Sega have been trying to reinvent Sonic for a while now and unfortunately so far it hasn’t really worked. The problem in my opinion was that in the nineties, Sonic for his time was a breath of fresh air, offering fun and addictive gameplay at a great pace, however in trying to bring Sonic into this century Sega took away a lot of what made him great in the first place by slowing down the game and generally making things more complicated than they should be.
So que today and the arrival of yet another Sonic game, this time one called Sonic Unleashed. In unleashed players split their time playing between a werewolf based Sonic and the blue hedgehog himself, Sega have tried to bring back the speed and simple gameplay that Sonic was famous for all those years ago while mixing in some of the new, 3D gameplay that anyone who has played the newer games will be accustomed to, but does this reinvention work or should Sega just forget about this little blue legend and consign him to the past before they ruin his reputation all together?
It has to be said that the games opening sequence certainly grabs your attention and makes you hope that at last the game has turned the corner, the graphics here are quite brilliant, throwing Sonic right into the hard of the story and playing out what is happening to get you up to speed with what has happened to the world. It is during this opening sequence that you will see Sonic afflicted with his hedgehog by day, werehog by night curse, which both hinders him and at points hinders the game too.
The games story sees old foe Dr Eggman up to his old tricks as he tries to take over the world, Sonic of course must find a way to stop him, all while trying to find a way to cure himself too. Once into the action things certainly start with some of Sonics trademark gameplay, as you run and jump at super speed through some rather stunning looking environments, there are some pretty challenging parts here too as you need to jump and then press your homing button to reach higher platforms or manoeuvre through tricky environments, however this doesn’t take away from the sheer speed and enjoyable gameplay that is found throughout any part of the game.
Unfortunately it isn’t long before the game goes back to its more recent depressing ways. Soon into the game you will come across the linear, slow moving levels that have plagued previous games, here you will wander through the town to your next objective and it’s from this part of the game you begin to realise that things may just about to go wrong. The quests you will receive here are not only boring but to be honest also feel really unnecessary, why the developer continues to try to reinvent Sonic into something he is not I will never know. If only the developers stuck to the fast moving and challenging levels then this game would be a winner.
Another problem with the game is when you are afflicted with werehog syndrome, here you move through each level slowly, fighting enemy after enemy and constantly trying to keep yourself from the off button, you will also be tasked with triggering switches in ways that can range from simply standing on them to finding heavy items to put on them, to be honest this part of the game isn’t Sonic as we know it, instead it’s a boring, platform wannabe.
As mentioned there is certainly nothing wrong with the graphics, the environments look stunning, especially when you are speeding through them in the way Sonic does best, unfortunately the elevator style music that accompanies them does ruin the other wise great work that is found here.
When playing as Sonic, Unleashed is a fast paced, environment blurring game, which has you running at high speeds around loops, or jumping over hazardous environments which if not judge properly will see you fall to your demise. If only the whole game was as good as the Sonic levels the majority of this review would be praise and not the opposite, as when Unleashed is good it’s very good, but the only problem is that when it’s bad, it BAD.
