Sonic Unleashed (Xbox 360) Review

Sonic is one of the most known gaming characters, ever (just behind Mario) and he is one of those characters which I grew up with and the amount of memories I have with the original set of games were fantastic. It ate away hundreds of my childhood hours speeding through Emerald Hill trying to beat my cousin’s time.

The one thing I remember in the Sonic franchise games was the dramatic change to the series by making it 3D and I also remember how god damn shit it was, as it just didn’t work and insanely repetitive, and since then, that was the last Sonic game I have played. With the release of Sonic Unleashed I was extremely worried about whether or not it’d actually be good, but for you to find out what I think of it, you’ll have to read on…

There’s nothing really to say about the story of Sonic Unleashed, as it follows the traditional Sonic the hedgehog story lines, Dr. Egg Man is back and is once again is trying to be a thieving bastard and is trying to nick those precious chaos emeralds. And our blue spiky hero once again is there to stop the swine and to return the world back to its normal state. As always, Sonic is joined by a bunch of his home boys; Tails and Knuckles, also a new character to the series who was almost killed at the start of the game by Sonic’s fat ass which ‘caused the furry little friend to lose his memory and then follows you about causing you a headache from the crap he rambles on about. (You don’t play as these, unfortunately)

The main story is split into 3 major sections; adventure, daytime and night time:

Adventure – Possibly one of the worst tasks, wondering around the numerous different towns within the continents talking to everyone so you can unlock more areas.
Daytime – The thing which could bring the Sonic franchise back, the daytime parts are all based on speed, simple. Its all on rails which surprisingly isn’t annoying at all due to the levels are so well designed.
Night time – I’m going to put this blunt with you here, they are complete and utter crap. It honestly feels like the Werehog parts were just thrown in to piss people off, spending up to 20-30 minutes aimlessly beating the crap out of the same god damn enemy. One of the worst things I’ve ever played, period.

Throughout the story (which I didn’t realize for a long time) is that you have to perform an extremely tedious task – collecting sun tokens. To progress through the games main story line, you have to unlock the next stage/zone and to do this you need sun tokens. And the game never actually made this clear to you, and you would find it out when the game mocks you by telling you that you need one more sun token. And because you’ve only been collecting the obvious ones, the only ones which are left are hidden and in the stupidest places imaginable.

I need to get this off my chest, What-The-Fuck was Sega thinking by adding the demented ‘Werehog’ segments, in other words; the Werehog is total crap. I know that the Sonic bits on there own would of got boring eventually, but the Werehog bits are more torture then enjoyment. Why the hell would a Werehog have elastic arms? Did I miss something in the story line which turned Sonic into stretch Armstrong? No, I didn’t. I’m seriously wondering what they were smoking when they thought of this thing, ‘cause that shit had to of been hardcore. Also the constant frame rate issues while playing in the Werehog segments add to the torture of what is already not good at all.

Just like the Sonic games of the past, it follows a cartoon-like art style which still looks fantastic, and you don’t realise this ‘till you play Sonic ‘daytime’ zones. The best example being when you are grinding your way around the zone on the large rails which you’re constantly jumping about on, looking around at the numerous different vistas is an experience by itself. Then with the backing of the up-beat, fast-paced soundtrack it just brings a smile to your face and can’t help but remember the fantastic original game.

The only reason I could see people coming back to this game once they’ve completed for the first time is to get a better rating on the Sonic parts of the game, as there is no way in hell I’d go back to those Werehog parts. I’d honestly consider having my gentlemen areas removed with rusty nails then play those parts again.

Closing comments? Hmm… Sonic Team may have found a formula which could work for them in future; the 3d/2d Sonic parts, they look beautiful and keep you on your toes. However, a game based purely on this would just become boring eventually, so they’ll have to think of something to mix it up more. And hopefully if there is another Sonic game, that Werehog will be sent to the depths of the digital hell where it can rot with the other gaming fuck-ups.

No related posts.

News