Or was this simply my bias towards the Sonic franchise speaking? When faced with the prospect of a game that might be better than one of the worst games of 2006, would I over-exaggerate the quality of the game simply because it was not total garbage? As the game’s release date drew near, my expectations for the game were all over the map. Depending on what day of the week you would ask me, Sonic Unleashed was either going to be really awesome or just another in a long line of embarrassments.

I can now say that Sonic Unleashed on the Xbox 360 is probably the best 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game we’ve had since the era of the Sega Dreamcast.

The game is split in to three distinct portions: Daytime gameplay as regular Sonic, Nighttime gameplay as the Werehog, and visiting various towns located in continents across the world. Daytime levels are predictably fast, with Sonic the Hedgehog reaching speeds of nearly 300 miles-per-hour. These levels are an absolute blast to play, with plenty of detours and shortcuts to encourage replaying in order to find that “perfect route” leading to the ever-elusive S Rank. To help you achieve this, the game’s controls have been redesigned with Sonic’s extreme speed in mind: At faster speeds, Sonic’s controls gradually smooth out, avoiding the twitchy analog stick sensitivity of Sonic 2006 or Sonic Adventure 2. Should you need to dodge oncoming obstacles a little bit faster, Sonic has been equipped with a brand-new “Quick Step” ability that allows you to easily strafe around hazards. Rather than try to group the rest of Sonic’s moves around the two face buttons, Sonic Unleashed marks the first 3D Sonic game to use all four face buttons. Functions are grouped naturally - for example, “downward” actions like sliding, stomping and crouching are bound to the B button, while “boost” actions such as the homing attack and Sonic Boost are on the X button. For fans of the previous games, adjusting to the new button structure can take some time, but eventually it all clicks. In the original Sonic Rush (and the Sonic Advance games), a great deal of frustration arose out of going too fast to avoid an obstacle or a pitfall, resulting in numerous cheap deaths. Sonic Unleashed makes an effort to correct this by flat out telling you what buttons you need to push at certain points in the level. It’s a little bit cheese-ball, and there were times where I found these button prompts lingered on screen a little bit too long and managed to cover up the action. Though they do get less frequent as the game progresses, they never quite vanish entirely and the game has no option to turn them off.

Or was this simply my bias towards the Sonic franchise speaking? When faced with the prospect of a game that might be better than one of the worst games of 2006, would I over-exaggerate the quality of the game simply because it was not total garbage? As the game’s release date drew near, my expectations for the game were all over the map. Depending on what day of the week you would ask me, Sonic Unleashed was either going to be really awesome or just another in a long line of embarrassments.

I can now say that Sonic Unleashed on the Xbox 360 is probably the best 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game we’ve had since the era of the Sega Dreamcast.

The game is split in to three distinct portions: Daytime gameplay as regular Sonic, Nighttime gameplay as the Werehog, and visiting various towns located in continents across the world. Daytime levels are predictably fast, with Sonic the Hedgehog reaching speeds of nearly 300 miles-per-hour. These levels are an absolute blast to play, with plenty of detours and shortcuts to encourage replaying in order to find that “perfect route” leading to the ever-elusive S Rank. To help you achieve this, the game’s controls have been redesigned with Sonic’s extreme speed in mind: At faster speeds, Sonic’s controls gradually smooth out, avoiding the twitchy analog stick sensitivity of Sonic 2006 or Sonic Adventure 2. Should you need to dodge oncoming obstacles a little bit faster, Sonic has been equipped with a brand-new “Quick Step” ability that allows you to easily strafe around hazards. Rather than try to group the rest of Sonic’s moves around the two face buttons, Sonic Unleashed marks the first 3D Sonic game to use all four face buttons. Functions are grouped naturally - for example, “downward” actions like sliding, stomping and crouching are bound to the B button, while “boost” actions such as the homing attack and Sonic Boost are on the X button. For fans of the previous games, adjusting to the new button structure can take some time, but eventually it all clicks. In the original Sonic Rush (and the Sonic Advance games), a great deal of frustration arose out of going too fast to avoid an obstacle or a pitfall, resulting in numerous cheap deaths. Sonic Unleashed makes an effort to correct this by flat out telling you what buttons you need to push at certain points in the level. It’s a little bit cheese-ball, and there were times where I found these button prompts lingered on screen a little bit too long and managed to cover up the action. Though they do get less frequent as the game progresses, they never quite vanish entirely and the game has no option to turn them off.