iOS App Hedgehog Adventure is Too Cute for its Challenge

Update (02/10/11): Much to my chagrin, it seems that after this review was posted, an update for this app was released just a few days before (literally, like 09/29 was when the update was available). This update has greatly improved the app's performance on my device, but what I failed to see was that it also has a glitch that disables the first level to be actually completed. I have been notified by several people of this, late, late last night, and all I can say for any unfortunate buyers is that you'll just have to wait for another update. I'm looking into contacting the publisher today to notify them of the bug. Regardless, I did finally beat the game, and I can assure any concerned buyers that it's definitely a really fun and challenging game. It's the only app I've downloaded that has given me a significant, fair challenge and it was fun until the end. I'm disappointed it's over, but it has a really cool (and super easy) final level, followed by a short level that's more of just a high score attack. All in all, if I had purchased it, I would have been satisfied, but I only say this because I like the retro challenging feel to the game, and I had a lot of fun with it!

I'm extremely surprised by this review. Here's why; this app was free when I came across it, and upon booting it up, I figured it would be deleted shortly. I only ever feel compelled to write a review if I find the game worth the money at which it is priced, or if I feel it is severely under appreciated. This game fills both categories, if you're like me; you like a challenging, clever, and polished platformer. If you dislike one of these things, don't get this app. If you're uncertain, there's a free version, titled "Hedgehog Adventure - experiments". I don't know why it is called that, but it seems like the 'lite' version after a quick once-over.

Let me explain; "Hedgehog Adventure" has you play as a little hedgehog who curls up into a ball and you have to control him through 40 different levels, collecting all the pieces of fruit before finding the exit. I first scoffed when I saw that number -- "40 levels? That's child's play!" I exclaimed. I wanted to write this review after I beat the game, but so far, after about 2 weeks, I am on level 33.

Now, that sounds like a lot more time than I actually played this game. Regardless, I am completely shocked at how challenging this game is. However, it's not the frustrating "I can't do this because the game is poorly designed!" Rather, it's the "I know I can do this if I jump here/push this block here/etc." All the puzzles, for all their challenges, can be completed. It's the challenge of figuring out what blocks to use, where to go in what order, and several other factors that make it exciting. Not to mention the introduction of new level gimmicks continues up to the point I'm at; a level I played was mostly barren, until I took a leap of faith and found an invisible platform that appeared when I stepped on it! I know that could be annoying, but for this one level (I haven't seen it since), it was a blast.

Another positive point is none of the levels have ever felt too long. They are all within the scope of completion and are honestly well designed for a platformer/physics puzzle game. Seriously, this is some of the best level design I've ever seen in an app for my iPod.

I think it's worth mentioning the game's art direction as well. To be blunt, this is meant to look like a child's game. It's entirely cutesy -- the fruit bobs up and down, waiting for you to grab it, the platforms are candy cane striped, and when you 'die', your hedgehog just turns into a ghost. I implore older gamers to try and look past this style, however, it hasn't bothered me. It may be that it's because those are the types of games I play (I love the Sonic series for its style) but I can understand how real macho men might have problems playing this game.

Two things I'm not really sold on are the music and the controls. The music seems to be limited to two tracks, and although they are just fine for the purpose they serve...two tracks get tired after two hours spent on this game. Before you freak out because I was talking about stellar platforming before and now I just bashed the game's controls, let me tell you that my iPod is on its way to the great Silicon Valley in the sky. It tends to be unresponsive unless I touch the area near the home button to 'activate' the rest of it. So, the controls sometimes didn't seem responsive or always accurate. While the jump button can be held down to repeat jump, sometimes the direction buttons stopped working. I mention this whole situation because some of the game's reviews mentioned odd controls. So, while they've never really ruined the game for me, they have made me have to restart once in a while.

