Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut (GameCube) Preview

The main story features Eggman trying to collect all 6 chaos emeralds in order to make chao become indestructible and take over the world. Bet he wasn't expecting the spiky blue hedgehog to get in the way of his master-plans! However, this time Sonic has company, and a host of six characters will be at your disposable, each with their own little stories. Sonic is trying to stop Eggman from getting all the chaos emeralds, so he is racing to get them first. Tails is basically Sonic's sidekick, so he is also trying to help get all the chaos emeralds out there. Knuckle is basically trying to find his life story but he is also looking for Chaos emerald pieces to get to the floating island. Amy is helping a bird find his family, while trying to stay out of trouble. Big is trying to protect his friend Froggy by fishing or picking him up. Finally, there is E102 Gamma, who is trying to help all the animals Eggman has imprisoned.Sounds like a varied bunch of characters then. You will be expected to race around the various levels looking for Emblems and Chaos Emeralds that all serve to prevent Eggman from creating the horrendous Chaos, a big watery monster with an appetite for destruction. Unfortunately for Sonic, the Emeralds he finds always end up getting stolen and fed to Chaos, which causes him to grow, so by the end of the game you'll have to face off against a massive Chaos in what should be a pretty awesome battle.

It seems there will be a range of levels, and you can look forward to one of the best opening levels ever, massive leafy glades to race through, a casino to explore, and much, much more! Most of the levels should fly by in a blur, as you pick up speed, grabbing rings and collecting Emblems. One of the major gripes with 3D Sonic games has been the lousy camera, and it seems this problem has been transferred over to the GameCube version. Those that managed to overlook the problem in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle should have no problem with this game.

The graphics aren't all that bad. Some of the cinema scenes are extremely pretty to look at. You can see every leaf on palm tree, you can see peoples shadows and big tall buildings in the background and each main character is chiselled/detailed to perfect. You can even see every single one of Big's whiskers. The levels are very detailed and in one level you can even see little rocks fall off cliffs! With the GameCube version promising updated graphics, could things possibly get much better?

The catchy tunes seem to be remaining, which is great for fans of the music in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. There isn't too much information on the voice acting, but I'm sure we can expect the classic 'cheesy' American voice acting for Sonic and pals. With the sound being worked on for the GameCube version, we may be getting some new tracks for certain levels, and you can definitely expect the sound to be improved from the DreamCast version.