Sonic Unleashed?

[j-man]

They were probably cloned from the same discarded used condom.

[Ngangbius]

New video of the game in action from the convention:

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/20914

Holding the up button with occasional QTE! yay.

Also that flying Chihuahua thing is confirmed to be in this game.

[P.P.A.]

These cartoony humans look awful.

[Esrever]

New Wii screenshots:

http://www.sonicstadium.org/media-n-stu ... ii-looking

It's actually a pretty admirable facsimile of the look of the 360/ps3 title, considering the hardware it's running on. Looks pretty decent for a Wii title.

[Isuka]

The gameplay bits in the trailers looked like a friggin' superplay. And make no mistake, that shit looks like it'll take several tries until you can clear a stage without constantly running into enemies. It's almost the Burnout Dominator of the Sonic games.

[FlashTHD]

It's actually a pretty admirable facsimile of the look of the 360/ps3 title, considering the hardware it's running on. Looks pretty decent for a Wii title.

Doesn't stop it from having enough jaggies to cut your eyes just by playing it, and holy moly both forms of Sonic look terrible. But, err, the HUD is nice (except, look at Weresonic's lifebars - spot anything familiar?).

[Majestic Joey]

That Chihuahua at the end scared the the crap out of me.

[RocketPunch]

The layout for this particular level is interesting. Previous 3-D titles had linear paths surrounded by open space, creating the illusion that the level was more open ended. Of course, that wasn't the case since traveling too far off the path would send you falling to your doom. This level has an ultralinear pathway that seems pretty narrow and closed off, but avoids the whole bottomless pit problem. Now if there really are alternate routes - REAL alternate routes through the level and not those minor, 3 second diversions we usually get - then this game might have found a good balance between high speed, straightforwardness and exploration driven levels with new paths to follow.

Other than that, the gameplay looks weird to me. Sonic seems to slide through the course rather than running through it at a controllable pace. That balcony section with the three robots has him dashing across the entire platform past enemies into walls in the blink of an eye.

And finally, even though I've given up pining for the days of classic level designs, couldn't Sega have at least made these "real world" settings consistent with the Sonic level tropes we're familiar with? For instance, a tropical beach level in Hawaii, an ancient ruins level in China, a casino level in some city with tons of lights (Vegas strip, Times Square, Ginza, etc.)... Unfortunately, that might make the game look too much like Sonic Adventure and I imagine they're trying to showcase Sonic in new environments. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse when it comes to the level design topic, but it's cool to think about the brilliant, detailed real world levels we could get on nextgen systems. Emerald Coast in HD ftw.

[j-man]

Wii version looks shite. Not that I was gonna buy it anyway, I made that mistake with Secret Rings.

Galaxy looks amazing. It's the shaders, or something. Where are Sega going wrong?

[DackAttac]

I think it's mainly Galaxy was supposed to look good on the Wii. They're shooting for pretty good on the PS3, and downgrading it what they have to for the Wii.

[Esrever]

I think Galaxy excels largely because of it's art direction and the extremely limited geometry requirements of it's environments. It's easier to make things look nice when they are floating by themselves in a giant void.

Also, Galaxy had plenty of bad jaggies too, as do most Wii games when viewed on a monitor instead of a standard def TV.


Honestly I thought Unleashed looks pretty decent compared to other Wii titles! (Although obviously it doesn't come close to the ps3/360 version.)



But I'm not sure it really matters when the gameplay still looks so broken. Part of why I'm glad the Wii version exists is because -- with it's own set of level designs -- it gives Sega two chances to make a game that doesn't play terribly.

[DackAttac]

The latter half of the video looked far more fun. After the QTE's, when it appeared they were making some honest attempts at level design.

That balcony section with the three robots has him dashing across the entire platform past enemies into walls in the blink of an eye.

I was actually kind of happy to see that cheap Rush-borne "dash ahead effing fast and take out everyone you touch" move was inappropriate in some scenarios. You'll notice the guy playing had no problems when he just used the homing attack.

[gr4yJ4Y]

The colors for the Wii version still look unnecessarily darker than the PS360 version... Sonic looks the same color as he does in SA2. It seems like the Wii hardware should be able to handle that. Maybe it doesn't look right being brighter with the Wii's inferior lighting capabilities.

[gr4yJ4Y]

Make no mistake, that shit looks like it'll take several tries until you can clear a stage without constantly running into enemies.

I would gather that GameVideos would only do one take on recording footage for the game and the player got an S ranking. Sounds like it might actually be too easy. But then again it is only one of the first levels.

