Quality. When you think of Nintendo's mascot Mario, you always think "quality". If he's playing golf, cleaning grafitti off walls or beating up Pikachu, you're always guaranteed a good, quality game. That's what a mascot should do. For Sega, Sonic used to do much the same. Every single game made by Sonic has been a good, solid game by the console's standards, although he's always been one step behind Mario in terms of quality, but only a little. And so, in an obvious attempt to wrestle the board game crown away from Mario Party, Sonic Team released Sonic Shuffle. The first thing you'll notice are the graphics. For the first time ever, Sonic has gone all cel-shaded on us and the style really suits him. The graphics are hard to find flaw in. They're effective and look good. The second thing you'll notice is that you just wasted your money. Bye-bye £30, nice knowing ya. To say this game is appalling is an understatement. The board game genre is defined as a board-game type interface with plenty of fun mini-games to keep it interesting. Sonic Shuffle takes a different approach by virtually removing all mini-games to a bare minimum, including some stupid battle mode that requires you to just press the A button faster than your opponent. The mini-games themselves have little flair and are, at best, basic. Even more ludicrous is the board game itself. You recieve a collection of cards, each with numbers on them, that you use and allow you to move that many number of spaces. You may use an opponent's card, but the twist is you aren't allowed to see their cards. A sound system in theory...only the AI cheats. This isn't some paranoid "I can't win so it's cheating!" theory, it really does cheat. It may need to move 3 spaces to land on the item you're supposed to collect. If it were you and you had no 3 card, you'd have to gamble with an opponent's card. Here the AI ALWAYS manage to get the exact card from another player...they don't even take their time, they go DIRECTLY to the card and take it. This happens every time, and it leaves the gamer feeling cheated and abused. An awful game at the best of times. Lord knows how this tripe got the Sonic name added to it...
Sonic Shuffle did have some merit to it that made it a memorable and interesting game, despite popular Gamespot belief. The first notable feature is the new-style graphics. These graphics don't attempt realism but a ... Read Full Review
The Mario Party craze has brought on a new fan-base for party games. Unfortunately, the newcomers to the genre never add up to the greatness that is Mario Party. Sonic Shuffle is no exception. Gameplay: You can play as ... Read Full Review
