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| Sonic Unleashed; LAST UPDATE: 11/24/2008 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 23 2008, 07:49 PM (6,549 Views) | |
| SoniCalvin | Dec 8 2008, 01:36 PM Post #556 |
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Grand Marshal
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Hey, all. PS3 port of Sonic Unleashed is gonna be released in a couple of days. Meanwhile, a demo's been put up on the Xbox Live Marketplace. I downloaded it, and now I'm here to give my first impression. The demo's basically a run through the daytime level of Apotos. And lemme tell ya. IT IS KICKASS!!! The daytime levels, of course, are incredibly fast, but when I played through the demo, I was astonished! I was shocked! I was amazed! The graphics look good, and Sonic controls (fairly) well, a lot better than the last mainstream Sonic game at least. Because Sonic's a fast character, of course he isn't gonna be able to turn all that well, so... steering him isn't exactly easy. But I guess that's what the Quick Step is for. The camera transitions from 3D to 2D are, indeed, seamless, and they don't really get in the way of the gameplay whatsoever. There were a couple of quick-time events here and there, couple of traps you have to watch out for. The Homing Attack, for Sonic Unleashed, has been assigned to a different button. It took me a couple of minutes to get used to it, because I was always used to jumping and Homing Attack sharing the same button. And his speed? Whenever you've got your Ring Energy meter filled up a bit, you can hold down the X Button to perform the Sonic Boost? Mach speed stages in Sonic 06? The hell with them! They're nothing compared to the Sonic Boost mechanic in Sonic Unleashed! It is fast! And I mean fast! This demo with this one level ALONE got me hooked. I kept coming back, and I kept on replaying the level again, and again, and again, and again! It is that addictive, so I'm assuming the daytime levels are gonna be that addictive as well. I was expecting the nighttime Apotos level to be in there as well, so I could get a taste of the Werehog gameplay. But sadly, it wasn't in there, and thus I won't be able to see how the Werehog plays until I get the full game. Bummer. Still, the daytime levels, from what I've played, seem to manage really well. Expect to see a full review from me, once I get the full game. |
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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| JakMakai | Dec 8 2008, 01:58 PM Post #557 |
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TBRS Radio DJ
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You can drift as Sonic, Soni. IN THE AFRICA STAGE, IT'S SO FUN. |
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| SoniCalvin | Dec 8 2008, 06:05 PM Post #558 |
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Grand Marshal
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I'm aware of the drifting move. Since when the... second or so trailer hit the Internet in May, I think, when it was showcased in the Spagonia trailer. Oh, and the Africa stage is called Mazuri.
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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| JakMakai | Dec 8 2008, 06:20 PM Post #559 |
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TBRS Radio DJ
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Oh i know. I have the game. I just call them by their real world counterparts. And i switch between the two. |
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| SoniCalvin | Dec 8 2008, 06:23 PM Post #560 |
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Grand Marshal
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Whatever fits you. Still, I gotta say, I'm real impressed by the demo. Can't wait to get my hands on the actual game. |
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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| dl316bh | Dec 8 2008, 06:56 PM Post #561 |
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The daytime levels always have looked fun. It's the night stages that have always had me worried. I suspect SEGA might have been worried about them too, since they noticably didn't pack in the level's night stage. Nnngh. I hope when I get to play the game that the night levels don't break the game for me. I've been waiting quite a while for a good Sonic experience again on the home consoles. |
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| frungus | Dec 10 2008, 05:08 PM Post #562 |
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Knight Champion
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Well, I'm back from my long speedrun (pun actually intended) of Sonic Unleashed on the XBox 360 home and entertainment console. I actually love the werehog parts. Of course, Soni, you ARE a little less tolerable then I, so I'm not sure gow you'll like it. If you like God-O-War with your speed, then Unleashed is good. |
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| SoniCalvin | Dec 12 2008, 08:32 PM Post #563 |
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Grand Marshal
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... Frungus? Since the game's announcement, I've always known that the Werehog levels were generally gonna beat-em-ups, like God of War. And I have no doubt that I'll find something to like about the Werehog levels. I'm a fanboy, I wasn't with the other pack of people who were wary of the nighttime stages. Yes, I am less tolerable than you, you get a point for that. What I don't like, however, is the fact that you seem to be assuming that I was never fond of the idea of the nighttime stages. |
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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| SoniCalvin | Dec 28 2008, 11:29 PM Post #564 |
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Grand Marshal
