Sonic Adventure 2: Battle

You can shun a game for being glitchy, guilty of awefull camera workings, awefull level ideas, repedative gameply in places and being incredably outdated in 2009 BUT should we shun the BEST action game of all time? that is the question I put to you yes the graphicas are dated, yes some levels suck but what if that game is the most diverse, action packed and fun game almost ever. For those who love a game because it is fun and not because of nity grity details welcome home this game is the most heart pounding adventure of all time and has a massive host of variation.

For starters lest gets the complaints out of the way, I admit Knuckles and Rouge's levels leave a lot to be desired and that the robot levels can be repedative if you don't know how to unleash there full potensial but almost every level has a special twist from alternating gravity, rampant trucks, snowboarding slopes, grinding sequenses, robot rollercosters, anti gravity levels, swimming sequenses, spin gravity cylynders, hovering, kart racing, chao raising, karate, bosses big and small, timed sequenses, 5 different variatins of each level for different challenges and solid multiplayer what isn't there?

The camera very rarely plays up but when it does mostly in Knuckles levels it can be a real pain, normally its when you turn the camera to face an emerald piece but as soon as you move the camera ressets to its original possition, a real pain in the behind on the plus side though ironically Knuckles and Rouge can outrun Shadow and Sonic... no joke! You may also find underwater levels irritating especially for Knuckles BUT he does get an upgrade that gives him infinite air later in the game.

The robot levels have their faults too if you just walk aroun tapping "b" like everyone else you're going to have no fun indeed BUT if you hold down "b" and quickly move the aimer along and wait for a high number like "5" to apear on an enemy you can unleash absolute carnidge especially if that number is "11" or greater as you'll get a "perfect/2000" bonus adding big points to you're score. Oh and any enemy that is sky blue and alien like that keeps anoying you as it hides in its gooey shell you can walk up to and punch the coke out of it. (sorry about that awefull "joke")

The speed levels too have minor, very minor flaws, the homing attack is the best its ever been in a sonic game but here and there you'll just spin round an enemy until it hurts you, why? because the game like to glitch. Also if you home into an enemy at a slight verticle angle, around 15 degrees or more you'll get hurt unless its the first in a chain of enemys.

The great thing about this game is that almost all levels contain an upgrade not including the two motorway levels. Those upgades make that game that little bit special. Sonic's coolest is the bouncing ball where you bounce round... like a basketball unleashing absolute carnidge. Shadow like sonic has a fire roll which loks sweet when you pound through 2 enemys at once. Tails gets a hover module which Eggman also gets and is very snazzy for those little "hard to reach" areas. Eggman gets a super destructive explosion blomb as I call it, basically trebling the explosions of a 2 or more lock on shot. Knuckles has an oxygen mask, very handy and Rouge gets a special vision allowing her to see otherwise unoticable objects like springs.

 Another treat is that in all there are 32 levels including a very special level unlocked if you collect all 180 embems, I cannot reveal it but it is very retro shall we say. Oh and these levels are roughly 4 minutes long, some 2, some 8 and all the figures inbetween. Thats about 1 minute more than unleashed's levels and one less that heroes but considering it has over double the levels that is no shortcoming.

So now onto actuall levels, Sonic and Shadows levels are stunning, no other word can describe them they are highly varied and rather fast and contain very clever tricks. You will go through the city to forests to harbours to space colonys to mountain tops and all at incredable speed. Speed boosts match youre speed with Knuckles and Rouge but you can outbid those two with a little know how. grinding is inredably fast and jump of the end of a vertically curved rail at a high speed to perform tricks which if you pull of an "awesome/1000" trick you're in for a treat, they are epic to say the least. One of Shadow's levels and his best involves gravity tube which you hurl round massive pipes as they drag you round while you have to travel in a certain direction adding the two speeds effectivilly together. Puzzle solving in these levels is minimal except in one of sonics levels so you don't ever have to slow down and the music is rock or metal for sonic and more techno and quiet for shadow. Sonic has 7 levels and a segment of one whilst shadow has 4 (including the special one at 180 emblems for sonic)

Tails and Eggman's levels are quite fast given the size of their machines but compared with other levels feel rather slow. not to worry as you have plenty of shooting and lock on shooting to do and hovering and jumping around. The music is very retro techno stuff for Tails i.e.amazing especially in eternal engine and Eggman's is moreso deep and quiet. Their levels are the longest with one Eggmans, his best cosmic wall taking 8 minutes at least. Like sonic and shadows levels there is little puzzle solving but there are like sonic and shadows levels quite a few diverse routes although much less maikng that all important "right path" through the level, making it the only 3d sonic game to do so. Tails has 4 robot levels and one motorway whereas Eggman has 5 levels.

