Sonic Unleashed

Honestly, if S3&K hadn't been released back in the day, and it was released by Sega now, it'd be heaped with scorn. New characters, many glitches, et cetera, et cetera. It's just the way the 'fans' react to anything in the last 10 years.

 

IGN posted some first look impressions after Sega showed it off during Gamers Day. It's worth the read.

Apparently Sonic can also drift around corners like a real car, and they're making the Wii version compatible with the Gamecube and Classic controllers.

Also new screens.

 

Looking pretty slick! One thing I'm concerned about, though, is the fact that all the environments are based on real places in the world, instead of using the surreal approach that the classic games took. This is a lot of what made Sonic enjoyable, because you already knew the concept of a blue Hedgehog speeding through various places at the speed of sound was absurd enough—they weren't going to sugar coat it.

They could have an amazing looking Green Hill motif going on with this fancy new graphics engine. It's a pity, really.

 

There get's to be a point where enough is enough. Yes, Sonic 2 added Tails, and Sonic 3 added Knuckles. But the characters served a purpous. Tails, the sidekick, Knuckles, the rival.

It wasn't soley the addittion of new characters that have ruined the new games, it's more the poorly thought out desicions regarding the use of the new characters, and poor choices elsewhere in development, that make people hate the new games.

 

People hate the new characters because they're not Sonic, Tails and Knuckles and as such don't hit their nostalga spot. Any argument which says it's because they're badly thought out etc. etc. is just someone trying to justify their anger over the fact that Sonic games are moving forward and they're not.

With the exception perhaps of Shadow. He's got that whole annoying thing going on there. But every other character is fine.

This game though seems to be trying to check all the boxes people bitched about back in 2006, I mean people where posting incessently going

"Omg they should make it a 2.5D sidescroller"
"Omg Robotnik should be the main villain"
"Omg the main plot should be about Sonic collecting all the Emeralds"
"Omg Sonic / Tails / Knuckles / Eggman should be the only people in it"
"Omg the game needs more development time"

So Sega announce a 2.5D sidescroller with Robotnik as the main villain, the main aim of the game being to collect the emeralds to reform the planet, with (so far) non of the extra characters and an engine with 3 years of dev time behind it, and the responce is "this is a clusterfuck".

I agree the game needs more "sonic-esque" environments but having seen the screenshots and videos so far, the graphics seem less "real-world" than Sonic 06, so some levels may be more Sonicish than others. I'm hoping the first zone might be good.

As for the warewolf thing, people bitch to me how "stupid" it is, well, it's only what AoSTH did every single week, and a blue hedgehog in itself is a rediculous idea to begin with so, how it can be considered inplauseable is entirely beyond my comprehension.

If the 2.5D sections play anywhere nearly as fun as the old games then I'll giggle like a school girl, even if the plot revolves around Robotnik trying to turn the planet into a giant dildo. So I reserve judgement until gameplay.

 

Your thoughts are kind of what ours should be. We should be thankful Sonic Team didn't take another leap forward after the Michael Bay bullshit that was Sonic '06, and as far as I'm concerned, we should have all breathed a heavy sigh of relief as soon as that first trailer was put online.

Weather the 3D sections are SSR-esque or not, I'm glad I get to play those without having to tilt the remote back and forth like Sonic is some kind of vehicle (though like I said before, the drifting around corners thing sounds pretty cool). As long as Sonic plays as smoothly in 3D as he did before Heroes, I'm happy, and I'm pretty sure a lot of you would be too.

Not to mention we've only seen about 2 minutes of gameplay. As has been reiterated time and time again, we can't judge jack shit based on what we've seen. What we've seen has involved running at breakneck speed across a pretty simple looking landscape, kind of like the "run, run, run" attitude Rush had attached to it. I've read several interviews, articles, and gameplay impressions over the past few weeks, and nearly all of them have mentioned that while there's plenty of "run, run, run" there's also plenty of traditional platforming to compliment it.

I dunno about you guys, but I'm going to sit back, relax, and enjoy what I'm seeing, because it's what I want to see. And I can't help but be optimistic over the fact that they spent those three years working on the engine, and that the team behind the 360/PS3 version is completely new to the Sonic universe, with plenty of experience working on games for other companies. The new project leader also seems like he knows what we want, and what he wants, and what his team wants. From what I can tell, there's a level of cooperation and deditcation in there that surpasses what we've seen from Sonic development teams in the past.

So yeah. I'm optimistic. But you know what? Even if it bombs, I'll just be glad it wasn't another Sonic '06.

 

No, because were it released now, that wouldn't be your golden standard and you all would think it's shite.

 

You're right BUT keep in mind that every time Sonic Team seems to move forward, they take two steps back. We don't trust Sonic Team. At least I don't and yes, even after reading that preview I'm still skeptical. I mean they didn't actually PLAY the game, they just saw it right? There's still plenty of time for them to blow it. I'm just approaching with caution is all.