The last thing that is worth noting is the game's performance. After passing level 10, I ceased having problems, but level 3 and level 10 caused my iPod to crash and I lost my progress in the levels previous. This can be frustrating, sure, but nothing that seriously made me want to rage quit. Just restart the app or your device, or try a different approach to the level are the best solutions I have. I'm also playing on a 2nd Generation device, so that may also be the cause of my problems. Hopefully a stability update will be released in the future.

All in all, this is the classic platforming app that I've been waiting for. It's not exactly a Mario or Sonic, but it feels like how platforming should be in an iOS app. A platformer with great puzzles and some spot on physics, coupled with a cute hedgehog and an environment so cutesy, you'll want to puke.

Pros
Fun platforming
Fair challenges
Really phenomenal level design

Cons
Controls may be wonky (I don't know for sure)
Challenges this tough may be a turn off
Problems with crashing
The puke-worthy cutesy starts with a cheezy "Hello!" when you start the game!

Infamous

Everything about Infamous says it should be a corny, repetitive, and glitchy experience plagued with all of the problems of modern sandbox games. And while it is all of those things, it is an awesome game and deserves all the good praise it gets.

Infamous is about Cole Evans who awakes at the start of the game in the middle of a large crater where a super explosive had just gone off, wiping out a large chunk of the city. The effects of the bomb have spread throughout the rest of the city and now it is quarantined, letting no one in and no one out. To make matters worse, the city is overrun by different gang factions, all of which have gained kinds of super powers from (I’m assuming) the explosion. Cole has powers as well, and can manipulate electricity! However, news gets around that Cole was the carrier for this explosive that threw the city into turmoil (although he remembers none of this) and so the city is very on edge towards him. Cole must now decided whether to try and better his public image by doing good, or take control of the city by any ruthless means necessary; all while trying to unravel the puzzle that is his existence.

The first thing you notice is Cole’s voice, which is really deep and somewhat cheesy. It’s almost Metal Gear Solid-esque. I thought this was going to irritate me for the entire game, but the voice actually grew on me quite fast. It is a super hero game after all, so the voice eventually fits his character.

The second thing I noticed was the actual graphics of this game. The shadows (at least on my consol) were very pixilated. As the game progressed, I noticed many of the electrical effects were the same. Now, I’m using an HDMI cable to hook my PS3 up to a 1080p LED TV, so I don’t think it’s my system. I’m just not sure why some of the graphics would be so splotchy. It could also be the sheer amount of “stuff” that’s crammed into this game, feeding the need to downgrade things like shadow quality.

Don’t get me wrong, the game looks very nice. I was just expecting more from a Playstation 3 title (especially after playing Uncharted) But when you have a very large sandbox environment, that’s to be expected. One thing what I would really LOVE to point out is “bugs”. When you get to the part of the game where you play at night, you can actually see small swarms of bugs gathering around lights. I thought this was a very cool touch added by the developers.

Speaking of the environment, the city itself (Empire City) is sprawling and vast. The game encompasses 3 islands of cityscape. It’s impressive to see how much city there is (especially when you eventually climb to the highest point and can look down on all of it) but if you try to memorize the cities, you’re in for a challenge. This is because there is a large amount of reused areas. It took me a while to figure it out, but after passing the same gas station 4 times, I realized: there is 4 of the same gas station. (there may be more, I didn’t care to go around and count them all. The same goes for boat houses, warehouses, little cemeteries. They all look exactly the same, and so it’s hard to judge exactly where you are without consulting your map. I understand that this is necessary for making a very large city in a sandbox game, but when you think of games like Grand Theft Auto that pulled off a massive city that you could learn and traverse without using a map, you start to want more out of your games. GTA really raised that bar in this genre (which it also created). I’m not saying that the reused areas are bad, I’m just saying that it can become disorienting if you aren’t using your map.

