City Escape

City Escape is the first stage of the hero story in Sonic Adventure 2 and is playable by Sonic. This stage takes place on the streets of the capital city of the United Federations, Central City. This can be proven by the fact that the cutscene before the stage says, "Above the capital city," and G.U.N. soldiers in Shadow the Hedgehog mention Central City as being the capital.

Plot
The game begins with Sonic escaping from a G.U.N. helicopter, and now he must flee from the military organization's pursuit. He is accused of stealing a Chaos Emerald from a national bank.

Stage Layout
City Escape has regular gameplay, as well as a brief boarding section in the beginning. The stage starts out with Sonic riding down hills using a board, similar to Extreme Gear. When Sonic gets off the board, he is introduced to Omochao, a guide that helps you throughout the levels. Than after fighting many enemies, and going down rails, Sonic is chased by a G.U.N truck chasing him to the end of the level.

Upgrade
The upgrade in this stage is the Magic Hands, found shortly after running down the side of a building. Sonic must already possess both the Bounce Bracelet and the Flame Ring to access it. When used, an enemy in close range to Sonic will be captured in a small ball, effectively destroying it. The ball can then be thrown at other enemies to destroy them.

Trivia

 * The stage is based off of the city of San Francisco, California. The reason it looks much that way is because Sonic Adventure 2 is the first game that was developed by the US branch of Sonic Team. And since the newly established division was so influenced by their headquarters in San Francisco, the level designers, Takashi Iizuka and Eitaro Toyoda, decided to make some of the levels as references to well known locations in San Francisco. The other levels based off of San Francisco are: Mission Street (Mission Street is an actual street in the city), Radical Highway, Route 101, and Route 280 (the latter three were all based off of the Golden Gate Bridge).
 * In the truck chasing section, Big can be seen running along the right side of the last stretch of road before the truck crashes. He panics and then gets run over by the truck. This only occurs in the Dreamcast version.
 * It is possible to reach the lost Chao in the third mission of this level without the use of the Mystic Melody by using Spin Dash tricks to roll up the face of the building in which the Chao is located.
 * In the cutscene before the level when Sonic escapes from the helicopter, the pilot identifies himself in military talk as Sigma-Alpha 2, which translates from Greek as "SA2," the game's initials.
 * In the Dreamcast version of the cutscene mentioned above, Sonic's model has his original shoes when he escapes from the helicopter, but when he jumps off of the helicopter's wing, he is somehow wearing his Soap shoes. In the game, Sonic wears Soap shoes in order to promote the product and the new extreme sport, freestyle grinding, that the shoes were made for. In City Escape, as well as Radical Highway, there were also many billboards, blimps, and benches that advertised the shoes.
 * The ads below advertise a few objects from the Sonic universe, such as rings.
 * City Escape will be a playble stage in the Dreamcast Era of Sonic Generations.