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Hey, how you guys doin'? Bought, played, and finished Sonic Unleashed recently. I'm pretty sure some of you Sonic players, Damien especially, are wondering if this game is any good or not. Well, here's my basic consensus. It's a pretty decent 3D console Sonic game that the series has received in a while. Albeit, it isn't exactly as great as Sonic's previous game, Sonic Chronicles, but I'd say it comes in at a close second. But there are some problems that could've been worked on. Alright, so here we go. Story: 7/10 The story starts at the end of what would be considered the end of a regular adventure for Sonic. Eggman's got a whole fleet of ships up in space, above the Earth, ready to take it by force. Then, Sonic comes along to crash his party, and uses the Chaos Emeralds he had already obtained to transform into Super Sonic, and trash his fleet. When he thinks he has Eggman cornered, however, the good doctor traps Sonic in a forcefield. He had been anticipating this event. He saps the energy out of Sonic and the Emeralds, and fires a gigantic shoop-da-whoop laser beam down on to the planet, which naturally causes it to break into pieces. A giant creature emerges from the hot core of the planet. A creature confirmed to be the very incarnation of darkness, Dark Gaia. It seems that Eggman had been planning this all along. He intended to use Dark Gaia's power to conquer the Earth, and he'd finally achieve his dream in creating Eggmanland. As all of this is taking place, Dark Gaia's emergence has an effect on Sonic as well. More fur grows on his body, his muscle density increases, his giant hands burst out of his gloves, and his teeth grow sharper. He has transformed into a Werehog. By day, he's the blue hedgehog we know and love, but at night, he transforms into this hulking beast. Eggman has no need for the now-drained Chaos Emeralds, and so he jettisons them and Sonic out into space, leaving him to die. However, a mysterious force allows him a safe landing in Apotos, where Sonic meets a small imp-like creature who can't seem to remember who he is. So Sonic nicknames him Chip for his love of desserts. Pretty soon, Sonic and Chip meet up with Tails, and a man named Prof. Pickle, and after learning a bit more about Dark Gaia, they soon learn that they can restore the planet by going to seven different temples around the world, and placing each of the Chaos Emeralds in those temples to bring their power back. While it's a decent story by Sonic standards, as usual, there's bound to be at least a few plotholes here and there. For instance, Eggman is aware of what could happen if the Emeralds got their power back, so he places robot defenses around the temples to keep Sonic at bay. Um... couldn't he just, you know, destroy the temples himself? Maybe there's some kind of mystical force protecting the temples and he can't get to them maybe? I dunno. For some of us SonAmy nuts, there are some scenes here and there, hinting at a little love relationship between the two. But there's one little thing before you go into the final region of the game, Eggmanland. You can talk to Amy, and she'll talk about wanting to go on a date with Sonic. You can choose to say "Nah, I'll pass", or "That could be fun". Now why would Sega place that latter choice in there if Sonic doesn't even show any hints of having a crush on Amy? A lot of people have complained that the one problem recent Sonic games have had is that there can be way too many mainstream characters in a single game. Sonic Team have averted this, and have just stuck to having Sonic, Eggman, Tails, and Amy starring in the game, and that's fine, but I personally would've liked to have seen Knuckles and Shadow in there as well, given that they were originally meant to be in the game. Though I guess Shadow haters can be thankful in regards to that. Okay, now the voice actors. Well, Jason Griffith has been the voice of Sonic ever since the god-awful English dub of Sonic X. Back then, everyone and their grandmother thought he was terrible at the role. I think he did a decent job as Shadow (and he still does), but he really needed to work on Sonic a lot more. The fact that the original Sonic voice cast were replaced by the 4Kids cast beginning with Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Rush didn't really help matters. Sonic still didn't sound that good. But gradually, Jason's Sonic voice grew on me, and he got better and better over time. This new game actually makes it sound like he can pull off Sonic pretty well. His Werehog voice isn't all that bad either, but it sounds way too similar to his Darkspine Sonic and Jet the Hawk voices. Whenever he tries to voice a character with a scratchy voice, he's gotta be able to differentiate them from each other better. Amy Palant, again, sounded off with her Tails voice at the beginning of the Sonic X dub. But, like Jason Griffith with Sonic, she's gotten better over time, and now here, I think she's at her best. I've got no beef with Lisa Ortiz, she's always been the perfect choice for Amy. She just does the role so well. Just listening to her makes me think Lisa's the perfect woman to play this character. And once again, a big thumbs up goes to Mike Pollock in the role of Dr. Eggman. I gotta say Mike's the perfect successor to the late Deem Bristow. He does a great job as the evil scientist. I really like his evil laugh, his proclamations to conquer the world, his banter with Sonic... great fun to listen to. So, you might find some things to like about with the story and the characters here. Unlike Sonic 06, the story here is a good balance. It isn't too serious, and it isn't too funny. Sonic's just on an adventure to save the world, with some lighthearted, comedic moments interspersed throughout. Gameplay: 7/10 Let me start with the hub worlds and entrance stages. The hub worlds are basically where you go around in a village or city, and talk to people, buy stuff, and