[P.P.A.]

The rumour of Fang and Robotnik-Walrus was confirmed fake.
http://blogs.sega.com/sonic/2008/08/20/lack-t-weasel/
Now, that isn't very surprising. Much more shocking however is that the current brand manager of Sonic does not even know who Fang is.

[DackAttac]

I'm not surprised that was fake.

But oh God, that was just twisting the blade.

[RocketPunch]

Doesn't Fang have a profile on the official Sonic site? It's not like he's been gone THAT long, having appeared in Sonic Gems Collection and SA:DX's Game Gear minigames. And as that article said, he's even on the cover of some Archie comic. All of these have been in the past five years (?). There's really no excuse not to know who he is, especially if you're supposed to be managing the brand... whatever that means.

[James McGeachie]

When talking about the Wii version you should probably keep in mind it's actually being developed in tandem with the PS2 version, so it's probably the exact same build.

Sonic and the Black Knight is looking better visually in stills than Wii Unleashed though, sporting a better Sonic model, lighting and shadows, however obviously it wont feature anything even close to as fast as Unleashed so it wont have to deal with rendering a shitload at once.

[Yami CJMErl]

Funny thing--if one was in charge of hiring these "brand managers", you'd think they'd try to make sure they knew AT LEAST as much, if not more, about the brand they're in charge of than the goddamn fans do.

[Zeta]

I'm so fucking sick of Wii games being developed with the PS2 in mind. The Wii can do more than a fucking PS2. Hell, the GAMECUBE could do more than a damn PS2.

[Ngangbius]

It is because of easy money and PS2 is the last last-gen gaming system that people still buy on a regular basis.

Also, if the Wii was on the same power level as the PS360, then any PS2 support would have dwindled in a much faster rate than what we have now.

[FlashTHD]

Quexinos at Retro posted this magnificent little excerpt from what sounds like a "pro" reviewer impression. Didn't say who did it - anyone recognize it?

Some parts of the level are a bit on-rails, but you can still go in every direction you'd like. Running is nice and fast, with some quick time events and the occasional wall jumping. Switching rails while grinding is as easy as hitting either shoulder button. As it should be, the emphasis really is on speed, combined with actual platforming (timing your jumps).

The werehog sections weren't playable, but as cliché as it is, they seemed horrible. They were too slow indeed, mostly when Sonic actually had to tiptoe over small boardwalks across water and a ravine. Defeating masses of enemies seems fun for about a couple of seconds, but the camera during fighting is awful too. One part did really remind me of Ristar though, as Sonic the Werehog had to use his strechy arms to swing from pole to pole as well.

When I asked the developer why they made up the werehog part, she said they felt "Sonic shouldn't be all about speed."

Wait, what? Don't the people at Sega themselves even know what THE icon of speed in video gaming in all about? I decided not to discuss the matter, but she did tell me the game will be 50 percent running and 50 percent werehog. Guess this will receive two marks upon launch: a 9 and a 3, or something in that vicinity. The running levels actually have that potential, unlike the werehog parts.

God. Finally something that attempted to top Jeremy Parish's classic "7 WAYS TO -SAVE- SONIC" brain fart at 1UP. This, it's just stunningly dumbfounded. Nice play on the rep's part too, even though in all likelihood it was an excuse coughed up on the spot.

[P.P.A.]

When I asked the developer why they made up the werehog part, she said they felt "Sonic shouldn't be all about speed."

THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR THE SONIC BRAND

[Neo]

"THE icon". God. It's like tripping on your own leg during a race and landing face-first on the ground, while still hearing your parents cheer you on in the distance.

[Isuka]

As it should be, the emphasis really is on speed, combined with actual platforming (timing your jumps).

So essentially there's no mechanical difference between, say, Unleashed and Donkey Kong. You just "time your jumps", which automatically strikes in Sonic games as "actual platforming".
In the same way that Wii Sports is an "actual sports game".

The Sonic not being all about speed stuff, as we already know, is a valid enough dissertation, though not in the way of breaking down the games to one half stupidly-fast-shamelessly-basic-platforming and one half formulaic-brawler.
I'm with Dack in that it would be awesome if SEGA tried a different approach towards a cohesive game system that encompasses high speed and multi-layered platforming coupled with competent controls, collision detection and camera work, although I do want the series to somehow "reset" itself to just being Sonic and Eggman with no voice acting whatsoever, like in the first Sonic 2K6 trailer.