SonicN

Blast processing takes on a mobile dimension as Sonic heads to Nokia?s handheld.

Sonic Team is staking out new turf for Sega with SonicN for the N-Gage. Play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, or Amy in a quest to retrieve the Chaos Emerald and stop the evil Dr. Eggman in this classically styled platformer. As ever, battling monsters, avoiding spiky traps, and collecting rings are Sonic?s raisons-d-?tre. SonicN feels, plays, and sounds just like the old-school side-scrollers, but unfortunately, there?s one huge detraction.

How do you fit a square peg in a round hole? Lots and lots of cropping, that?s how! The 4:3 (landscape) aspect ratio of SonicN looks terrible on the N-gage?s 3:4 (portrait) screen. The screen is tiny enough as it is, and SonicN wastes way too much precious real estate with colored bars at the top and bottom. Pressing the # key changes the game to full-screen mode (an option that was not mentioned in the review build documentation we were provided...thanks to 'Anonymous Gamer' for pointing it out!), but instead of losing resolution, you're losing visible territory ahead of you, making it even more difficult to judge what's coming. Sonic is a great franchise, and Sonic Team is very talented, but this format doesn?t seem to be the showcase for their abilities. You just gotta learn to see the forest for the screen.

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