Welcome to the best 3D Sonic game in years.. Even if that's not saying too much these days.
Eggman has created a giant space theme-park to appease for his past crimes and Sonic, using his incredible protagonist-intellect, decides that something must be up and checks out it.
Sonic Colours is the kind of game that doesn't quite seem to get a handle on what makes it fun.
On the one hand, you've got the blisteringly quick running levels that'll have you speeding through the ‘surprisingly’ open environments to foil Eggman's plans. Most of these levels are well designed and a blast to play. The original concept/gimmick for this game, ‘Wisps’, (think – different Mario suits) are implemented effectively and vary the experience up a bit. Finally, the boss fights are actually pretty interesting and occasionally challenging; the final boss being a particularly awesome and climactic battle. These parts of the game are actually really fun, but somewhere along the line SEGA must have decided they weren't ripping off Mario Galaxy enough and made 2 irritating additions.
First of all, there are these ridiculous leaps and bounds in difficulty from time to time. There's absolutely no reason for most of these increases, and has obviously been placed in to extend game-time. Mario Galaxy used a progressive difficulty curve to keep things interesting; Sonic Colours really should have done the same. Secondly, the game likes to slow down the pace of the game every now and then for some more platformy, Mario-style levels. Contrast in a game is important, but these levels tend to be tedious and poorly designed, so it brings down the experience overall. It's really unfortunate that these 2 portions of the game were so poorly designed, because they could have been excellent additions to gameplay.
Also worth a mention are this game's cutscenes. SEGA threw out the old voice actors and hired some MUCH better guys this time. The movies can actually be pretty funny from time to time, and it's the least annoying dialogue I've heard from Sonic and friends since Sonic Heroes.
In summary, while I could sit back and nit-pick all day about difficulty spikes, Mario rip-offs and poor design, Sonic Colours is still a great game. I thoroughly enjoyed the large majority of the experience and all the replay-ability (there's a HEAP to complete in this game) will insure that I'll continue so for a while. It's not perfect, but then again, what is?
8/10 – Raydon Marshall.