On another note:

FUCK YEAH!

 

Apart from the framerate issues, which I am worried they won't fix, the game looks a lot better than STH 06 so I hope we are out of the woods of another game like that. And yeah I miss the sort of Sonic looking zones, even Sonic Heroes had them so I don't see why this can't. Of course we have only seen a couple of zones so far, but I am worried they will all look like villages.

 

I dunno, Mario Kart Wii Multiplayer runs at 30FPS, and I didn't notice that badly(Except my skill decreased considerably... smaller screen, I swear!). I never noticed it in the Launch Trailer either, so I doubt it'll be room for much trouble with the quality.

It seems like they are making all realistic outings this time, minus princesses and castle towns. I, myself, hope to run around in New York a bit, laughing at all the people stuck in traffic jams. It seems like when Eggman shattered the Earth, he shattered our Earth, not like anybody didn't know that. But I seriously hope there are some sort of extras, and hope that when they claimed no multi-player, that they didn't mean that there would be no online experiences. If this game is as good as they claim, I want to race without split screen.

 

As long as I'm not falling through the floor and the camera angles are taken care of I'll be pretty happy. Good level design and gameplay innovations will be a bonus considering what we've got recently in the past.

 

I want it to be good though, not just "Better than before"
Because really, it's not hard to beat what we got before.

 

From the IGN article.

*shivers at the memory of Sonic 06 missions and loading times*

Althought the article boosted my hopes for this game, that part doesn't convince me completely.
What do you think the overworld will be like? A Sonic Adventure type (If done well) would rock, but since the game has a 2D look maybe the overworld will be like the Sonic Advance 3 one.
I hope the sidequests will be more similar to the Sonic Adventure 1/2 ones.

That Europe stage looks great, but Tweaker is right, a Green Hill like stage would have been much better.

 

Guys come on, all of sonic team's concepts are great. They're all just poorly executed. Just look at sonic 06. If they had finished it, it would have been better than it was. Heroes was pretty good aswell. The only thing I disliked about that, is the running on butter physics and the overshiny models.

 

I wouldn't go as far as saying all of their concepts are "great", as much as I'd be willing to say they're "intriguing". Sonic '06 probably would've been a welcome addition to the series if it hadn't been so glitch-ridden and blatantly unfinished. Granted we still would've had to watch all the "Sonic's dead, let's bring him back with the Chaos Emeralds and beastiality" bullshit, but whatever, as long as the game had flowed better than it did.

However there's no saving grace for Shadow The Hedgehog, save for some of the level design, though most of it was pretty bland to begin with.

 

Sonic being a "minor" character in SA2 was great? A game with 12 characters acting in teams of three was great? Shadow with a machine gun was great? Anything about Sonic 06' was great? These were all terrible concepts. Sure some of them had fun parts to them, but it only got progressively worse. Here we finally do have a great 'basic' concept, but it is ruined by people who do not know what a Sonic game is.

No one wants a werewolf, no one wants Amigo characters when you select to play as Sonic alone(unless it is something like Tails flying the plane), no one wants a rushbar dumbing the entire game down, no one wants Sonic to exist in the real world rather than his own entirely unique fantasy world, and I could probably keep going. The concept is flawed due to all of these things as they went too far with it. They need to get someone who can see past the bullshite and realise that 2D is not automatically good, it needs to have all the other elements as well. It is as simple as playing something like Sonic 2 to see why Sonic was so popular. This game would never have any of that foolish stuff.

One thing I am curious about is if they will even add special stages.

Also just to point things out to Deathbyteacup. Eggman is not the main villian, there is another one and it is likely that Zerg thing. People bitch about new characters because they suck firstly, and secondly they steal the spotlight from the already full cast, including Sonic himself which is retarded. Remember when Sonic was the main character of all Sonic games titled "Sonic *" ? And yes, I know he is here, which is great, but why is Tails not following him? And why a damn alien? At least something like Chaos was good.

I noticed some other mentions the environments, and they are completely right, something like Palmtree Panic or GHZ would look great in this game. Instead we have brown Italian town with hedges.

 

The more things change the more they stay the same

*sigh*

 

Topic TL;DR: You guys are all gonna bitch no matter what they do.

 

Well, Sonic Team keeps trying new things to hope that us fans will have fun with. They fail... often. In return we don't see these ideas again. Fishing? Done. Team work? Done. Guns? Done.Amigos and Telekinesis? Possibly done. This game is the closest they have got to realizing that we hate these gimmicks. The werewolf may be good, might be bad. If bad Sonic Team will likely can it, having it never be seen again.

I bet that if the werewolf is a failure, this will be the final step for them realizing that Sonic must go back to the way he was. Afterwards the next game will be it. That will likely be the answer.