Remember my Christmas Wish List episodes?
That was when I answered to one of my biggest requests.
"The request I hear all the time is 'the bad Sonic the Hedgehog games'."
"What bad Sonic games?"
In this episode, I talked about how awesome the Sonic franchise was,
but then examined some of the titles that I hadn't played 'til then,
and these are the ones you could say were... not so good.
But the requests still continue.
The game everyone keeps pointing me to is Sonic the Hedgehog, or Sonic '06 as it's known by.
But I can't imagine it being that bad because it's Xbox 360, it's only slightly over 10 years old.
I mean, how bad could this po--
It's gonna fuckin' suck, isn't it?!
Oh wow, the opening scene looks great!
I mean, the graphics are great, but what am I looking at exactly?
Is this Final Fantasy meets Pacific Rim?
Then Dr. Robotnik shows u-- I mean, 'scuse me, Eggman, I'll never get used to that.
And then Sonic comes in, but... where are we?!
This doesn't look like any Sonic universe that I know!
And then we get a loading screen... ugh...
And then... another cutscene.
Yeah, there's loading in-between the cutscenes.
But the second scene looks nothing like the other!
Now it looks more like the in-game graphics, but you're not playing it!
Then there's ANOTHER load screen!
And after that, the game finally starts, but the loading only gets worse!
Any time you push a button, or do anything, or scratch your nose, it loads.
Like here, look at this: You go up to talk to someone, it loads.
Then they say something, and it loads again.
And the loading can take as long as 20 seconds, maybe more!
So far this game has given me nothin' but shit!
The game is giving me shit!
No, no, no!
What're we doing in a town anyway?
I'm not aware of any Sonic games where Sonic the Hedgehog is coexisting with human beings.
I mean, look at this guy! He doesn't belong in a Sonic game!
He looks like he should be doing your taxes!
And they're all speaking a thousand silent words per minute!
Especially him! The only word on the screen is 'Welcome', but his mouth is moving like crazy!
What could he possibly be saying?!
Welcome, welcome welcome, welcome welcome welcome, welcome,
welcomewelcomewelcome welcomewelcomewelcome...
Here we have Bob Hoskins from Super Mario Bros. the Movie.
Then there's this crack addict in an alley.
Heyheyhey, d-d-didyouseethat didyouhearthat [gibbering maniacally]
comingafterme [gibbering] crack crack crack I need the crack!!
This guy's moving around like a creepy marionette dummy.
And this old woman bugs me out too! [ominous music]
[ominous music]
What makes this whole thing even more disturbing is that the same people are repeated throughout the town.
What is this place?!
You could harass people in this game too.
It doesn't have any lasting effects, it's just enough to make their day miserable.
Whoa, what's happening here?!
Tails was here for a second, and now the game is beating itself up!
Aah, it's fuckin' up, it's fuckin' up!! Take cover, take cover!!
There's a bunch of guards blocking the path,
but if you try, you can actually run past them... slightly.
They're not blocking it, there's some kind of unseen force that they happen to be standing in front of.
Other times, there's nothing there at all!
The whole game is enclosed by invisible barriers!
So, where do I go?
[Tails screams] Did Tails just kill himself?!
[Tails screams]
He did!
[Tails screams]
He just couldn't take it!
The game was THAT bad!
[splash!]
To get anywhere, first you have to talk to this raving madman who gives you shoes!
Shoooees! Shoooeees!
Once you have the shoes, you get to run through a bunch of hoops.
Who does Sonic think he is, Superman?!
Ugh... after you do that, you're able to buy the light chip,
which allows you to jump across the water, which leads to the entrance... [laughing]
The entrance... to Level 1!
In the level, the game takes on a fantasy style, which is more like what you'd expect from a Sonic game.
This is where the action begins.
You're fighting robots, you're running around loops, you're doing all the fun stuff you'd want...
... but it's not fun!
It almost is, you're doing something that would normally be fun,
but there's something on top of it that's making it less preferable,
Like jumping on a trampoline with a bucketful of dog turds on it!
Most of the experience is sort of automated: All you do is push buttons at the right time,
and Sonic jumps to wherever he's supposed to land, including a killer whale!
It looks cool, but you're not controlling much of it.