take on missions, if that's what you want to do. The entrance stages are basically places that contain portals to the actual action stages. It's where you can gather rings, and get power-ups to pull off some new actions. The hub worlds tend to get a bit boring after a couple minutes, so you're probably better off heading immediately to the entrance stages. Gameplay in actual action stages? There are two types of levels. Daytime sections, with regular Sonic, and nighttime sections with the Werehog. In the daytime, Sonic is fast. I mean, really fast. These are the best traditional Sonic levels I have ever played. Well, as far as recent console games go. Right at the get-go, Sonic is fast. Immediately when you push up on the control stick, he starts running real fast. When you collect enough Rings, or defeat enough enemies to fill up a Ring Energy meter, you can hold down the X button to do a Sonic Boost, where Sonic runs at 300 mph. Faster than the mach speed sections in Sonic 06. You'll run through breakable objects, and enemies, no problem. While you're running, you can sidestep dangerous obstacles with the right and left bumper buttons. And when you want to make a long turn while running, you can hold down one of the trigger buttons to drift. Throughout the level, the camera will be behind Sonic at one minute, and then it'll switch to a side view, giving you a sort of nostalgic feel. Just like the good ol' days. And then, it's back to 3D mode. Clever. And then, there's the nighttime stages, where Sonic turns into the Werehog. Basically, you have less speed. You lumber through these stages that are a mix of beat-em-up, and platforming. You'll occasionally run into a group of Dark Gaia's minions, and some of Eggman's robots, so what do you do? Simple. Beat them down. Although, some of the enemies get trickier in later stages, and it can be easy to get gang raped. Sonic's got incredibly stretchy arms in this form, so he can use them to reach out and grab things from far away like objects, enemies, poles, or ledges. In both the daytime and nighttime stages, defeating enemies nets you some EXP points, so you can upgrade your hedgehog and Werehog skills. You're especially gonna need to upgrade the Werehog if you hope to pass the nighttime stages, and Eggmanland. There are also two minigames involving Tails and the Tornado. You press the same face buttons that show up on the screen, and you fire missiles at the targets. Almost like a big quick-time event. In fact, these quick-time events are everywhere in this game, but I'll get to that later. The one problem is that you need to have enough Sun and Moon medals to enter a daytime and nighttime stage respectively, so you gotta search for these things everywhere. And you're busy having too much fun in the daytime levels to even care, so the only time you can search for these medals where time doesn't really matter is in the hub worlds, the entrance stages, and the nighttime stages. In these sections, you gotta explore every nook and cranny for these medals, just so you can have enough to enter a stage, and that's no fun. Why couldn't Sonic Team just give us these stages straight? Hub worlds? Boring. Daytime stages? Awesome. Nighttime stages? Not bad. I mean, they can't hold a candle to God of War, but they're not bad. They can be fun to play for the first ten minutes, but it shouldn't have to take you half an hour to finish a level in a Sonic game. Yeah, that's right. Half an hour. On top of all that, all of the bosses in this game, with the exception of the final boss fight with Dark Gaia, are all good fun. A lot of quick-time events are placed throughout the game. In the daytime levels, for instance, when you are launched into the air by a boost pad, a set of face buttons pops up, and you gotta press these in order before time runs out. If you succeed, you'll get to a higher path. If you fail, it means you'll get on a lower path, or it could mean falling into a bottomless pit in some of the later levels. There are quick-time events in some of the nighttime bosses, in the final fight, and when you take the opportunity to pull off a finishing move on an enemy in the nighttime stages. Couple of problems though. You can't pull off two different finishers on the same type of enemy, so it can get boring to watch the same animation over and over. On top of that, if you fail the quick-time event, the enemy will avoid your finisher, and whatever health you took away from him will be restored, and that sucks bad. Overall, the gameplay's decent, but there are a lot of areas that could've been improved on. Graphics and Design: 7/10 The in-game graphics in Sonic 06 were... well... they were good. A little. But it just doesn't look like something out of a 360/PS3 game. Thankfully, the graphics in Unleashed look a lot better. Human characters, including Eggman, have gone back to that cartoony look that people like a lot. I really like how the humans look, they look like they were taken from a Pixar movie. The backgrounds are nice and pretty, and I really like how a lot of the machines in the game look. Especially Eggman's stuff. Not sure what it is, but looking at the control room he sits in, the place almost reminds me of something out of the 50's, or 40's. I dunno, just look at it, and you might get what I mean. All of the characters look impressive, but it's kind of disappointing that there weren't more robot characters in the daytime levels for Sonic to come across. And all the Dark Gaia enemies in the nighttime levels look a bit too bland and generic. You might get real frustrated at some of the later nighttime levels of the game, as the enemies get tougher and tougher. You might be even more upset at the last level of the game, Eggmanland, which is a merge of daytime and nighttime sections. But if you get frustrated at Eggmanland, then that might be a good thing. It's a lot harder than Eggman themed levels in recent Sonic games have been. Almost like