Along with the repetitive environment, there is also repetitive gameplay. Usually when I hear that a game is repetitive, I shy away from it. But Infamous proves that it can still be fun. The game has different missions throughout the city, I want to say there are about 5 or 6 different mission types that you just play over and over in different sections of the city. But even though the mission types are the same, they get more challenging as the game goes on. There are then of course the story missions which are all basically different, but they get more challenging as time goes on. There are also sewer missions which have you go underground to activate large power circuits that turn electricity on for blacked out parts of the city. These missions are fun because with each one you gain a new ability, and the sewer then acts as a tutorial on how to use it before it unleashes you on the city above. So although missions are all basically the same, you get to play then with increasing difficulty and new abilities which give you new ways to complete the tasks.

Part of the games difficulty stems from its enemy types. This game has a LOT of different enemy types. I was impressed. Uncharted had like….2. This game has near 20! More and more enemies are introduced as you progress and each new enemy is increasingly difficult to defeat. It ranges from basic gang member with a gun to flying, grenade launching machines that turn invisible (which are very irritating). The enemies were something I thought the game did a great job with. Even after you beat what you think is a boss, they just throw into the city one day when you are running around! It was also nice to see that the boss battles used attacks and animations that were specific to them and are not seen outside of that fight. So you have to learn the attacks at that moment and know how to move (where as other games just have bosses that are bigger versions of enemies you’ve fought 100 times before)

The checkpoint system (for when you die) is pretty good. It has its faults though. Many times I would die and it would respawn me with a couple less enemies or in the case of chase scenes, would put me a bit further along than I was, kind of adapting to my abilities (or lack there of) which I thought was kind of nice. Some people may find irritating. But there are other times when it’s the complete opposite and spawns you right in the middle of a roof top surrounded by enemies that all immediately fire upon you (I find THAT irritating) But all in all, it felt pretty good.

Controls are pretty good. You can jump and dodge and attack and all that stuff. You hold a shoulder button to go into an over the shoulder, 3rd person shooter, style camera and can fire on enemies with electric energy bolts. The more powers you unlock, the more buttons there are to press. Eventually you have the entire controller filled with attacks that you can use. You can also upgrade all of these attacks by gaining experience points for things like defeating enemies and completing missions. The attacks also use your electric energy which you can recharge by sucking energy from electronics like cars and street lamps and whatnot. Collecting “blast-shards” around the city will increase the amount of energy you can hold at one time.

An irritating part of the controls is climbing. You can climb ANYTHING in the city and go pretty much anywhere you want. You just need to jump at something and Cole will grab on. But this can get glitchy; which is expected in this kind of game. Sometimes he won’t grab something unless you jump at it just right, or sometimes something will be just out of reach and you have to find an alternate route, but later found out you could just get a running start and make it up. Climbing down is an even bigger pain. If you hit the drop button, Cole just drops down to the next ledge no matter what. So you either have to jump completely off the building and land who-knows-where, or sit there and hit the drop button some 50 times to make it all the way to the bottom. (I think they fixed this though for Infamous 2 by including a button that you have to hold in order to hold on to a ledge (ala Shadow of the Colossus)) This can be especially irritating in high pressure situations like chases or when you are running for cover.

Speaking of which, there is a cover system! But I barely ever used it. I’m usually the kind of guy that uses cover all the time. In Uncharted I was behind cover about 98% of the time. In Infamous, it was just easier to fly over someone’s head and fill their face with bolts of lightning quick enough to kill them dead before they killed you. Cover also becomes obsolete when you have enemies that do nothing but shoot missiles or grenades at you. It was a nice touch, but something that could be greatly improved.

One of the biggest features of the game is its moral dilemmas. You can either be good or bad basically. Cole can either help all of the people in Empire City and reach Hero status, or he can kill and steal from people and become Infamous. Even though the game’s title is Infamous, I decided to go the hero route. In a game full of villains and gang members, the people NEED a hero! Both paths give you slightly different moves which you can look at in your pause menu. I really didn’t see a whole lot of difference in them except when you are going bad, your electricity becomes red instead of blue. When you are good and complete good missions, the citizens of the city stop to take photos of you, come to you for help, and even help you fend off enemies by throwing rocks and stuff. When you are bad, people throw the rocks at you, and also run up and push you and stuff like that. I’m assuming since the city is full of people, going the “bad” route would make the game a little more difficult because practically everyone would be an enemy; but I look forward to playing through again, being evil this time.

