Sonic iOS review for evaluation

Sonic the Hedgehog (Christian Whitehead mobile port)
Platforms: iOS, Android
It's truly amazing just how many devices seem to be able to handle that "Blast processing" power of the Sega Genesis. Sonic the Hedgehog was at one time the champion of over half the gaming world and sole combatant against an irreverent moustached plumber. With this game being so widely ported that it can be found on high school graphing calculators, it's hard to imagine anyone being able to provide an incentive to jump back into yet another port, but as the super fan behind the excellent Sonic CD re-release, Christian Whitehead manages to blow expectations away. 

Premise is the same as always, all it needed to be for the 16-bit days. You're Sonic the Hedgehog, speedy, blue and chubby. The bad guy is Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, chubby, animal abusing and has a fantastic moustache. Sonic needs to travel through six areas of his home island, destroy Eggman's machines that are turning the animal population into his robot minions and put an end to whatever Robotnik is scheming. Collecting the six chaos emeralds along the way will restore nature, but it's not necessary. 

Sonic's simple controls lend themselves well to a touch interface. a simple control pad and a single button are tucked in the corners and you rarely feel out of control as you careen through the 19 levels. Should you find problems, the game allows you to adjust them to an amazing degree, including size, transparency and placement of the buttons. The action runs at a constant 60 frames per second and the game plays smooth as butter for it. The Genesis visuals themselves still stand up well and look crisp and colourful on the retina display. 

The level of fan service and content introduced under the surface is what elevates this from yet another port to the version to play. Beating the game with specific conditions will unlock Tails, either alone or tagging along with Sonic and Knuckles the Echidna from Sonic 3 and Knuckles, both for the first time playable in the game. Knuckles is an especially unique experience, since he can't jump quite as high, using his glide and wall climbing to your advantage and exploring added areas that Sonic can't reach adds incentive to check every nook. 

Playing around in the debug mode, reached by starting a no save game, tapping the letters of Sega in reverse and sliding your fingers from bottom to top at the title screen reveals further goodies for the hardcore sonic fan to sink into, including the addition of the seventh chaos emerald and a devious special stage to go with it, Sonic 2 and 3 items and a super form for each character. Unfortunately, most of this seems to be locked to the saveless debug mode cheat, but it's fun to screw around with either way. 

If you remember waiting for your copy of the sequel on hedgehog day, or you're just jonesing for a great platformer with some replay value, Sonic the Hedgehog on mobile won't steer you wrong. However, you may also be served just as well with playing the game on any of the other platforms it's found on. 
Score: 9.0 

The critique: http://imageshack.com/a/img194/6519/qwxe.png

Not a bad review, actually. Ports are the perfect subject for concise reviews, as you can easily skip over most of the usual dissertations on the game mechanics and how they work. Re-releases are usually targeted at fans first and foremost, so all you really need to focus on is the quality of the port.

Through :shock:

thanks.