The Gamer Scene

Review – Sonic Unleashed (Xbox 360)

Posted on 29. Nov, 2008 by Dits in Microsoft, Reviews

Hope is one thing that all Sega fans have. Hope that one day we will see the mighty Sega return to its former glory, by giving us new hardware or by relighting the flame of lost series such as ShenMue or Jet Set Radio. Their faithful mascot was once regarded higher than the short fat plumber but times have changed.

A few months ago I saw something that gave me hope, a video of Sonic hurtling across the screen in HD beauty. It gave me goose bumps! Memories of my childhood were back and I watched the video over and over in the hope that Sega would deliver BUT then came the werehog news…

Has Sega shattered the dreams of its fans once again?

The opening cinematic is probably one of the finest pieces of CGI I have ever seen. Production values must have been through the roof as you see a perfectly rendered Sonic and Robotnik (Egg Man) battle it out on Robotnik’s spaceship. During the cinematic Sonic battles his way to face Robotnik but is captured. Robotnik then uses the power of the Chaos emeralds to fire a massive laser at their home planet to unleash an evil buried within the planets core. The sheer power of the beam splits the planet into pieces! It also causes the chaos emeralds to turn black and for Sonic to turn into the Werehog! Robotnik then sends Sonic hurtling out of the spaceship and on a collision course with the planet. You land on the planet and meet your new companion for this story, Chip, an ultra cute furball that has an unhealthy obsession with chocolate.

One thing you have to remember as you’re introduced to the games new characters and dialogue is that Sonic is a kid’s game and they will always cheesy and kid friendly. Just switch off and pretend you’re a 7yr old, and you can probably get through it.

The mission for sonic is to restore power to the Chaos emeralds and reunite the 7 continents of the world.

If you get a chance to watch the intro in HD, do it! It really is amazing. It does give you the sense of, how are the games graphics going to live up to that? But surprisingly they do!

The 7 continents are loosely based on our own but named differently. Chun-Nan is basically China, Mazuri is Africa etc. It does turn into a strange mix of ‘Where is Sonic San Diego?’ But hey it’s a kid’s game; we’re not here for the deep story.

Each of the continents are used as hubs for Sonic to complete different stages but each have their own different environments and in Sonic Adventure style you will have to help the local residents with their problems to earn coins and unlockables. To progress to different stages you have to collect day and night coins. So 40 day coins may unlock a new stage and so on.

That brings us to the gameplay. It is distinctively split into day and night stages, normal Sonic during the day and the Werehog at night.

Now let’s start with the good. The Sonic stages are simply amazing, the sense of speed and control are spot on. Sonic bounces around the screen like a blue streak of lightning collecting coins as he goes and finding all the hidden powerups and treasures, it feels near perfect!

Sonic’s old moves are back, such as the homing attack which can be used to strike enemies in quick succession and if done right usually puts you on a secret area to save time through the level. Sonic has also learned a new ability, and that’s to travel even faster! Holding down the X button allows Sonic to use the power of the coins to increase his speed for a short period of time but it refills after collecting more coins. Skilled sonic players will love trying to boost the entire level! There are more skills to unlock as you play through the stages but I will leave them for you to discover.

For added control the bumpers can be used as a quick step to move out of the way of obstacles such as spikes and traps. It’s all about reflexes, the faster you are the better Sonic will be.

The stages are surprisingly large and have multiple paths, so it’s rewarding to go back and try a different route to try and shave off some extra time on your previous score. In classic Sonic style you are graded at the end of each stage from S – E, and trying to get all S Ranks will be a tall order.

Sure you’re just holding right for about 3 minutes trying to dodge and weave your way around the levels but the graphical splendour and breakneck speed will have all gamers grinning from ear to ear every time they play.

Now if that was it then the game would be an A+ a perfect 3D representation of our beloved Sonic, but no. For reasons beyond my comprehension Sonic Team decided to add the werehog mechanic into the game and it all goes downhill very fast.

You can’t skip the Werehog stages and you are forced to play through using an archaic platforming style of bashing X or Y for sometimes up to 30 minutes! You see the werehog is much slower than regular Sonic and each of the stages is reduced to defeating x amount of enemies to move onto the next room. It’s tiresome, unresponsive and shallow. Coins are now used to replenish health so keeping them nearby during boss fights is essential. You can also defend with the left bumper which somehow produces a magical barrier that enemies can’t penetrate. Right bumper is the new unleashed power, a move that powers up the werehog for massive damage. Now, for a game that has ‘unleashed’ in its title, I kind of expected a bit more than a blue flash and to be slightly stronger for about 10 seconds…

The werehog has the ability to stretch his arms to reach higher platforms and this leads to probably the most frustrating thing about these stages. Timed leaps of faith jumps with the added bonus of having to press B just at the exact right time to hang on or you will fall to your death. You will die, over and over, just because you didn’t press the button when it wanted you to do so. It’s horrible! Even the graphics seem to take a massive hit in the werehog stages. Enemies are laughable low polygon models each the same colour and each the same type. And after you kill the same enemy 50 times just to progress to the next room, guess what? You have to do it all over again!

Really, Sonic Team!??!! Really??!!?? Is that what you think we wanted? A slow lumbering, fiddly annoyance on a game that has always been about speed! It doesn’t make sense.

There are some things that make the werehog stages a little more bearable and that is the ability to level up different skills. Every enemy kill adds to an experience bar than that can be spent on upgrading skills for either Sonic or the werehog. New Combos can be learned (press Y, 54 times I think was one of them) strength, life and unleashed power can also be increased. It’s all pretty futile and does little to bolster the gameplay. Sonic can only be upgraded in 2 possible areas, ones speed and the other is the use of coins and they are pretty effective. Go back to an earlier stage with a fully kitted out Sonic and your eyeballs will probably melt.

The game does have lots of secrets and unlockables that add more to the experience, but really they do nothing to help the crushing failure that is the werehog. Sonics weird array of friends are back as well as some cameos from previous games, it’s a small gesture for such poor execution. Luckily you can also replay previous levels, so after unlocking every level you can just go back and play the Sonic stages, but few will and I don’t blame them.

Overall the developers have done a good job on the Sonic stages, they have built a great engine to show off the blue spiky one but it all goes to pot when they try and introduce something new to the mix. If they just released say 10 stages all Sonic for a cut price they would have been onto a winner but as it stands we’re just going to have to hope that one day Sega will deliver what we deserve.