Relive the Sonic Madness!

Sonic Adventure 2... It really makes me think about stuff like pure speed, lots of action, and dating Shadow. Being a 10th anniversary treat from Sonic Team, I've expected it to be a blast...and it was!

First off, the story. Here's the stories both for the Hero Side and Dark Side.

HERO STORY
Sonic gets arrested by GUN but escapes. Just when things are looking good for Sonic, Shadow (your average ultimate life form, evil version of Sonic, and my dream date) appears out of nowhere. Sonic realizes that he's been mistaken for Shadow. Now it's up to Sonic to get to the bottom of this before things get worse.

On Knuckles' side of the story, he noticed that the Master Emerald has attracted unwanted attention. This time, it's Rouge. When Eggman comes into the picture, Knuckles smashes the Master Emerald. To make Knuckles' story simple for SA1 players: in a way, deja vu.

Tails, hearing about Sonic's arrest, heads to Prison Island (no Samurai Pizza Cats rip-off or pun intended, I assume) only to find Amy trying to rescue Sonic herself, and that's about it.

DARK STORY
Eggman busts into GUN's HQ to look for the top secret military weapon, which later proves to be Shadow. Shadow later steals a Chaos Emerald from the bank (which begin's Shadow's give-Sonic-a-bad-name-so-he-can-get-arrested routine for the first part of the game). Later, Rouge offers to help. Things heat up when Eggman uses the Eclipse Cannon and blows up most of a moon which puts the world in more panic than Mihoshi cooking...

Okay. Now the 411 on SA2. As many of you know, there's not even a speck of the Adventure fields. Also, you only pick which side you're gonna play. So, no matter if you're playing Hero or Dark, one minute you're running at speeds that may be bad for your health (Sonic/Shadow), then you're on a wild search for three of jewels and keys (Knuckles/Rouge), and after that you'll be blasting everything to smithereens (Tails/Eggman).

Finally, the juice of my reviews, my opinions.

GRAPHICS: 10
Nifty eye candy all around. Colors and detail galore. These definetly beat out all the other graphics I reviewed in other games!

SOUND: 10
The music rocks! A nice variety of rock, rap, and techno music that anime producers would envy. Sound effects are pretty good themselves, and I still liked the voices (even though I could hardly hear 'em at times).

CONTROL: 8.1
Control is pretty much out of whack. Sometimes when I want to attack an enemy, I end up pushing the action button too soon and...you'd know what happens from there. Still, I learn from my mistakes and I seemed to handle it a bit better.

REPLAY VALUE: 9.8
I often play this a lot while trying to ignore the bad controls. At first the game is easy, but it gets really hard later on. Don't worry, it doesn't affect the game. You'll keep on coming back. As for the Last Side... It'll take you a while to beat that part, but if I can do it, so can you! (Cheesy, I know...)

OVERALL: 9.5
Thanks, Sonic Team, for another great game! And I'm sure a lot of other people who played SA2 are thanking you. Too bad Sega has to give up Dreamcast soon. They should make more games like this! Now if only I can be Shadow's girlfriend...