourself in this crazy universe. I'm not getting my hopes up too much but I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this.






Far Cry 3
Not much actually shown in the trailer for this game except for some great looking graphics and exciting island imagery, but this and the trailer released a few months ago have got me very interested. A lot of people were disappointed with Far Cry 2 so hopefully this can bring the series back to the heights the original reached!




So those were my E3 highlights, what were yours? Did I miss any of your favourite trailers? And what are you ready to pre order now? Let me know in the comments section!

Trials RAGE-olution

Anyone who recognises the part of the game shown in the image below will feel my pain - and there was pain, believe me! But after quite a few hours of trying I have earned my second Demon On Wheels achievement for besting all of the Extreme Tracks (like a boss).

Gold medals next?! Not likely! I'm going to retire from Trials Evolution and remember the good times it gave me for the first 8-10 hours or so rather than the last hour that made me feel like putting a controller through my TV.

The Tipping Point

It happens sometimes, you hit a certain point in a game and suddenly your whole aim in that game is drastically changed. It might be the moment you decide "screw it, I'm never gonna get 1000/1000 on this game" when you notice one irritatingly difficult/time consuming achievement. Or it might be the moment you've been stuck on the same puzzle in Zelda for 2 hours and decide the time has come for a quick trip to Gamefaqs.

Whatever it is, whenever it happens your self imposed rules are torn up. Once you succumb to a game guide for one puzzle, you'll be quicker to do it again when you hit another brick wall. Once you've given up on getting all the achievements, those daft little pointless collectables you've been hunting out so painstakingly for the last 8 hours suddenly don't matter at all (think Alan Wake and his Coffee Flasks)

I most recently experienced this while blasting through Trials Evolution, right around the time I started onto the "Extreme" tracks. My aim up to then had been getting a Gold medal on each track, and I'd been doing pretty well with only a handful of tracks so far still sitting on Silver medal status. The fact that some of those Golds took me an hour of effort to get didn't bother me at all, I enjoyed the challenge. It took about five minutes of the first Extreme track for that to change though. I knew I had absolutely no mission of ever getting Golds on all the 8 Extreme tracks. Suddenly the goal I had been striving for was seemingly unattainable, and in the blink of an eye my goal was now just to finish all the tracks and forget the Gold medals. And I was fine with that.

So, yeah, I pussied out and gave up on my challenge. I was a quitter. So why don't I care? Because in my opinion I'm not admitting defeat. I probably *could* get all the golds if I spent enough time, I just don't want to any more. It's reached that point where it just wouldn't be fun to me - it would be more of a chore. Above all else, gaming is meant to be fun. It's a hobby, it's something that you pay money to do in your spare time and it shouldn't feel like a chore. If it ever does, maybe you should remind yourself of that and change the rules, or change the game completely.

The completionist in me makes me want to beat every game I start, but there's so many amazing games out there nowadays that if I've completely lost enjoyment in a game I'm not gonna keep playing for the sake of it. Towards the end of Disc 2 of L.A. Noire I grew tired of the seemingly random nature of the interrogations and the old Rockstar trademark of dragging out a story with too much filler so I haven't played it in about a year. The beauty of it is you can go back to it any time you want should you fancy another crack at the challenge. In my case I've spent long enough away from the fantastic atmosphere and change of pace gameplay of L.A. Noire that when I go back to finish it off in the next few months I'll enjoy it a lot more than I would have if I had just ploughed through it back when I started it.

Every game comes with its own set of rules and gameplay constructs, but don't forget who's really in charge of your gaming experience.

Hint: It isn't Bill Gates and his achievement points.

Review: Sonic Generations (Xbox 360)

As you might have guessed given the name and theme of this blog I'm a pretty big Sonic fan. Or at least I was. I haven't actually bought a retail Sonic release in about ten years since I got Sonic Adventure 2 on Gamecube release day.

So what made me pick up Sonic Generations? It was a mixture of things really - I tried the demo but wasn't overly impressed but I heard a lot of praise for the game and the nostalgia factor definitely had me interested. What sealed it though was the chance to buy it for just £8.99 in an out of the blue flash sale (thank you hotukdeals.com!)

The story of the game is... not important. But basically we've ended up with two Sonics - one short and stumpy who doesn't speak and one a bit gangly who does speak and has a 'tude. This premise opens up a key gameplay feature,  as you traverse through the zones each Sonic takes a turn at it and each one plays very differently. Act 1 plays like a classic 2D Sonic game while Act 2 is a 3D stage more like the Sonic games we've come to know post-2000.

