Camp Sonic

Yesterday, you may have seen us mention the possibility of some new Sonic Unleashed information being mentioned in Dutch Magazine, “Power Unlimited”.  We weren’t entirely sure that they article existed, making us a bit skeptical of everything, but TimmiT has come by to help clear up a few things!

After TimmiT sent us a photograph of the article in Power Unlimited, we quickly got to translating the text using our patent-pending, trade secret technology (some call it Google Translate), and yes — there is new information.

UPDATE

Ok… Well, I had this nice little post ready for everyone, and thought it was as good as we could get it, but Optimus Primal just HAD to go out and fully translate the article ON HIS OWN.  Trust me, his translation is much better than mine, and is worth the full read.  Thanks so much Optimus!

SONIC UNLEASHED

PS3/XBOX360/WII/PS2    1 PLAYER    CHRISTMAS 2008

The title we were looking forward to the most was Sonic Unleashed.
Unfortunately, also for this game there was only a hands-off session, which was very disappointing.

What I saw however holds great promise. The team behind Sonic Unleashed are big fans of the 2D Sonic games and that was visible in the game. Although this is a

3D-Sonic, the camera regularly jumped to a 2D-perspective, and if I had my say that would be happening a lot more. Only when the camera followed Sonic from the side, I had the feeling that this truly is a new Sonic game. Hopefully they hold on to this aspect, and don’t turn their attention to the very annoying adventure parts of the game.

Other things that stood out were the context-sensitive actions during a jump, hurling you farther forward, and the speed with which Sonic moved through the levels, which was very high already during this phase. Every level has a few different routes, as ususal, and the areas you’ll end up in will differ quite a lot.

For example, they showed a level in China in which the blue hedgehog ran over some sort of Chinese Wall, but also a level in New York where Sonic is mostly going through the air in between skyscrapers. They say there’s also a level in which you sit in a bobsled, you take Tails under your wing in some minigames and you’ll also be able to play as Werewolf-Sonic.

The latter we knew already of course, but somehow Sonic Team tried to hide this every way they could. What makes this even funnier is that someone accidentally started a cutscene in which Amy was walking side-by-side with…
Werewolf-Sonic! When they noticed this, no less than five Japanese jumped in front of the screen, blocking our view.

Sega was particularly proud of a new “light-technology”. With it, for example the ground under a red parasol is more red than ground on which the sun shines directly. The environment colour in forests was a bit greener because the sun shined through the leaves. Very beautiful, and it livened up the whole without a doubt.

This also goes for the chosen style for Sonic and the other inhabitants. It’s closer now to the cartoon style than when they tried to bring some kind of realistic vibe like in the last Sonic on the Xbox 360. Let’s be fair: that didn’t work at all of course.

Well, as things are looking now, Sega could very well be on their way back…
regarding Sonic that is. [End of translation]

Hope that clears up a few things for everyone!  Let Optimus know how thankful you are!

Oh, and here is my transcript of the article… In dutch.  Feel free to correct as you see fit.  It was sort of hard to read from the photograph.