Screenshots :.
Sonic Unleashed
Wii
Matt
12-12-2008
"How curious."
"The Sonic stages are fair enough."
"The Warehog stages are not, sadly."
Hmm. See… no, that won’t do.
How’s about… nah, that’s not right either.
Truth be told, I am struggling to start this review of Sonic: Unleashed as it’s so much of a mixed bag that you could fire the contents at a Cool-ometre and have everything varying between cool, cack and everywhere between. It’s a game I went into in a similar manner to someone would mindlessly go back to visit an old girlfriend convinced that when he arrived she would be as crushingly awful as the last time he saw her, yet in some respects it actually left a smile on my face.
It was pretty much given as soon as SEGA released the first images and details of Unleashed that people would take a look at the Warehog sections with puzzlement and sigh deeply to themselves. It was equally likely that anyone who had played 2006’s disastrous Sonic the Hedgehog would probably not even allow themselves an ounce of excitement after having spent countless hours plunging to exactly the kinds of unexpectedly sudden deaths that have cursed the series since it made the dimensional jump.
On one hand, Unleashed attempts to (and mostly succeeds in) completely ridding the game of such issues. Levels and camera positioning are now much more friendly to people who are a bit slow on the ol’ reaction front and those painful abrupt endings are mostly a thing of the past, although some of the latter stages are somewhat maddening. Note to SEGA: ice stages with slippery controls and frustratingly narrow success windows are likely to burst peoples’ blood vessels.
The majority of the time, though, the Sonic stages are good fun, with the action occasionally switching to pseudo-2D viewpoints for some old school fun. The control system has a fair bit to do with this, allowing you to quickly skip between running channels, slide under obstacles and powerslide around tighter corners when the need arises. My personal choice when it came to the numerous control schemes on offer was to use the Wii-mote and Nunchuck in unison, but the classic controller also works pretty well with all the various little tips and tricks you pick up.
This is all good, but the game then goes and undoes quite a chunk of this with the sections where Sonic – caught in the beam of Eggman’s world-destroying gun during the intro – turns into his rather menacing Warehog form when night falls. Anyone who played the two Sonic Adventure titles and found the action grinding to a sludgy pace whenever the Knuckles sections were forced into proceedings will probably start getting slight pangs of déjà vu as soon as the first tutorial sections kick off, and it’s for good reason.
Whereas the Sonic stages are quick, breezy fun, the opposite side of Sonic’s new Jekyll and Hyde complex provides a slower offering based mostly on bashing as many monsters as you can by waving your arms around like a tit. The initial few levels are amusing enough as a bit of variety to the quick-paced Sonic levels, but after a while you’ll tire of the same old recipe of wandering around and getting locked into areas so the game can spawn loads of annoying (particularly the bloody bee things) bad guys that you must kill before being allowed to progress.
Thus, the end product is somewhat inconsistent, with the relief of the Sonic stages giving way to the grinding, sludgy progress of the Warehog bits. It’s a shame as the rest of the game actually works pretty well; you point-and-click your way around certain locations as a way of finding the next story thread to pick up, and there’re a good range of places to zoom through once you get going. Heck, even the over-the-top hammy Sonic storytelling thing doesn’t grate quite as much as you’d have thought it would, even if Tails makes his obligatory appearance in an attempt to annoy the living cack out of you.
As far as modern day Sonic games are concerned (putting aside the DS games, which seem to be far more in tune with what people like), Unleashed is probably the best so far, although that’s not saying much. Still, the improvements to the actual Sonic part of the game are welcome and show that Sonic Team are beginning to head down a better track than they initially were. The old blue hog isn’t anywhere near out of the mire yet, sadly, but whilst some sections of Unleashed disappoint it’s at least heartening that it has enough redeeming features to not make it a complete write-off.
How’s about… nah, that’s not right either.
Truth be told, I am struggling to start this review of Sonic: Unleashed as it’s so much of a mixed bag that you could fire the contents at a Cool-ometre and have everything varying between cool, cack and everywhere between. It’s a game I went into in a similar manner to someone would mindlessly go back to visit an old girlfriend convinced that when he arrived she would be as crushingly awful as the last time he saw her, yet in some respects it actually left a smile on my face.
It was pretty much given as soon as SEGA released the first images and details of Unleashed that people would take a look at the Warehog sections with puzzlement and sigh deeply to themselves. It was equally likely that anyone who had played 2006’s disastrous Sonic the Hedgehog would probably not even allow themselves an ounce of excitement after having spent countless hours plunging to exactly the kinds of unexpectedly sudden deaths that have cursed the series since it made the dimensional jump.
On one hand, Unleashed attempts to (and mostly succeeds in) completely ridding the game of such issues. Levels and camera positioning are now much more friendly to people who are a bit slow on the ol’ reaction front and those painful abrupt endings are mostly a thing of the past, although some of the latter stages are somewhat maddening. Note to SEGA: ice stages with slippery controls and frustratingly narrow success windows are likely to burst peoples’ blood vessels.
The majority of the time, though, the Sonic stages are good fun, with the action occasionally switching to pseudo-2D viewpoints for some old school fun. The control system has a fair bit to do with this, allowing you to quickly skip between running channels, slide under obstacles and powerslide around tighter corners when the need arises. My personal choice when it came to the numerous control schemes on offer was to use the Wii-mote and Nunchuck in unison, but the classic controller also works pretty well with all the various little tips and tricks you pick up.
This is all good, but the game then goes and undoes quite a chunk of this with the sections where Sonic – caught in the beam of Eggman’s world-destroying gun during the intro – turns into his rather menacing Warehog form when night falls. Anyone who played the two Sonic Adventure titles and found the action grinding to a sludgy pace whenever the Knuckles sections were forced into proceedings will probably start getting slight pangs of déjà vu as soon as the first tutorial sections kick off, and it’s for good reason.
Whereas the Sonic stages are quick, breezy fun, the opposite side of Sonic’s new Jekyll and Hyde complex provides a slower offering based mostly on bashing as many monsters as you can by waving your arms around like a tit. The initial few levels are amusing enough as a bit of variety to the quick-paced Sonic levels, but after a while you’ll tire of the same old recipe of wandering around and getting locked into areas so the game can spawn loads of annoying (particularly the bloody bee things) bad guys that you must kill before being allowed to progress.
Thus, the end product is somewhat inconsistent, with the relief of the Sonic stages giving way to the grinding, sludgy progress of the Warehog bits. It’s a shame as the rest of the game actually works pretty well; you point-and-click your way around certain locations as a way of finding the next story thread to pick up, and there’re a good range of places to zoom through once you get going. Heck, even the over-the-top hammy Sonic storytelling thing doesn’t grate quite as much as you’d have thought it would, even if Tails makes his obligatory appearance in an attempt to annoy the living cack out of you.
As far as modern day Sonic games are concerned (putting aside the DS games, which seem to be far more in tune with what people like), Unleashed is probably the best so far, although that’s not saying much. Still, the improvements to the actual Sonic part of the game are welcome and show that Sonic Team are beginning to head down a better track than they initially were. The old blue hog isn’t anywhere near out of the mire yet, sadly, but whilst some sections of Unleashed disappoint it’s at least heartening that it has enough redeeming features to not make it a complete write-off.
6/10