When you take out enemies, Sonic automatically locks on to his target,
so all you're doing is tapping the button over and over!
But the gameplay changes every ten seconds, so there's no way to really sum it up.
It's all over the place!
You also get some kinda weapon called a Dummy Ring Bomb.
What kinda name is that?
What else is there, Dope Gem Gun?!
You can move the camera angle, but if there's anything in your way, the camera stops,
as if there's physically a camera that exists which bangs into everything!
[TWACK!] Ugh!!
Then there's other times when the camera angles are automatic,
but there's a few moments where Sonic actually runs past the camera!
Aw man, I knew we should've got the Flash!
Hey, just hanging on the whale here...
Um... what just happened?!
It switched to Tails, but there's hardly any warning, and it faces you in the wrong direction!
[Tails screams some more]
Not to mention, when you die, you go back.
Not back to the start of the level, oh no!
Not back to the town either, no, no!
You go back... to the opening cutscene.
Damn!
Is that a punishment or what?!
The only thing worse I could think of is if the Xbox spit out the game, which landed back inside the case,
which re-shrinkwrapped itself and flew back to the store so you had to buy it again!
Anyway, I made it to the end of the stage,
a gate comes down which prevents the whale from getting out...
So the goal all along was to trap the whale?!
As Spock would say: This is not the hell your whale!
I thought you'd be freeing the whale, like Free fuckin' Willy!
By the way, don't you think on the poster of Free Willy, it looks like the kid is punching the whale?
Who the hell could punch a killer whale so hard that it becomes airborne?
You don't fuck with that kid!
Anyway, after the whale the stage still goes on, because it feels like it.
Now Sonic is running automatically at top speed.
You have to steer to avoid smashing face-first into everything in sight.
I'm gonna die... I'm gonna die, I'm gonna d--!
I won.
"Cleared ACT Mission?"
What kinda terminology is that? That's like saying "Cleared LEVEL Stage!"
This game is dick cock.
After this you find a feather, which clues in Sonic that the Princess was moved to another location.
Seriously? You're gonna pull that "Princess is in another castle" bullshit?!
This isn't Super Mario Bros.!
Also, when the feather falls down, it reminds me of the opening scene of Forrest Gump.
Mah momma always said, life was like a box o' shit.
Ya always gonna get shit.
So we're in the town again... yeah, the town is like the main hub which links you to all the stages.
So every time you beat a stage, you have to go back to the town and complete some other asinine goal.
For example, there's an area which you're trying to gain access to.
The guard, Pietro, says to find the captain.
Alright, so now I'm running all over the place like an idiot, trying to find this person...
I talk to everyone, and nobody knows who the captain is.
Now I'm talkin' to Pietro again, he asks me if I found the captain.
I say no, he says "Let's wait a while".
So once again, I'm runnin' around aimlessly.
There's nobody else to talk to, so I go back to Pietro again...
"Did you find the Captain?" Hm...
Yes. Fuck it.
Now he says go talk to the person who I think is the captain.
Oh, so it's like a guessing game now?
Wait a minute... is it Pietro?!
"You guessed it, I'm the captain"?!
It was this asshole the whole time?!
Shitty game design is one thing, but this was an intentional cheap shot!
They pulled a joke! They fucked you over!
Assholes!
Then there's a kid who wants you to find his dog.
Really? A Sonic the Hedgehog game where Sonic has to retrieve a lost dog?!
This isn't a sidequest, this is something you NEED to do to progress in the game!
So I'm runnin' all over the place, lookin' for this dog... but no luck.
So I go back to the kid to see which direction he's pointing...
He says the dog is over there. Okay, that should help.
But... hang on, where's he pointing?!
Wait...
You can't be serious!
He's pointing at a wall!!
You know what kid, how about YOU find the dog! Put up some posters!
That boy's gotta think. You got a pet, you got a responsibility!
If your dog gets lost, you don't stand there pointin' at a wall,
you get your ass out there and you find that fuckin' dog!!
Ugh... so I complete the task, I get the kid's dog, and...
... h- hang on, stop and think about this: It's designed to look like a real-life dog,
yet it's sitting next to a giant cartoon hedgehog!!
What kinda world does this game exist in?!
By the way, am I hearing Mega Man 2 music?
