The year is 1997. It was official. Magazines, news, and the entire Sonic the Hedgehog fan community was abuzz with hype. Because the next iteration in the iconic video game series had been announced. There were trailers, articles in popular gaming magazines, and the game looked amazing. It wasn't just amazing, it was breathtaking. It was completely unique, and it would be the hedgehog's first journey into the third dimension. It was... Sonic X-Treme, for the Sega Saturn.

There's alot of history behind Sonic X-Treme, such as it's early test version called "Sonic Mars" that was developed for the Mega Drive... and I'd love to go into all of that, but that's not what this is about, so I'm just going to cut to the chase. The design team, headed by Michael Kosaka, was not having a good time developing the game. SEGA demanded that the game be available by the upcoming Christmas holiday season, to be accompanied by the cartoon's christmas special (An X-Treme X-Mas) but that was not enough time. With constant script reworkings and engine switches, the game was dissapointingly cancelled.

But Sega still needed a Sonic game for the holiday season. And they still wanted 3D. And... they got it. But it was a load of crap. Welcome... to Sonic 3D Blast, known in other countries as Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island. Also note that upon X-Treme's cancellation, the Christmas special was renamed Sonic's Christmas Blast. The change was soul-crushing for many Sonic fans. Because they all knew from early on that 3D Blast could never live up to what was going to be Sonic X-Treme, and it probably didn't, based on early demos for the game that can be downloaded on to your PC right now.

Sonic 3D Blast is a deadly combination of poor concept and poor execution. Basically, the game revolves around Flicky's Island, where small, mysterious animals taken from SEGA's early 80's arcade game "Flicky" (that also made an appearance in Sonic's first title, 1991's "Sonic the Hedgehog") live. But they are in danger, and they've been turned into robot slaves. It's now your responsibility to destroy the robots, free the flickies, and guide them to the magic ring that somehow means their salvation.

Not only is the plot bad, but it's a DIRECT COPY of not only a pre-existing Sonic game, but Sonic's FIRST game. It pretends to be new and different, but it' actually a remake. Or rather, a de-make. This was a horrible decision on the production team's part, because now Sonic 3D Blast has to live up to the original game- something that no game since has been able to do. Sonic 3D Blast takes out everything that made the original game fun- it took out the platforming, it took out the addictive gameplay, and what you're left with is basically a polished turd.

Basically, you run around a 3D world stomping on baddies copied from the original games, and rescuing the cute little animals contained within. You then guide them towards a magic ring, where you drop the animals in and move on to the next stage. Then you lather, rinse, and repeat. You essentially do the exact same thing, over and over again over the course of 14 stages. Now, keep in mind, this gameplay is already tiring by the end of the first stage. I want to puke just thinking about having to defeat all 14 stages... which I actually DID in order to give the game a fair review.

If there's any one redeemable quality, it's the graphics. They far surpass any other game on that system. But it does not justify the price of 20 Viz. If you want pretty, shiny graphics there are plenty of other options on the RGR. Look at games for the N64 or the Sega CDX. NOT at the Genesis. So now that you've heard me rant about this game, why don't I hop on over to the main points of an RGR Review.

DIFFICULTY: 6


I can hardly call this game difficult, because it isn't. The only truly difficult aspect of the game is trying to find all of the Flickies. What earned the difficulty score of 6 was how difficult it is for you to sit through the entire game without smashing the keyboard against the desktop in frustration. How difficult it is to tolerate the irritating controls, and the repetitive, stupid gameplay. How difficult it is see the words "Sonic 3D Blast" anywhere after playing that game without my eyes melting at the sheer horribleness of this game. It sucks. THAT. MUCH.


DEPTH: 5


Okay, so 5 is a pretty decent score, but depth in the case of this game is *NOT* a good thing. Because don't get me wrong, it takes awhile to beat... but it' boring as hell. Therefore the longer they make this game, the worse that the turd known as Sonic 3D Blast smells. 14 stages of pure stupidity.

STORY: 1

I think I made it pretty clear what I think about the story. It's uninspired. It was ripped off of something else and the story wasn't that good to begin with.

ADDICTIVENESS 0

I swear, I laughed by arse off when I was trying to select the Addictiveness score from the drop-down menu. I had to give it a 1 because you can't go as low as zero, but if I could rate it a zero, I would. It was barely addictive enough for me to want to play the whole thing let alone play it again.

GRAPHICS: 8

As much as I hate, hate, HATE this game... the graphics ARE impressive. It makes full use of the technology that exists with the Genesis and graphics-wise, it is far superior to any other Genesis game I've ever played. So I gotta give the game chops on that one.

OVERALL: 2

This game is boring, stupid, repetitive, a knockoff, and it's just all-around bad. Don't waste your time on this stinker.