This is a compilation of Sonic games featuring classic levels from Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. You can choose to play them as either Sonic, Tails or Knuckles. These are advertising points on the box of the Game.com version of Sonic Jam, a game better known for being an extremely well made Sonic compilation for the Sega Saturn.

If you don’t know what the GameCom was, it was a handheld that tried to compete with the Game Boy. It had a similar black and white screen but boasted higher specs – although games didn’t really utilise it. It did have a touch screen and limited internet capability. When porting a game to a handheld system like this, you have to compromise in some way, mainly graphics, to make the game playable.

Except Tiger Electronics didn’t want to do this. The sprites are taken straight from the Mega Drive games (if they didn’t want to make any, they could have asked for the Game Gear ones). This focus on graphics (it should be noted that it’s a black and white console, so all backgrounds were removed) is one of the core issues with the Game.com version of Sonic Jam: Sonic takes up most of the screen.

The levels in this are also not the levels from the classic games, but merely “inspired” by the first stage of each. There are four acts for each, but when you take Emerald Hill and Angel Island, remove the background and make them black and white, they look extremely similar. Despite being made for the GameCom, the levels don’t feel like they were made for the console, as you have falls you can’t see (a lot of the time, the ground is pretty much five pixels from the bottom of the ground), you need to jump over spikes before they appear on the screen and all sorts of other problems due to the tiny amount you can see on both sides. The Game Gear version of Sonic 2 is known for having these issues, but the GameCom Sonic is even worse.

Then there are the physics of Sonic himself. The developers figured this aspect of Sonic was so important that it renders the game unplayable. If you go slow enough so that you have time to stop before a jump, you won’t be able to make the jump. You’ll often have to run backwards in order to do a running jump. Inclines also kill your speed almost instantly, unless you’re running at full speed (which will cause death), you can sometimes make it to the top, but other times you have to move up it bit by bit by jumping constantly for 20+ seconds. It really is agonising to play.

After four acts in each of the three “games”, you’ve played everything. The one good thing I have to say is that there is a good variety in bosses, as you will encounter them in acts 2, 3 and 4. These are based on bosses in the games, but because they have to place Dr Robotnik on the screen, you just have to jump up a few times to kill him.

Sonic Jam on the GameCom is by far the worst Sonic game I’ve encountered so far, and I think it will likely be the worst overall.