[rock music that sounds suspiciously similar to Flash Man's theme]
Gotta get through the gate... ugh, c'mon, what?!
Can I just jump over it? Can I?
Can I-- I can just jump over it.
I find it amusing how Sonic can propel himself by touching these bumpers,
even though he touches them from the BACK!
I think that kinda thing happens in some of the classic sidescrolling Sonic games,
but of all the things they could've included from the classic games, why that?!
That would be like making a new Castlevania game and making sure to include the ability to moonwalk on the stairs,
but otherwise doing whatever garbage you want.
Whoa, did you see that?!
Aaahh!
All I did was jump! The game can't handle that?!
Sometimes if you run up against the wall you'll lose control, and Sonic does this sideways moonwalk.
And sometimes you end up standing at a strange angle.
Why is he standing like that?
Why is he hovering in the air?
Why can't he jump without going upside down?!
Why is it when you fall in the water you disappear, or fall through the ocean floor?
What other can you think of where you fall in the water and end up in the sky?!
And sometimes Sonic just completely spazzes out!
[GASP]
Uh... I changed my mind, this game's awesome!
[disco music]
So after you go to Egypt and defeat the giant Transformer dog
by grabbin' the lightsaber that's stickin' out the back of his neck and riding him head-first into a wall...
...you rescue the Princess.
I'm pretty sure she can walk, but Sonic is always carrying her, even when he's not running.
Anyway, you race through the next stage and there's all these fallen pillars in the way,
but you can go right through them!
Okay, now it's like we're playin' Big Rigs.
No stage would be complete if it didn't throw you some kind of curveball.
[Sonic and the Princess scream in unison]
Here, whenever you're runnin' on sand you have to hold RT, which surrounds you in a magic aura,
otherwise you fall through the sand.
You don't SINK in it like it were quicksand, you fall right through!
Maybe it's REALLY quick quicksand.
[screaming some more]
Oh come on, how was I supposed to see that coming?! The pillar was in the way!
This is all too much, there's enemies everywhere,
I'm bouncin' all over the place, the ground's disappeared and I'm walkin' on thin air,
Captain America left his fuckin' crates layin' around,
and I'm bouncin' on the robots' hot, nuclear, glowing dicks!
Robococks.
After the stage, he gives the Princess a backhanded middle finger,
and then the cutscenes start gettin' really weird.
What's weird about it exactly, I'm not quite sure,
it could be just the fact that it's a cartoon hedgehog sharing a semi-romantic moment with a human princess...
or... yeah, that's it. I said it.
But there's so many odd things in this one scene.
Like when Sonic picks his nose, and then she's about to go down on him?
But the part that bothers me the most is something very subtle that only lasts for half a second.
Watch.
Did she just look at the camera?
It's so brief but once you see it, it's locked in your memory!
Why is she looking at the camera?! What does that expression mean?!
Also, she's lookin' to her right. Notice the position of the right shoulder.
But in the next shot, she's lookin' to her left!
Am I nitpicking too much? I'll move on.
You wanna talk about shitty boss battles?
When you fight Silver the Hedgehog, this is the motherest of fucks.
He uses telekinesis to move objects around, including Sonic.
You can't get close to 'em unless you're charging 'em from the back,
but most of the time, he's offscreen! So you never see where he is!
This is bulldookie.
You know what? I've played worse.
This at least qualifies as a game.
But the problem was, it needed to be a masterpiece because it was a Sonic the Hedgehog game,
and not just any Sonic game, but it was THE Sonic game for a new console and a new generation.
This would be like if Zelda: Twilight Princess sucked.
They even had the balls to call it Sonic the Hedgehog, not Sonic Revival 3D or something, no,
just plain Sonic the Hedgehog, as if this is the only Sonic game you need to know.
If you've never played one before, just start with this one!
Everyone calls it Sonic '06, but I call it Sonic O'Fuckin' Piece of Shit!
This is anal sauce! It's so bad it's a work of art!
It's a fine, delicately crafted sculpture of shit! And I'm impressed!
You know, this is another one worthy of the Collection.
I don't mean THIS collection... I mean THE Collection.
Urgh! Take it, you fuckin' game! Mmrgh!
[whipping] Yeah, you like it, you like that? Fuckin' piece of shit!
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