All of the stages are taken from previous games in the series, one from each "major" release, though sadly Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are counted as one game. This is both a gift and a curse to the game - obviously it appeals to players' nostalgia, but on the other hand there's always going to be an argument over the stages that were selected or more likely those that were left out.  Personally I would have loved to see Ice Cap Zone included ahead of Sky Sanctuary from Sonic 3 & Knuckles.  Another problem with this approach is that once what is undoubtedly the peak of the series has been covered - after the first 3 zones - the reveal of the levels is a bit less exciting.  That's not to say they are bad levels by any means, the last few were more challenging and engaging than any of the ones I was familiar with from previous games.

The gang's all here!  Thankfully you don't have to play as them.

Previous Sonic games have tried to switch up the flow of the game by introducing other characters (or Werewolves???) to have some slow paced levels to "compliment" the fast paced Sonic ones.  Common opinion is that these types of levels suck balls.  So you'll be glad to hear that although a whole host of characters return, their roles are firmly supporting ones.  As I said before, the change in pace comes from the switch between 2D and 3D levels.  This is where the game shocked me.

I enjoyed the 3D levels a lot more than the 2D ones.

There, I said it.  I'm not sure what it is, but the 2D levels just seem to drag a lot more than the 3D ones to me.  Part of the problem may be that after playing the 3D stages (which feature their own two dimensional gameplay sections) where Sonic has his homing attack, switching to "classic" Sonic without the homing attack just feels incredibly gimped.  To combat this the game designers have brought back some of the shields from the old games (Flame, Lightning and Water/Bubble), but in my opinion they aren't used nearly enough and feel more like an afterthought.

As has been the case with Sonic games since he moved to the third dimension, the camera can be pretty wonky at times and when the action slows down Sonic can be very tricky to control when jumping from one ledge to another.  Sonic's all about blistering through a level at high speed bouncing from enemy to enemy, but when he slows down it can seem like his legs have turned to jelly.  Most of the time I spent falling off platforms were at times when the action had slowed right down and Sonic moves like he's on ice skates and jumps like... an idiot. Obviously the game is meant to be played fast, but there are times where you've no choice other than to slow down.

Something that Sonic games have always done well is bosses. This game is no exception as the bosses and sub-bosses are mostly inventive and good fun to play.  I say mostly, because the very final boss is a real pain in the ass and one of the low points of the whole game.  It's a pity because the boss fight just before the end is fantastic and would have been a better ending point in my opinion.

From a technical standpoint, the graphics are decent enough without being mindblowing.  They do the job, but compared to games like Rayman Origins and even Mario Galaxy and Donkey Kong Country on the Wii they're pretty forgettable.   The soundtrack fits the game well with simple infectious tunes and remixes of classics that you'll be humming even after you turn the console off.   As a nice added bonus if you aren't feeling the music you can unlock classic tracks from past games and use them as the soundtrack while you play.  Admittedly the classics don't tend to fit the new levels as much as the actual songs do, but I had some fun with it.

If you plan to just blast through the game at Super Sonic speed - ahem - playing each stage and jumping onto the next one, you could be done with that in probably around 4-6 hours.  To help extend the game, somewhat artifically, once you complete a few zones you unlock a set of challenges - five for each act.  Most of these are based around replaying a section of the act with a twist that can range from specific enemies to a companion with their own unique powers to help you on your way. You only need to complete one challenge from each zone to move on, but if you want to beat all 90 of them it will extend your playing time a fair bit, with my final playing time probably somewhere around the 12 hour mark.  To be honest though I'm not sure I'd recommend playing through them all - some of them are good fun, but a lot of them are just fecking tedious.  They made the whole experience a bit of a chore for me in the end, but as I said before they're 90% optional so if you're not enjoying them don't be a glutton for punishment like me just to unlock a poxy achievement!

If it sounds like I've been quite harsh on Sonic Generations, well I didn't particularly mean to be.  It's a fun game that is well worth picking up for cheap.  Could I recommend it to somebody at full price?  Honestly, no.  But the way you'll get the most out of this game is if you treat it as a budget title that can be played as your "side game" rather than your main one.  It's perfect to play in bite size chunks when a two hour quest through Skyrim isn't quite what you're looking for.  It's light-hearted fun that can be enjoyed by gamers of all ages, especially if you spent hours of your youth fighting Dr. Robotnik on the Mega Drive/Genesis.  Many have said it's the best Sonic game in years, but it does have it's fair share of flaws that hold it back from taking Sonic back to the top level of gaming.  The 3D stages were a pleasant surprise while for me the 2D ones were a bit of a let down and to be honest I enjoyed Sonic 4's levels a lot more.

In conclusion, if you like fun, you will enjoy this game, just don't expect a world beater.

Phil