Sonic Unleashed

[zero]

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Background: In what seems to be an honest attempt at delivering a new Sonic console game that doesn't, well, suck, Sega's revisiting what made the older games so fun. Sure, we've heard it from them before, but there are plenty of reasons to have hope with this one. For starters, it's from a new director -- Yoshihisa Hashimoto, who helmed Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 on the Dreamcast before trying his hand at some EyeToy stuff. He's back on the series, along with a team of guys who've worked on other Sonic titles like the solid Sonic and the Secret Rings (the PS3 and 360 versions of Unleashed are being developed in-house at Sonic Team, while the PS2 and Wii releases are being handled by Dimps, known for their work on various Dragon Ball Z titles). But whereas Adventure went off-course with lots of unnecessary cast additions, Unleashed keeps the focus entirely on Sonic; extraneous characters seem hardly present in the title, only showing up in some minigames. Also, to appease Sonic fans who've been begging for the series to return to 2D gameplay (at least on the consoles), Unleashed offers a mix of both 3D and 2D sequences.

What We Saw: At Sega's pre-E3 event, we were treated to a first look at the game in action. The area we saw was set in the real-life Greek island of Mykonos, which you may have already seen in some of the early Unleashed screenshots. We also got to check out the new Ring Energy Gauge, which allows you to build up sonic speed boosts. It basically works by tracking how quickly you collect rings; the more grabbed in close proximity, the better. Another addition to the gameplay is the Quick Step, which allows you to use the controller's left and right bumpers to quickly step to the right or left to avoid obstacles.

Good to Go: The game definitely looks good, especially in the 2D portions, where everything just looks really smooth and polished. But the 3D portions, where you can see a lot of the environments -- like looking down from one of the hills in the Mykonos levels and seeing all the Greek island houses below -- are also impressive. It should be mentioned, though, that we noticed quite a bit of slowdown when Sonic was running fast -- but this is the sort of thing that should no doubt get resolved by the time the game ships.

Warning Sign: From the areas we've seen, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on incredibly fast action, but not so much focus on the platforming. Let's hope the development team doesn't forget that, at its heart, Sonic is a platform game, not a racing game.

Warm Afterglow: It does seem like this could be the good console Sonic game we've been waiting for all these years, but we've been let down so many times recently that we're looking forward to this with cautious optimism. The 2D portions seem to be the game's real strength -- let's hope Sega realizes this.

The game looks gorgeous, and I really love the idea of jumping in and out of 2D, much like Super Paper Mario. Here's hoping the franchise can FINALLY get back on track after this game. Check out the link above for screenshots.

[thedjt]

I felt after the Dreamcast hit the western dust Sonic titles in 3D just wouldn't work. Now I feel going back to 2D while maintaining elements of 3D level design is a good way to go and is something that really worked with New Super Mario Brothers. I just hope they don't change the system for the worse.

[Captain Eo]

Why can't they just make another Sonic Adventure?

I'm sorry but the game doesn't look that gorgeous to me.

[zero]

Why can't they just make another Sonic Adventure?

They did make SA2 and it sucked. And honestly, Sonic Adventure wasn't that great to begin with... the series just doesn't translate well to 3D and that's been it's biggest issue from day one.

[probablyoliver]

Sonic 3D made my eyes bleed back in the day. I agree with Zero though, this does look beautiful. I recently busted out the Mega Drive and feel right back in love with Sonic 1&2 (never liked Sonic 3), and so this news couldn't have come at a more wonderful time. I just hope it's woth the hype. If it's shit, I'll be bummed out for sure.

[writeeagle]

This really does sound interesting. I may pick up the PS3 version when it comes out. It seems like the Wii versions of most multi-platform games lack in comparison to their siblings. I wasn't a huge fan of Paper Mario so hopefully this brings something different to the table. And I really, really hated a lot of the un-needed story in the Sonic Adventure games. It bothered me just as much as when the Mega Man games made their way to the Playstation. Platformers need to stay platformers. Period.

[Captain Eo]

Why can't they just make another Sonic Adventure?

They did make SA2 and it sucked. And honestly, Sonic Adventure wasn't that great to begin with... the series just doesn't translate well to 3D and that's been it's biggest issue from day one.

SA2 was complete garbage.

Sonic Adventure was a perfect example of what a Sonice game in 3D should be like. If you guys want to play a 2D game go back and play Sonic & Knuckles.

The biggest issue Sonic has dealt with in this generation hasn't been the translation to 3D, it's been that in that translation it's lost a lot of the things that made the orginal Sega games so fun.

We can argue on this issue all day, but to me Sonic Adventure is going to be the closest to perfection that Sonic will ever get in the 3D world.