[Editors Note: James had the wonderful opportunity of seeing Sonic Unleashed, first-hand at E3. Be sure to thank him for this detailed writeup of Sonic's new adventure! He's pretty beat from all the events this week!]
Sonic Unleashed is a unique experience because Sega has decided to return to Sonic’s original winning formula: fast paced gaming with occasional platforming qualities, bosses, lots of jumping and Chaos Emeralds.
As you well know, the story goes like this. Dr. Eggman (still Dr. Robotnik in my heart) managed to collect all the Chaos Emeralds and used their power on Sonic, causing him to turn into Weresonic at night. Sonic must cure himself and get back at Eggman for his devious ways.
There are several important changes that have been made to Sonic Unleashed. For starters, rings don’t simply act as 1-Up counters and health-bars anymore. Now collecting enough will enable Sonic to have speed bursts. And unlike some previous games, being hit by an enemy won’t make Sonic lose all of his rings.
As Sonic, Sega is utilizing a proprietary engine that they’ve worked on since 2005 called the Hedgehog Engine, made specifically to stream architecture quickly for high-speed movement in-game. While the current build is still a little sluggish, it proved to be very good at what it’s made to do while keeping the framerate steady most of the time.
With Sonic running so fast much of the time, the problem previous titles had was that people couldn’t keep up because the game wasn’t accommodating to them. It simply let sonic run along and players were left wondering what was going on. Not anymore. Now when Sonic runs at the speed of sound, the camera goes into 2-D mode, either from a side angle (as we’ve seen in the trailers) or from behind Sonic. When looking at Sonic from behind, the controls switch from using the left analog stick for movement to using the right and left bumpers (on the 360 version) to perform “quick steps”. Hitting the right bumper will move Sonic one space to the right, and the left bumper to the left.
At the same time, when not running, Sonic Unleashed acts as a platformer. The demo I saw first-hand had Sonic jumping up a set of ledges on moving platforms with rotating spikes looking for blood, just like the good ol’ days. Sonic has his typical running gameplay, and pushing the X button is a homing attack that becomes very useful and necessary when getting through levels. B is for crouch and A is for jump (Xbox 360 version was shown).
As Weresonic, the rules change drastically. Controls change to the Y button being attack, X being an attack throw and B being a grab. Weresonic doesn’t run nearly as fast as Sonic does, even if he’s on all fours. However, Weresonic has many other qualities that Sonic doesn’t have that change the pace of gameplay significantly.
Weresonic has long arms that stretch, making him an excellent climber. Much of the game as Weresonic will have him climbing different areas, making his sections of the game more vertical as opposed to Sonic’s horizontal gameplay. Weresonic is also a fighter; as explained by the controls, he’s got three different attack buttons that can be performed on enemies at any given time, and he fights lots of enemies. All in all, Weresonic has over 30 different fighting combos’, many of which are unlocked after gaining experience points. He also won’t lose rings because Weresonic uses a health bar, though to compliment that he also has a shield bar. This bar is for blocking attacks. The more attacks Weresonic blocks, the lower his shield gets, but he won’t lose health while blocking.
There is no online multiplayer, so don’t expect to be running next to friends playing as Tails or Knuckles. Also, don’t expect to be playing as other characters; this one is purely Sonic or Weresonic, though mini-games will have players as other characters in the Sonic universe.
Sonic Unleashed is set for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and PS2 November of this year in the US and Europe. No release date has been set for Japan or other regions. The Wii version will of course have motion controls, but will also allow players to use their Gamecube or Classic controllers. The PS2 version will be completely different from the others, though no details were given on what those differences are.
we all also consider you as a...
IM GOIN BACK TO BB! >.>
@YumeTakato: I don’t want to be cruel on the PS2 fans/users here, but we Wii fans/users have been suffering from the PS2 for some time now. Mainly because the PS2-version of a game usually means the Wii-version will not be using the Wii’s hardware to its full extend.
For example: If Secret Rings had been released for both Wii and PS2 at the time, like Sonic ‘06 was released for 360/PS3 (and failed -_-), I can bet that because of the PS2, the Wii version of Secret Rings wouldn’t have looked as good as it does now.
Ah, the GameCube-controller support is the tibbit I’ve been waiting for to hear confirmed, since I wasn’t sure about Sega + motion controls (they did work quite good in Secret Rings, though).
Good hands-on by the way.
I designed the Sonic the Cereal box in a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator.
probly, even SR did *stunning*
Wow, this is really exciting for me. I’m a big sonic fan. And its cool that their adding a new game to rest of the collection.
But i have a really big question about the game.
Will it be like the rest of the games and have a hidden story?…
Woot! I get to use Sonic with my ol’ Gamecube controller again after such a long time! SEGA, your doing a great job! Keep it up! XD
oops, sorry for the reupload =P
@David Leggett: Have you ever thought that SEGA might actually be using the Hedgehog engine for Wii and PS2? Like, SEGA said there will be no online or multiplayer modes of any kind, right? Maybe SEGA is doing the same thing but with the Hedgehog engine. What do you think about my opinion?
@David Leggett: Have you ever thought that SEGA might actually be using the Hedgehog engine for Wii and PS2? Like, said said there will be no online or multiplayer modes of any kind. Maybe SEGA is doing the same thing but with the Hedgehog engine. What do you think about my opinion?
looks good so far. but I want to see more info on the PS2 version, what they said about the PS2 version being different from the other 3…just makes me more anxious for info on the PS2 version.
this is gonna be good i can tell
too bad silver isnt in it
Yeah, I really want some info on the wii version of this game.
Demo info?wii demo?
Wow this game.. is gonna be so epic…. Come on SEGA! Bring Sonic back because I don’t want to lose my hero for 7 years!! T_T
It’s kinda freaky. I come on here looking to see if there’s anything new and then there’s this new post saying my name when I didn’t submit anything….is that freaky or what?
The “Endless Possibility” trailer runs much smoother on that website, it has more frames and looks more awesome on that Japanese site! Why the hell did they give a choppy, unsmooth version to us!? I hope they release a smoother version of it soon! :-/
^Not to mention Chao. (Doesn’t look good for those little blue blobs.) X(
@Sonic The Hedgehog:
The twilit shots of Mykonos have me wondering about how exactly time will flow in-game. They most likely aren’t from cutscenes or part of a hubworld, due to the loop-de-loop seen in one of pics. I know that we’ve already found out that there will be parts of stages that will feature the passing of time, we haven’t seen it in actual gameplay form. Here’s to hoping it shows up at TGS.
Sonic Team’s Sonic Unleashed (Sonic World Adventure) website http://sonic.sega.jp/SonicWorldAdventure/#/index