Scrap Brain Zone, or Sonic 3 & Knuckles' Death Egg Zone, where there are traps everywhere that you need to watch out for. Like how an Eggman level should be, where you gotta stay on your toes. Each region of the world in this game is based on real-life locations in the world, so Sonic Team tried to make them look the part. And you know what? They look fantastic. There's Apotos, which is based on Greece, Spagonia (Italy, or Rome I believe), Mazuri (the Savannah), Chun-nan (China), Holoska (Antarctica), Shamar (Egypt, or Arabia I think), Adabat (some place in Asia), and Empire City (New York City). Eggmanland isn't based on any real location, so there's an exception. The Sonic series has always had good music, and Unleashed's music contributes to this fact. Each of the music in each of the regions has music very fitting of its location. I especially like the daytime Mazuri and daytime Holoska stage musics. There's some good bits of theme music thrown in there as well. Surprisingly, Eggman's theme music from Sonic 06 returns. Surprising, considering that that game didn't do too well with the public. The game's main vocal theme, Endless Possibilities, is performed by Jaret Reddick of Bowling for Soup, and it sounds pretty good. There's also a theme that plays during the ending credits that best describes Sonic and Chip's friendship. It's slow and corny for a Sonic game, but hey, I like it. I almost cried. There's also a lot of orchestral music in this game as well, Eggman's theme included. It goes to show that sometimes, Sonic doesn't always need rock music, as orchestral music will do the job just fine as well. The main instrumental, orchestral theme, the World Theme as it's called, fits Sonic perfectly. Sonic Team hired the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra to perform it. Yeah, you read that correctly. The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. The same people who performed some of the music for Kingdom Hearts II. Freakin' amazing. Overall: 7/10 While not as good as Sonic Chronicles, Unleashed is definitely another solid entry in the series, and one of the more decent 3D Sonic games the series has seen in years. It's a pretty good game, but it's got some glaring problems that need fixing. It's a step in the right direction, but it's definitely not the return to glory that this franchise needs right now. Is it worth a play? Oh yeah, definitely. But you might want to rent it first before deciding whether you want to actually own it or not. Now, seeing as how I've played the 360/PS3 version, that is of course of the version of the game that I have reviewed. Any Wii/PS2 owners reading this are probably wondering what that port of the game is like. Go find out for yourselves. Keep in mind that if I don't have a game, or a port of a game, then I can't review it. |
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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| dl316bh | Dec 29 2008, 03:50 AM Post #565 |
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I'm going to end up renting this game as soon as I possibly can. I really do want to play through it and decide the games quality for myself. That said, your review was rather impartial for a rabid Sonic fan, so it's carrying a lot more weight with me, so you know. I really hope the good spots of the game are a sign of things to come. I don't care what anyone says; the hedgehog is still salvagable. |
![]() ![]() Damiens Omens: My review blog | |
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| SoniCalvin | Dec 29 2008, 10:35 AM Post #566 |
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Grand Marshal
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Well, I may be a big Sonic fan, but c'mon. Not everything's perfect. I mean, with Unleashed, I knew there might be some problems here and there.
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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| WhiteRaven | Dec 29 2008, 07:42 PM Post #567 |
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Banner Contributer
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Nice review ^^ Yeah, everything has it's inperfections, but I usually over look those (which is a lot easier to do when there's a more good than bad). I can't wait to play this game, even though it's going to take forever before I can >w< The hedgehog shall live on! LIVE ON I SAY!!! |
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| frungus | Jan 6 2009, 05:02 PM Post #568 |
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Knight Champion
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Yeah. I beat this game on Christmas Eve. It was a great game, I hated the Gaia Colossus battle, but actually like the very final battle, and Eggmanland is.... good. When the credits to the game ended, I went... 'That was REALLY cool....' Oh, and check 'dis. Yup. |
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| dl316bh | Mar 16 2009, 02:17 AM Post #569 |
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I reviewed Sonic Unleashed on my blog. Links in my signature, of course. Feel free to leave a comment there to let me know your thoughts or the like. I packed the game up and sent it back yesterday. I'm surprised, because I almost didn't want to send it back. Probably a good sign. |
![]() ![]() Damiens Omens: My review blog | |
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| SoniCalvin | Mar 16 2009, 06:26 AM Post #570 |
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Grand Marshal
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I know this probably won't matter, considering you returned it, but apparently, there's more DLC along the way. Since you found the game to be decent with several flaws throughout, not sure if you'd find DLC a good idea. |
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Adam's Leather Punk Blog Update: I am mighty pissed | |
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