The NPCs in this game are hit and miss. To me, all of Cole’s friends and family were really irritating. Not sure why he hung out with them. There are a couple others though that were decent, but all in all, I think Cole would be better off running alone. The story itself is pretty decent actually. It’s not super corny, even though it is a little. It’s got some pretty good twists and turns that left me feeling pretty good ( can’t wait to get to 2!)

The cutsenes are all animated comic book style. This may throw some people off (threw me off at first) but they actually aren’t that bad. They add some style to the game and make it different. The art is also very well done in these, and even though they are stills, there are slight animations that make them come alive.

All in all, Infamous is a fun adventure. I really enjoyed the freedom you had and always looked forward to new missions. This is why I’m so anxious to play the second game now! I’m hoping that in Infamous 2 you get to keep all of his powers from the end of 1. I know one thing they improved in 2 is walking on water. I know from the demo in 2 you can run on water for a limited time before falling in, whereas in 1 you just splash around and slowly die unless you can jump out in time.


Pros
Fun gameplay
Many different enemy types
Many different powers
Decently good story
Repetitive done well

Cons
Repetitive nonetheless
Can be kind of corny at times
Reused areas in city makes it hard to know your way around
Glitchy climbing and cover system

Sonic Colors Has a Short Reach for the Stars

I held off on Sonic Colors for almost a year because I hate my Wii. I resent its place in the market, as well as my home. However, I should have tried this little gem sooner!

Sonic Colors is the newest entry in the "not sucky" Sonic game series. I've been day-one-purchasing all the newest titles because I love the series, but I can fully recognize their swift decline. Just ask fellow writer Matt Muzzy about the experience I put him through with Sonic '06! I was pleasantly delighted in playing this game, as my biggest complaint (of very few) is the brief nature of this game. I purchased it and beat it in less than 12 hours from the time of purchase. Total playtime was probably about 3 hours.

Of course, there's still 100%ing to be done, with a just reward at the end (seriously, it's exciting), but I have gone through all the levels and bosses and have even completed 50% of the "extra" in such a short time. I will admit that those three hours were almost straight, pure fun.

To begin, I suppose I should point to the co-op levels. Though there are only 21 basic and short co-op "remakes" of the various Sonic 1 zones, they were a blast to play through with a friend of mine. It was very much like playing through New Super Mario Bros. Wii but actually having a good time with it. The levels were challenging and fun, and the mechanics require teamwork. However, it's kind of frustrating that your Sonic wants to constantly homing-attack the other Sonic. In this case, the simple remedy would have been to map the homing attack button to another button, rather than share it with the double jump button. It was a frustration, though, that made me laugh, not eternally hate the other person (a la NSMBW).

I actually played through the story mode after playing through a third of the co-op levels. I was pleasantly surprised with a majority of it -- the levels were rather well designed, the camera was well-improved, and the locales were inspiring and really pretty. On that note, the graphics here are top notch; every world is populated so well and has a lot going on in it. There are some ugly pieces, but they are just pieces to a grander scheme. I want to make note that the levels, in comparison to Super Mario Galaxy, are much more impressive. Though perhaps not as refined, they are much more interesting because they offer a "fullness" to them -- something that a game set strictly in space loses.

All in all, right now is a good time to get Sonic Colors. I don't think $50 was a fair price point, but the game is really fun and if you are a completionist, it has great replay value. It's also the first game in a long while that offers a just reward for completing everything. It's a great game for a rainy day and it's definitely one of the Wii's few greatest games (IMO).

Pros:

Charming and fun

Beautiful locations

Good Replay Value

Cons:

Way too short!

Story is...terrible

Rough, goofy dialogue