Great sega platformer with an unneeded twist
Gameplay: Taking after the shadow levels of sonic adventure 2 battle, this game is about good ol' fashion 3d sonic game action, but with shadow, and guns. The game is plenty fun, and the platforming is done well. The levels are entertaining and highs peed, and most of the moral choices (more on that later) missions arent too annoying.
Basically, going through a level, you can either just do a traditional 3d sonic game type runthough, where you just get to the end (though this only allows you to find one of the endings if you only beat the levels this way), or you can choose between a good or evil mission objective.
The good mission objectives have to do with helping the humans and sonic's friends to stop the evil black aliens that are invading earth, while the evil missions are for if you wish to help the evil aliens instead. As said earlier, you can also choose the neutral run-through, where you're just trying to get the chaos emeralds and find out who you are.
The control can be iffy at times, since you're basically skating rather than running, but that isn't usually too annoying. To defeat enemies you can either jump and do a homeing attack, punch, slide, or use weapons. There are quite a few different weapons, from sign posts to swords to lasers to vacuums to uzis. As said before, it's usually more fun to just use the homing attack, cus the aiming is a bit lackluster. But the guns can help at some of the bosses, like the evil alien overlord.
There are several different endings and levels, and it can be quite intereting to see the story of shadow being good, evil, or neither. The bosses for each ending are fairly clever and seem to suit that moral choice, in most cases. Take a wild geuss as to who you fight for the pure evil boss ;).
Graphics: The graphics seem to be about on par with sonic heroes. They're decent, but nothing spectacular. The animations work well, the models are fluid, and the framerates tend to be stable. At least enough so that it's playable. The best part of the graphics seem to be the weapon effects, particularly the alien ones. They're definitely good, and seem to have had some effort put into them
Sound: Sound is definitely good. All of the effects, including weapons, jumping, and explosions, sound right. Voice acting doesnt seem bad, and adds to the mood. Music is fine, though nothing to make you want to dance , but that's good, since that would distract you from the game.
Value: There are a bunch of different levels, as well as a multiplayer mode (2 player deathmatch), so the game wil llast you a while, and is fun enough to play through. Though if you're a hardcore gamer, you could probably beat all of the levels within a rental period.
No tilt, as i just set it to suit the rets of the score, and lean it towards what i had in mind.
Overall, the game is a welcome addition to the 3d sonic universe, and there is definitely a good time to be had, no matter what gamespot has to say about it.