Admit it guys, there has not been a great (or even very good) console Sonic game in years. I think it would be awesome if they just re-made Sonic 2 in HD (a la Street Fighter 2 HD Remix) and release it on all of the platforms' virtual stores. I would gladly pay over $10 for something along those lines.

The new sonic that they showed at E3 looks decent

It looked decent, the Sonic stuff looked awesome, the Werehog stuff just looked naff. I don't know why Sonic Team feel they can't just have a Sonic game where you just play as Sonic. I loved Sonic Adventure as a kid but even fishing as Big the Cat was just unusual.

An XBLA release? A true Sonic game perhaps? Instead of trying to keep up with Mario's succesful reinvention. Mario in space works, Mario in Super Smash Bros works, Mario in a go-kart works. Sonic saving Planet Earth, kissing humans, turning into a 'werehog' or making friends with a talking cat that fishes. Sorry to rant but he is a childhood hero of mine. I just feel that Sonic should do something new but enjoyable!

Sorry!

unfortunately, this isnt helping http://www.destructoid.com/sega-announces-sonic-and-the-black-knight-96293.phtml

i don't think it's gonna happen... they could maybe make a few more sonic adventure games, those were pretty good imo.

I think Sonic Unleashed might save the franchise, dear god, I hope it does!

Sonic CD it´s my all time favorite.
Very hopefull of Sonic Unleashed and looking forward to play sonic chronicles the dark brotherhood.
Fingers crossed

Yeah, Sonic doesn't get many good games nowadays.

I thought the DS sonic game was pretty good though

I've gone and lost all hope that Sonic will ever be good again.  As much as I'd like to think that Sonic Unleashed will be good I just can't do it. 

Sonic's time has past. If they made a really good Sonic game I'd probably play it, out of nostalgia more than anything.

I think Unleashed will be decent however they wasted a chance and re-booting the franchise with the next gen Sonic the Hedgehog, they've wasted the name so....I don't see where they can go from here.

Well someone is remaking Sonic 2 in HD: I'm not sure its Sega though. If you never played Sonic 3 & Knuckles nows the time. Also, Sonic Rush for the DS was the last good sonic game I played.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, in part due to Sonic's reappearance in my life via Super Smash Bros Brawl.  The 2D nature of the fighting in that game, as well as some top-notch character controls, means Sonic shines: holding down and tapping B for the spin-dash should elicit excitement from any fanboy of old.  There's the homing attack (circa Sonic 3, Sonic Adventure), the skyward launch from the bright red spring, the blurred circular motion of the 'hog's legs.  When activating Sonic's finishing move - a 30 second transformation into a hi-def Super Sonic - I really remembered how much I loved this character.

Not long thereafter I played the 3D proper title, Sonic the Hedgehog, on the PS3.  All I can say is fuck that shit.  Sonic is slow.  The bugs are ubiquitous.  Shadow the Hedgehog rides a fucking motorcycle?  The level design is utterly flawed and removes any real control from the player.  Boosts and springs send you on your linear path to the extent that you don't even need to hold forward.  Easy, simplistic, generally bollocks, seemingly a dire attempt at recreating Sonic Adventure's rapid play style.

But that's demographics.  Search for Sonic on a community like DeviantArt.  You'll be inundated with drawings by fourteen year olds, of new! really! cool! hedgehogs, borne from their imagination in the vein of Shadow or this new abomination, Silver the Hedgehog.  Pregnant two-tailed foxes.  Or, worse yet, you'll see the growing popularity of the sideshows.  Big the Cat, Amy Rose, the vamp chick (none of which really stand up to classic Tails & Knuckles) making out with each other.  And there lies the problem.  Sonic remains a game marketed to kiddies - albeit a new generation - and so the games have a very low standard to reach; furthermore, these kids have no recollection of the Good Old Days.  To them, Sonic wielding a sword  might seem perfectly legit.

We've grown up, but the games, the marketing, has not.  It's no wonder that most Sonic games since Dreamcast have fallen short of our expectations: we expect Sonic to be as fast, slick and full of attitude, speeding through levels only to come into contact with some massive new Robotnik invention.  We don't expect Sonic to be standing around conversing with humans.

