Sonic Adventure 2

Format Dreamcast

Developer Sonic Team

Publisher Sega

Genre Action

A certain hyperactive hedgehog is planning to take over the world next month. ED LOMAS takes an exclusive look at his invasion plans

It's been almost ten years since Sonic the Hedgehog first rolled on to the scene. In that time he's starred in some of the most popular videogames of all time, and become the world-famous mascot for his parent company, Sega. And, with his first Dreamcast title, Sonic Adventure (ODM #0, 9/10), being the best-selling game yet released on the console, anticipation of the top-secret sequel is reaching fever pitch.

Part of the reason so little has been revealed of Sonic Adventure 2 yet is that it's set for release all across the world on the same day - Saturday 23 June, Sonic's tenth birthday. Gamers in Japan, so often treated to information on big games long before we are in the UK, are in exactly the same boat as us - they've seen practically nothing. Until now, that is, as Official Dreamcast Magazine were recently treated to a world-exclusive playtest of the near-finished game.

The first thing to know about Sonic Adventure 2 is that it's all about light and dark, good and evil, yin and yang. 'The initial, and most striking positive change,' Mat Quaeck, European Product Manager at Sega told us, 'is the two game modes, Hero and Dark, which lend themselves to a more intriguing storyline and a longer, more exciting game-playing experience.'

When you start a single-player game you'll be given this choice - do you go for Hero, and be the good guy, or Dark, and be baaaad? Each choice will follow the antics of three main characters, showing how all their paths cross, and how they all have corresponding opposites on the other side. Knuckles, for example, has a rival in the form of Rouge, a female bat (the flying kind...) who has a passion for stealing gems - particularly the Master Emerald, of which Knuckles is the guardian. Miles 'Tails' Prower, with his home-made transforming biplane, is the sworn enemy of Dr Eggman who, in one of his own robotic contraptions, is out to track down and capture one of his grandfather's top secret experiments-gone-walkabout. This genetic creation is a hedgehog which calls itself 'The Ultimate Lifeform', known to us as Shadow, who is out to avenge the death of his creator's beloved niece.

Story-wise it's a big departure from Sonic games' usual 'save the bunnies and collect rings' theme, but the action is just as fast-paced and thrilling as ever. In fact, it's set to be a whole lot more action-packed than the original Sonic Adventure, as all of the slow-moving exploration stages have been dropped for the sequel.

'It's nice to see that this game's done away with the adventure parts of the first Sonic Adventure,' Mat explained, 'with all levels now divided up into action stages for a more thrilling adventure.' Depending on whether you play the Hero or Dark game, you'll work through a series of all-out action stages, automatically taking control of a different character depending on the next level.

One minute you might be racing along rollercoaster-like roadways, the next searching for buried treasure in the desert, then invading a heavily guarded prison in a gun-toting robot suit. This means more variety as you play through the game, plus it leads to a more engaging storyline. There are going to be a lot more action stages to play through than in the original Sonic Adventure as well, immediately making the game far bigger. But, on top of providing more levels than before, developers Sonic Team are also adding lots to keep you coming back again and again.



BACK ONCE AGAIN

As with the first Sonic Adventure, you'll be able to re-play any of the action stages you've already completed in the main story mode. Each one of these action stages will have five different missions to complete in order, each one unlocking as you complete the one before it. For example, the first time you play on Sonic's first level, Highway Escape, your mission will simply be to make it to the end in one piece. But then choose to play the second mission and you'll be told to get a hundred rings. Collect those in a quick enough time to get a good ranking, and you'll be able to try a third mission where you have to search for a cute little Chao hidden somewhere in the level. And so on. With five of these missions on each action stage for all of the characters, as well as a number of different rankings available depending on how well you do, there's definitely going to be a lot of scope for replaying every part of the game.

The fun 'virtual pet' aspect of Sonic Adventure is also returning, with a lot more substance than it had before. If you can manage to collect the Chao Key hidden in a level, you'll be able to visit the all-new Chao Garden when you finish the stage. Here's where you'll get to raise and look after Chao, feeding them fruit from the trees, playing with them, and changing their appearance by cross-breeding them with little animals found hidden around the action stages.

