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Do You Hold Any Hope For Sonic Unleashed?

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Well?

The E3 Trailer is a mixed bag in my opinion. The first half is pretty awesome. It does look like Sonic Unleashed will lack the complexity of its 16-bit predecessors (oh God, what a thing to say). It's impossible to tell from a video alone, but it seems as if there's little exploration and more of the "push right on the control pad and let us do the work" sort of gameplay that the 3D Sonic games have long been criticised over.

Still, I can't deny that I'm excited about the pretty pretty graphics. Sonic grinding down a rail that's suspended over miles and miles of suburbs? Yes pls. I can deal with that.

I also like the dragon-themed loop-de-loop. It reminds me of Snake Road from the Dragon Ball Z series.

(Yeah, I just defended Sonic and made a reference to DBZ. May as well take me out back and put a bullet through my head.)

I'm pretty skeptical about the werewolf--er, werehog gameplay, though. It looks like Mr Hedgehog zips through cityscapes whereas Mr Shaggypants must grind to a halt and pound things with his fists a la the Hulk. It's generally not a good idea to stop the music in the middle of--well, I'll leave you to make up your own clever sex metaphor.

There's even a puzzle that involves putting some kind of object on a pedestal to open a door. Hey! You know what I don't want to do in a Sonic game? Put an object on a pedestal to open a door!

Related Links:

Trailer Review: Sonic Unleashed
Sonic Unleashed Wii: Should Dimps be trying harder?
Where Is Yu Suzuki?


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Roto13 said:

We've all been burned by Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes and they still don't realize we all just want to run.

"The new Sonic game will be mostly side scrolling."

*everyone leans in*

"It will be blisteringly fast and you only play as Sonic.*

*everyone leans in closer*

"Except for the parts where you stop and fight a bunch of robots"

*everyone gets punched in the face*

July 17, 2008 1:34 AM

Sam said:

The normal Sonic bits do look gorgeous.

July 17, 2008 4:44 AM

Nemo Incognito said:

I thought this trailer would be trouble because it plays right into the neurosis of people who whine about "waaaah, Sonic should only be about playing as Sonic and going as fast as possible, that's what classic Sonic was" (actually, no it wasn't).  I'm not going to write this game off because it doesn't conform to some big baby's narrow idea of what Sonic should be.  If the fighting bits are fun they should provide a decent alternative/relief to the speedspeedspeed bits.

July 17, 2008 7:58 AM

Demaar said:

The regular speedy parts look rad. The fighting bits remind me of Knuckles' gameplay in the adventure games (Which was sometimes fun), but are far more campier due to the werehog factor.

The music is probably the worst part. I miss Julien-K. I also miss Crush40. Hell, I even miss those randoms that did Sonic Riders and Secret Ring's music...

July 17, 2008 10:05 AM

Nadia Oxford said:

I have a soft spot for Crush 40's Sonic Adventure-Sonic Adventure 2 anthems. They will be missed.

July 17, 2008 10:58 AM

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about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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