Review: Sonic 2

Posted by Ben on June 14th, 2011 | 1 Comment | Tags: Sonic 2

The PSN release of Sonic 2 is bitter-sweet. On the one hand, you’re getting what is arguably the best 2D Sonic game for a good price, but on the flip side, you’re going to want to put a Taser to your nuts. That’s likely confused a whole bunch of you, and so before a bunch of you take to the comments to talk some smack, let me say that Sonic 2 is great, one of the best 2D platformers I’ve ever played. The netcode in the game is the Taser shot; it is so frightfully awful that it beggars belief. I’m scratching my head trying to think what lunatic thought that this was an acceptable state for a product with an online component to be released in, and I’m yet more flummoxed how it managed to even make it on to the store in the first place.

To truly understand how awful the online in this game is, I’m going to have to tell you a little story. Chris and me tested out the online component for this review, and we kicked off our escapades with a test of the invite system. My console couldn’t find the game he set up, and every time he tried to join a game I had invited him to, his entire console hard locked, which happened a grand total of three times in a row. We were off to a great start, and this is only going to get better from here on out. We ended up just setting up a game of our own, and I jumped in as the Tails to Chris’ Sonic. It was here that I saw the full extent of just how utterly unplayable this game is online. I experienced input lag of over a second, making most jumps impossible, creating a situation that was absolutely hilarious, as I jumped and missed pits by an extraordinary amount, and could barely progress through the level at all. We switched players after a bit of this torture, and Chris found himself in much the same position, except this time we actually managed to complete a stage. I can honestly say that playing the PSN version of Sonic 2 online was absolutely hilarious.

Sonic 2 is a great game. The PSN version of Sonic 2 is a compromised version of it, with sometimes sluggish controls being the only real detriment to the single player portion, but the multiplayer component being nigh on unplayable. If you got it for free through PSN+ you can’t really complain, but under no circumstances pay money for this port. It just isn’t worth your time.

A copy of this game was purchased for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here. This review is for the PlayStation 3 version of the game.