By also improving their abilities with glowing coloured rods found in defeated enemies, and their personalities with the amount of love and attention you give them, they'll evolve into completely different types of Chao. Fitting in with the light and dark theme of the game, you'll be able to raise both good and evil Chao depending on the type of care you give them. And as before, Chao can be saved into Visual Memory units and looked after outside of the Dreamcast in their own little portable game, unsurprisingly called Chao Adventure 2.



BAD IS GOOD

But, exciting as these improvements are to the thousands of Sonic Adventure fans around the world, they're not what's going to have normal people most interested. 'If there are people who didn't like the first game, then they'll be encouraged to learn that there are plenty of improvements in both depth and variety of gameplay to keep them thrilled for hours,' Mat Quaeck told us. 'And the fact that you can play an evil Sonic - Shadow - is intriguing enough for even the most casual of gamer.'

Although Sonic has faced a few pretenders to his Hedgehog throne before, there's never been anyone quite so powerful as Shadow. With red and black spines, cool running animation where he seems to effortlessly skate across the ground, and a brilliant evil voice, there's a pretty good chance he'll end up being even more popular than Sonic himself. As well as using the Chaos' Emeralds as his source of power, he has all of Sonic's abilities and an equally smart (if not smarter) pair of shoes. Both rivals will be seen wearing trainers from real-life American shoe brand Soap, complete with the trademark solid plastic arch on the underside to allow them to grind along railings and other pieces of scenery with ease.

As you'll have seen if you've played the one-level demo included with Phantasy Star Online (ODM #17, 9/10), this comes into play quite often, allowing you to grind your way to new areas, pick up extra rings and bonuses, and also look extremely darned cool. Developed by Japanese Sonic Team members based in San Francisco, there's a very funky skate-style feel to all of Sonic Adventure 2, something that Mat feels has come from the different working environment.

'I'm sure being based in California has influenced certain aspects of the game, like the choice of music and voice-over artists, for example,' he said. 'But the team have endeavoured to create a game that, naturally, has worldwide appeal.'

In the special issue of Official Dreamcast Magazine (ODM #0), Charlie Brooker wrote of the original Sonic Adventure: 'One day all games will look this good, but right now only this does.'In its day - way back in October 1999 - it really was one of the best-looking titles ever seen, but is starting to show its age a bit now. Sonic Adventure 2's graphics, however, are set to improve on the original's in every area. For a start, all of the main characters have been given a makeover, and now look a lot smarter than before. As well as being constructed of many more polygons so they're less 'blocky', they also have vastly improved animations. In the story sequences between levels, characters will actually look as though they're having conversations with one another, rather than just standing there tapping their feet.

You're not likely to see huge chunks of scenery suddenly popping into view as they often do in the first Sonic Adventure either - the levels now stretch as far as the eye can see into the distance. Smaller touches such as the characters casting realistic shadows only add to the solid feel of the graphics, something you'll really notice when you come to play the game.



SPLIT PERSONALITY

The graphics even manage to look good in the all-new split-screen multiplayer mode, where you and a friend can go head-to-head on a number of stages. One will play as the Hero side, one as the Dark side, with three main game styles from which to choose - Sonic vs Shadow in a flat-out race to the finish, Knuckles and Rouge trying to find hidden Emeralds first, or Tails vs Eggman in an arena-based robot shoot-out. Each one has a number of special power-ups available to each player, such as the ability to freeze your opponent, jumble up their controls, or have the enemy attacked by their own personal bad guy. There will even be a two-player kart racing bonus game to earn, but we're not going away to give too much about that right now...

As well as being able to compete against friends directly in these head-to-head games, Sonic Adventure 2 is also going to have a number of online functions. 'The plan is to have a worldwide ranking board,' Mat told us, 'where you'll be able to challenge certain aspects of all stages - time attack, score attack, and so on.' The version of the game we played also had a 'download' option, but it's not yet clear exactly what this will involve. You can expect special seasonal updates and extra challenges to be put on the Net at regular intervals though, much like the Halloween and Christmas add-ons, and Reebok DMX speed challenge were for the first game.

There's not long to wait now before Sonic Adventure 2 hits the world's videogame stores - and don't forget that it'll be arriving in the UK at Sega's new recommended retail price of £29.99. We'll be going through the final game in a massive review in the next issue of ODM, on sale Thursday 21 June.