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Sonic Unleashed Impressions

Sonic Unleashed must be using the newest form of Blast Processing known to mankind.

Sonic the Hedgehog was Sega’s mascot that at times managed to make Mario look uncool. He was edgier, meaner, and just plain faster. He carried with him a full-scale assault on Nintendo’s Super NES in what was probably the fiercest console battle of my lifetime.

Recent Sonic games have put less emphasis on Sonic’s speed in favour of more traditional platforming elements such as exploration. Thankfully, Sega’s taken the series back to its roots with a balls-out approach to putting naysayers in their place. Namely: Speed, and lots of it.

No, not the kind truckers take. That stuff is bad for you. Sonic moves so fast in Sonic Unleased that at times he makes WipEout HD look slow. The game was demonstrated to us by Sega of America’s Ken Balough, who also boasted that he had held the record for the fastest time for the first stage among SoA employees. Me? I hobbled through the first stage mostly due to the fact that there was one jump that kept defying me. I cleared the stage in around seven minutes. Bugsy cleared it in four (after he learned what not to do by watching me, I might add).

Sonic Unleashed makes use of something Sega’s calling the Sonic Engine, which is software developed that makes it possible to load large amounts of objects and textures into memory at a very fast speed, therefore eliminating background pop-in. I was personally too busy dodging spiked rails and bouncing from enemy to enemy to notice, however.

The game is so fast that I found it a little uncomfortable at first. For the most part, the camera follows from behind Sonic. Pushing up on the left control stick will make you run forward and the controller bumpers allow sonic to dodge left and right quickly. Mastering the quick dodge is key to getting good times since the alternative is to actually steer Sonic using the control stick. This is easier said than done.

Another cool feature from past Sonic games is the ability to charge up for a boost of super speed, which is handy for getting out of situations where for some reason you lose all momentum. This boost is charged by collecting rings, which gives them more value when it comes to speed since in the past they were essentially the life metre.

In stage areas involving loops, the camera seamlessly pulls out to a profile view of the stage, making the game look like a 3D HD re-imagining of the Sega Genesis Sonic titles.

Although speed is the number one attraction for Sonic Unleashed, the stages are still open to exploration for gamers who wish to poke around to find hidden artifacts or to complete side quests. The demo at Sony’s press event only showed off this first stage, so we didn’t get to see the Werehog in action, either. Still, this first stage reminded me of the first Sonic game for the Dreamcast, which can only be a good thing.

Posted in Features, PlayStation 3 |