But kids are buying these games.  Kids probably love Silver the Hedgehog.  If Sega and Sonic Team is still making a buck from watered down, neutered versions of their landmark character, who am I to criticise them, really?

But that's demographics.  Search for Sonic on a community like DeviantArt.  You'll be inundated with drawings by fourteen year olds, of new! really! cool! hedgehogs, borne from their imagination in the vein of Shadow or this new abomination, Silver the Hedgehog.  Pregnant two-tailed foxes.  Or, worse yet, you'll see the growing popularity of the sideshows.  Big the Cat, Amy Rose, the vamp chick (none of which really stand up to classic Tails & Knuckles) making out with each other.  And there lies the problem.  Sonic remains a game marketed to kiddies - albeit a new generation - and so the games have a very low standard to reach; furthermore, these kids have no recollection of the Good Old Days.  To them, Sonic wielding a sword  might seem perfectly legit.

We've grown up, but the games, the marketing, has not.  It's no wonder that most Sonic games since Dreamcast have fallen short of our expectations: we expect Sonic to be as fast, slick and full of attitude, speeding through levels only to come into contact with some massive new Robotnik invention.  We don't expect Sonic to be standing around conversing with humans.

But kids are buying these games.  Kids probably love Silver the Hedgehog.  If Sega and Sonic Team is still making a buck from watered down, neutered versions of their landmark character, who am I to criticise them, really?"

Plus I'm convinced that Shadow and Rouge the Bat were bought in ONLY because at the time, in the UK at least, dunno about the US, kids were getting WAY into like skateboarding and like heavy metal.  Goths started becoming like a big thing and like I think this was SEGA's pitch to them.  Sonic got SOAP shoes to let him grind and Oh here's a DARK Sonic with like hover shoes who can do tricks and a Bat cos goths love bats.

From there they just totally lost there way.  Look at the latest run of Sonic games.  The one on the 360 was utter garbage. Sonic kissing a human ?  Dude What ?... this whole Sonic is a Werewolf stuff... Even more Dude What ?.  NO... What are you doing ?  This game looked AWESOME untill you brought this announcement out.  *sigh*

I'm so like disheartened with the whole Sonic universe now.  You look at Mario and like Mario Galaxies on the Wii and you think WHY can't Sonic be this good.
"

And that whole thing you mentioned, about the "way cool" goth-references and grinding, stinks of your favourite band selling their soul to the record companies; it's more about accessibility than quality control; sales, not suave.  Which is why you have Sonic running like a girl or becoming a werewolf.  Those are not good ideas.  The kiddy Sonic market will buy them.  But they are not good.

The best iteration of Sonic I've seen in ages actually appears in a Mario game (Smash Bros Brawl).  That is a pretty good summary of the state of affairs regarding the Sega and Nintendo mascots I guess."

I would never admit that it's Sonic's time to die. Many franchises looked like they were on their way out, but they have come back fighting.

Sonic, however, is hanging by a thread. The franchise has been slipping since Sonic Heroes, and it culminated with Sonic 06. I must say, that game broke my heart.

Sonic Unleashed shows promise, but the Werehog gimmick slightly ruins it for me. It might very well be enjoyable, but what SEGA really needs to do is make a game just about speed... no cheesy gimmick, no annoying side-charachters - just Sonic ripping through stages at high speed.

Sonic with a sword for god's shaje what are they thinking :-(

Sonic with a sword for god's shaje what are they thinking :-(

Sonic has changed so much....

Lets hope that new Sonic game will do the trick. ;)

Sonic is a warrior.

I am excited about Sonic Unleashed it sounds good also the Sonic RPG also looks good but Sonic and the Black Knight I am not so sure of.

Unleashed looks good except the night stuff looks borning. Really there were only 3 good sonic games so yeah.

My favorite  Sonic game is Sonic 2 and my favorite 3D Sonic game was Sonic Adventure.

I will get unleashed, but I don't expect too much right now.

