Sonic Unleashed

Back in 1991 Sega released the very first Sonic game. It was met with big success. It also gave Sega a good mascot that could rival Nintendo's mascot. Jumb 18 years later and Sonic is still one of Segas top sellers and I would say biggest star. Though the Sonic Team has not put out many good ones here in the last couple of years. With Sonic Unleashed, their most recent release, they hit some very high points. But some how it's a mix of two games. One of them is a fast, fun, and stunning looking game. Though the other is a slow, combat filled studder fest.

So the story. The game starts off with Sonic confronting Eggman. He gets Eggman into a corner and then Eggman puts Sonic into a trap. This new trap changes Sonic into a "Werehog". This part is all shown in a rather long cut scene, though a very nice looking cut scene. After Eggman drops Sonic into space he falls onto a planet. Here me meets a at first unnamed creature, who has been strucken with anmesia. So the first part of the game you are trying to help it find out who it is. You meet up with Tails and some other familiar characters.

The gameplay at times is quite solid. For when you play as normal sonic. It's fast, so that leads to I felt unresponsive

controls. Though jumping then hitting the square button give you a melee attack as normal Sonic. I thought that felt rather good. You get a ring meter, which lets you know how much boost you have. All of this I really enjoyed. Then night comes. Sonic is redused to a slow, bulky, weird looking monster. I do like though how the Sonic Team tried to give him unique things. Like he can use his arms to grap a hold of things and swing to others. The melee feels great also. But the damn framerate drops a lot when you play as the Werehog. They through a good amount of enemies at you at once, so that doesn't help the cause. There are some decent combos you can do, but theres only a hand full of them.

Though, graphicly the game shines. The game runs on the Hedgehog Engine. This is a rather impressive engine. It gives stunning color and doesn't studder when your going 102134mph as Sonic. But what I didn't get was why it it works so well going so fast but studders when you go slowly? It's odd. The game gives different environments along the way, which helps make things fresh.

Sound is good. The music is happy when it needs to be and mature when it needs to be. Voice acting is rather good. Though at times it misses.

This by no means is a bad game. It's a ok game. It's so much fun when your going fast and just hitting ramps. But sadly the game wants you to go slowly by making you talk to people and playing as the Werehog. If the Sonic Team can just stick with the fast elements of the game, they will have themselves a winner.