Rouge and Knuckles have tressure hunting levels, these can take any amount of time depending on the placment of the 3 emeralds/keys from 40 seconds to 15 minutes (on a bad day... damn Rouge) either way the levels are vast and expansive and a re very fun to explore and pay no attension to the mission. Remember earlier that puzzule solving had been cut from other levels... well they dumped all that here, no worries though if youre half asleep there great levels or you want to play a level without paying much attension. But with all the abilities of the two characters such as climbimg and swimming you can be sure to explore every nook and crany of each expansive level. Also the levels get bigger and bigger throughout and have better graphics than the other levels. Knuckles has a unique rap song in each level and Rouge has jazz and humming its all very relaxing indeed. Rouge has 4 levels and a motorway one and Knuckles has 5.

The chao garden is like a stripped down tamago... got... oh however its spelled and animal crossing but the creatures are cuter and can be changed with animals you collect in game into cheetas/dragons/gorillas or one third of each, there seems to be at least 15 different types of animal if you see a skeleton dog... grab it, why? you need it to make chao where hats... or almost anything bowl shaped even bags, watermelons and old egg shells! You can increase there skills by collecting colour coded capsules in game or buying fruit with all the rings you collect combined. You can race them which isn't that good you just whatch them flail around at 2 miles per hour at most round a mario style course for a few minutes or whatch them have a karate match which is great if you love cheesy music, its worth it for that and to see a fight roughly as good as if you got alkieda and george bush to have a cat fight. Either way you'll spend a good 10 hours if not more mucking around with youre chao... if you have sonic advance you can trade youre custom named chao onto adventure 2 battle.... not really an expansive feature though.

Boss fights are another awesome feature, there are many of them mostly being fighting youre counterpart i.e. Tails vs Eggman they go like so...
#1 - sonic vs walking robot - 6/10 meh, so so not amazing but cool boss
#2 - tails vs eggman - 4/10 -  so easy you'll almost die laughing
#3 - sonic vs shadow - 8/10 -  quite intense and very evenly matched until you get the bounce ball that is
#4 - knuckles vs king boo - 10/10 - music amazing, running around at high speed away and then hitting a timer and getting his shadow back in the light... ghostbuster style!
#5 - sonic vs egypcian robot mummy thingy - 10/10 - same music as #4 running around doging punches ang literally stabbing him in the back... well homing attacking into it anyhow.
#6 - knuckles vs rouge - 7/10 - a worthy callenge indead with an anitgravitational twist.
#7 - tails ve eggman 2 - 3/10 - rediculusly hard, exploding capsule never hits annyone, can't hit eggman during specail attacks... you don't get any.
#8 - sonic vs shadow 2 - 10/10 - awesome music and a battle at extremely high speed with exploding meteors everywhere home attack first 3 time and a trick is too store a spin ball and release during shadows chaos attacks, more full proof than pressing b and running up to.

DARK

#1 - shadow vs enhanced walking robot - 7/10 new attacks gives you a sneeky chance to attack him while storing power
#2 - tails ve eggman - 4/10 - same as hero 2
#3 - sonic vs shadow - 8/10 - same as hero 3
#4 - eggman vs egypcian robot mummy thingy - 9/10 - ecellent music but if you fall into the sand youre screwed all you do is mash the "b" button and dodge attacks.
#5 - knuckles vs rouge - 7/10 - same as hero 6
#6 - eggman vs tails - 2/10 - more difficult version of hero 7 and music is dull
#7 - sonic vs shadow - 9/10 - similar to hero 10 although sonic just isn't that cool to fight as a final boss

FINAL

#1 - shadow vs ultimate life form prototype - 9/10 - difficult but varied with grinding attacks, homing attacks and floating in the air, dodging the orange liquid that looks suspiciously like sunny d. Shoots out dark balls, small pink balls (100 at a time) and tries to bite or tail whip, cool and creepy music and heres a SPOILER-its a large slug lizzard thingy with 8 tails and gills, what is more awesome or random?
#X(2) - SUPER sonic and shadow vs ultimate life proto flying in mid space - 10+/10 - best boss ever AMAZING music the best music ever in a game and 5 minute time limit. cant take damage but can slowly deplete rings and be knocked back delaying battle process.

The multiplayer is very similar to the actual game although graphics taken down a notch, levels shorter but ofen completely different layout and bonus extra levels. Bonus characters make their apperance i.e. metal sonic/amy/chaos/tiakl/good chao/dark chao and there is multiplayer kart racing. two costumes/ krats avaliable per in game character but need to be unlocked (not easy to do) Special attacks have been added awesome but robot battles are the same lothsome ones in the adventure... AVOID!

All in all the game is fantastically well put together and lasts easily 100 hours, 15 of whcih to complete the storys but youll repeat the levels over and over and chao take a lot of time to raise. With only the odd minor flaw holding it back and if you can see pass some dodgy mechanincs this could well be the perfect game for you.

Detailed score - 100+%
Most you should ever pay for the game - £100/$110