Personally I don't think we're "way overdue" as to me the last awesome Sonic game was Sonic Rush.
Really while the idea of Sonic with a sword is really silly, might as well give it a chance. Can't be as Shadow and guns...
With Unleashed...It's really going to be hit or miss. More likely the daytime parts will be awesome, Sonic style while the night time parts are the worrying part of the game.
As long as the camera and controls are tight then it'll be fine I think and if the stretch arms can help with ledges then it also helps.

I liked Sonic Rush, but thats been it for a while. I'm hoping unleashed will be good.

Not seen anything decent from that lot since Sonic 2, now that was a classic.

I think you guys are forgetting that there were a few crap Sonic spinoffs even back in the old days of Sonic 2D gaming. We had things on the Game Gear like Sonic Drift and Sonic Labyrinth. Also, Sonic Spinball on the MegaDrive. So spinoffs certainly isn't something new, and the 'Story book' Sonic games, such as Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight are basically spinoffs to me. They don't destroy the canonicity of the Sonic universe because I can see them as spinoffs.

Sonic Adventure one was the first foray into 3D Sonic. It had bad camera angles, but overall it wasn't that bad for a first go. It introduced Big the Cat, which wasn't a huge deal at the time. One new character isn't too bad. Sonic Adventure two, I believe, was much better than Sonic Adventure one. The camera was still a bit iffy, but mostly improved. The gameplay was better, the story was pretty epic for a Sonic game. Even the introduction of Shadow and Rouge wasn't that bad and added to the story well I thought. The whole hero side and dark side of the story added depth and replayability to me. The two Sonic Adventure games combined was the first time we really saw a proper story within the Sonic franchise and I felt it was handled rather well.

It was only after Sonic Adventure two that things really went downhill though, and that was with the re-introduction of Shadow the Hedgehog. In Sonic Adventure two he was pretty cool, and they really ruined that. Sonic Heroes, gameplay wise, was pretty annoying to me, but at least they didn't make any new characters, just brought back the Chaotix team, which was like a happy trip down memory lane. I haven't played the Sonic DS games, but I don't understand why they had to bring out new characters for them both. Then, Sonic 06.. Well, it had potential. The gameplay felt even worse than Sonic Adventure, but it was the story that really bugged me about that game. Even Silver I didn't mind at all, his gameplay sections brought something new to the game and were more enjoyable than Sonic's. Maybe if they had worked on the problems, the glitches, the camera, it would have been the game it had the potential to be. The mach speed sections of Sonic were kinda fun!

When Sega introduce a new character, I can see that they are looking for ways to vary the gameplay, and I agree with most of you that too much variety can make the game feel mishapen. I believe the reason that they introduce the 'Warehog' into Sonic Unleashed was to add an element of combat to break up the speed of Sonic's levels, similar to how Sonic 06 was broken up between Sonic (Speed), Shadow (Combat) and Silver (Puzzle and slower platforming). In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic doesn't have much platforming action throughout the day time stages, it's all about creating a good pace, and having too many platform elements would break that up I think. But adding in the 'Warehog' gives you platform elements and combat elements.

As awesome as the Sonic Unleashed daytime stages look, the gameplay would get very boring after a while if it was the same; racing through stages, and that is why, I think we have the 'Warehog' stages, to break that up and add variety. As long as Sega doesn't add anything extra to that formula, I think it will be balanced enough to work.

But why they decided on a 'Warehog' character is beyond me. They could have just brought in Knuckles, and let him have all the platform and combat bits. Knuckles hasn't been awesome in a long time :(

It is about time we got a good 3D Sonic game to be proud of the last really good one was Sonic Adventure 2.

I've never understood how Sonic could work in 3D. Tha game is all about speed and on some levels, complete memorisation. In 3D, that dynamic just doesn't work and that's been proved over and over again. I suppose they could release a new 2D Sonic but it would always seem dated no matter how it was done.

Hell yeah I think we are overdue for a good Sonic game I wish Sega would take a page from Capcom's book and release a new Sonic game that's 2D and only includes the original cast.

I thought Sonic and the Secret Rings was great, but i have no interest in playing Unleashed.