Videogame Review, Sonic R for the Sega Saturn Console (w/ 3D Analog Controller)

Videogame Review, Sonic R for the Sega Saturn Console (w/ 3D Analog Controller)

The game doesn’t show up on the screen.  No, I’m kidding!  What I mean to say is that our game doesn’t seem to be represented well on the TV: each turn is swirling and each move is tumbling.  At times we see 3D games of this nature- in general, the 3D games appear to show something on TV different from what the games actually are.  As proof of this my Sega Saturn console would be totally useless without a TV.  Programmers have to manage getting the TV running based on the game, not exactly on their imagination.  Our minds are important because we perceive colors and visuals just inside us and the outside world is just another source like candy to bread; however, a TV ought to show what our minds can handle.  Calling Sonic R “decent” is fallacy, mythological, and lazy.  On my very first race as Sonic the Hedgehog (“the world’s fastest runner”) my tracks lead me into finishing dead last.  Whatever the graphics are, I can’t really see the game and the game seems hidden inside the Saturn without the visual transference.  As if Sega knew about the physics issues they placed as few racing courses in Sonic R as possible.  From the small variety in courses and characters, the same old guts of Sonic’s failed racing game will rest under the lids of devoted, nostalgic masochists.  3D is substantial when the evidence is in the pudding.  By playing the game I’ve encountered terrific forms of beauty which relate better for another game in mind, maybe a space shooter or something.  Sonic himself definitely appears to move like a UFO.  Or, perhaps a claw machine for prizes.  Course designs get real while the fastest blue hedgehog in the world can’t seem to get a grip on his physics towards movements between curves and dead ends.  Sonic R is built with a poor control scheme.  L and R shift Sonic and his friends left and right in subtle steering mode, but, pushing L and R at once will make them stop; and, as such, it’s possible to intend for Sonic to shift L and R only for him to suddenly stop; one time, my blue hedgehog stopped dead when I didn’t push either L or R.  It also doesn’t really feel like my analog thumb pad can really go in 360-degree angles for Sonic R: the whole world in the game is mapped wrong.  And how could Eggman have pushed Sonic in front of him when the blue hedgehog was in the water below the doctor, who was flying over the water?  The game is definitely buggy.  A nice soundtrack plays but I’d rather listen to it without playing Sonic R.  Sonic’s world on his “R” game especially has a whirling visual effect the longer you play.  You’ll see a spinning metal head reflecting the download icon, you’ll see an island shift its gears, you’ll see flashing puddles across the gateways, etc.  “Can’t you see?” asks the odd singer.  Uh… no.  The game keeps telling me I haven’t collected Chaos Emeralds when clearly I’ve got one.  Amy is a stereotype for females: weak and helpless under the other men.  Is Sonic a man?  Maybe.