Billy Hatcher Preview: Rolling Around At The Speed of Sound

You gotta hand it to Naka-san. He has one heck of a (Sonic) Team. A Team that, since its actual 'proper' founding (when they made themselves more well known, and pretty much expanded) during the Sega Saturn era, has created some of the world's best-loved games. One of which will most probably keep haunting poor Yuji's dreams (and inner child) until the day he makes NiGHTS 2 and says, "there, you all happy now, you bunch of ingrates?" ;P

Sure, things have been a bit rocky for the team as of late, and they've been getting quite some stick from non-Sonic Team fans. To put it through the perspective of magazines like NGC though, for a console (Gamecube) that by all rights should be winning the console war, they're probably bitter and have to play loads of crappy Gamecube games.

As a result, the recent ports by Sonic Team have unfortunately come under fire (save for Phantasy Star Online). As people are losing faith in Sega as a respectable gaming company altogether, how are constant Sonic Adventure re-hashes going to prove the world otherwise, really?

But, within Sonic Team's latest games lineup, we have a shining ray of hope. A glimmer of the good old days of NiGHTS, Burning Rangers and other original titles like ChuChu Rocket! This bright star comes in the form of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

You control Billy, sent off on a mission to bring a magical world back to its former glory. Some evil git King has managed to capture many of the inhabitants of Billy's land and bung them into Golden Eggs, whilst pulling off a popular party trick: turning the land into an eternal night. Using a legendary suit, Billy has the power to control special eggs in order to save the day. Or night. Or whatever.

It really is as weird as it sounds. Playing the game and wearing your dapper chicken suit of legend, you're able to collect magical eggs around the various stages and control them. Using items that you can find in the levels, you can make your egg grow and grow, nurturing the poor fella cooped up in the egg you're bashing about with.

To control an egg, all Billy needs to do is run right into one, and you're away! Using the A Button to jump and cross certain gaps, rolling the egg around makes the game play a lot like Super Monkey Ball, as you can hit good speeds whilst rolling down hills and such (with Billy clinging onto dear life as he ponders how the heck he ever got into this situation!).

As your egg gets fatter and fatter, you'll find you'll be able to hatch it good and proper, thus revealing a little buddy to help you along the levels. At the moment, these smaller creatures seem to be more attack-based than anything else, so perhaps in some later levels you'll find animals that can help solve puzzles...

Billy can hatch the eggs by pressing the R trigger once they're ripe and tender, and you can command the little chum that pops out by pressing the X button afterwards. Until then, they follow you about the stage like a wee pet. Bless. The animal attacks can be helpful when fighting multiple foes, but ultimately the most satisfying power lies in smashing enemies with the bulk of your unhatched egg itself. Noice.

Pass this title up all you want, but this is already looking better than Sonic Heroes, and that's no word of a lie. The graphics, as you can see, are superb and utilises a lot of the Gamecube's grunt. Given that this game sounds wacky, a lot of people will dismiss it at first glance. But this is a Sonic Team game, where their ingenuity is only matched by Nintendo themselves.

Give Billy a chance, and you could be playing this much more than Sonic Heroes. Watch this space at TSS for future developments.

Check the Screenshots Archive for more Billy Hatcher images: