Hoggin'
I miss the old days. Sonic was a major influence on me as a kid. He's the reason I ever picked up a pencil to draw, and his old games were absolute classics. But things have changed since the death of the Genesis (which didn't go down easy, with all the CD and 32X life support which didn't do much.)
My favorite hog has become a joke after those days, with his developer's inability to make a 3d Sonic game that genuinely works the way it should. The worst known offender being Sonic '06. Sonic has lost his speed, and he only seemed to be getting worse.
While his handheld games have been decent (as they payed back to his 2D roots), what Sonic needed to return to everyone's radar was a console game that trumps over the competition.
Sonic Unleashed...is not that game. It could have been, but it isn't. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.
The environments are beautiful, and I mean beautiful. The amazing team Massive Black was hired to do some of the concept art, and it shows. The graphics are pretty great for the most part. I only have one issue - Normal Sonic's mouth is on the side of his face. Why?
There are some levels with excelent music, such as Greece and Arabia, while not everything is great, in my oppinion. The voice acting on the end of the annoying character Chip (that was obviously intended to only exist in this game, thankfully) is pretty terrible, while Sonic and Eggman have some decent voices.
I was suprised how few established characters showed up in this game other than the two mainstays and the one newcomer (only Tails and Amy) , and how seldomly they actually appear do anything . I was expecting to see Knuckles eventually, but no luck. Thank goodness they didn't have Shadow anywhere, though.
The best parts of the game are easily the daytime stages where you're normal Sonic speeding around areas, shifting from 2D perspective to 3D to 2+1/2D. It feels like the 90's classics again, but with a decent use of actual 3D. Sonic plays like a living race car, and the shifting mechanic fixes a major problem the old 3d games had. This is the correct direction they should be taking Sonic.
Now, the night stages are something you never hear anything positive. They are a watered down version of God of War. It's true, but they aren't horrible. They were clearly made for the sake of adding variety in the types of gameplay, which every modern game needs. I can't say I liked them much, but they were ok for what they were, and not abysmal like many want to believe. But the werehog concept is still a bit stupid.
Bottom line, this isn't the A-grade game that the hedgehog deserves to have made in order to come back to his original status, but it's a moderatly good game that'd make for a decent weekend rental. If Sonic can't have an amazing game, he should at least have one that's decent.
