Hang on.These gems be fake! And rubbish! (Sonic Gems Collection (GC))

Member Name: thegoldencat

Product:	Sonic Gems Collection (GC)
Date:	20/11/08 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: If you get it cheap you'll have only wasted a small amount of money.

Disadvantages: Its rubbish.

Overview
A sorry scatter of piss-poor games not good enough to make it into the infinitely superior Sonic mega collection. The Sonic team floor sweepings bound for the bin, served up as 'gems'. A mis-labelling of epic proportions. I'm angry because I bought it.

Review
Well I suppose we can start with a look at the line-up:
* Sonic CD (Sega CD)
* Sonic the Fighters (Arcade)
* Sonic R (Sega Saturn)
Game gear
* Sonic the Hedgehog 2
* Sonic Spinball
* Sonic Triple Trouble
* Sonic Drift 2
* Tails' Skypatrol
* Tails Adventure
Unlockable games
* Vectorman
* Vectorman 2

Now lets cut them down one by one. This wont take long. All the Game gear games are from the Game gear so you don't want to play them: hideous pixely tripe with every flaw magnified many times over by your big old television.

Sonic R is an ancient unplayable racer with no conceivable enjoyment to it whatsoever.

Sonic Fighters is awful. Of course its awful. Any fool could see that its awful. A fighting game with the Sonic characters? Hey that might be fun! No, no it isn't.
Its awful.

The ace in the pack is Sonic cd, seemingly a proper Sonic game, seemingly the one potentially playable part of this package. Now the question is; did those who couldn't afford however many hundreds of pounds a Sega cd cost, miss out on a piece of classic Sonic gaming action, a Sonic gem if you will?

Yes!

Actually no, but I had you going there. There is no light at the end of this unremmitingly bleak tunnel down through Sonic's more obscure history. There are no gems here.

I'll say a few more words about Sonic cd because I had my hopes for this package almost solely pinned on its early 64-bit era shoulders.
Seeing as it is a Sega cd game I presumed it would be a step up from the Mega Drive games, not a step down. I presumed that it would have gameplay advances not, regression. I presumed wrong.

All the constituents that made the good Sonic games good are nowhere to be found here. Right down to the most basic stuff like; speed, flow, and most importantly of all fun.

One could make the case that some of these games are rare and thus interesting curios for the avid Sonic fan and collector. Even the box obviously grasping desperately for some selling point makes this argument. I'm going to guess though, that the reason they're so rare, is because they're crap.

Ultimately gameplay shows, regardless of age. You can pick up Sonic 3 say, and its as enjoyable now as it was then. So age is no excuse. This collection reperesents no gameplay value whatsoever. You might play each game for two or three minutes before frustration tells, and manifests itself in a sudden and insatiable desire to sell this Sonic Gems game you've foolishly bought.

Odd that.

Summary: No gems here. Go dig somewhere else.