Within these towns, you unlock new levels and further the story by talking to random pedestrians to gain “information”. You then choose from various towns which act as mini free-roaming hubs for the game’s levels. Like something out of Super Mario Galaxy, you rotate the planet and select which unlocked continent you want to travel to. The game’s map, a view of the planet and its floating pieces, is actually pretty cool. So, Sonic sets off on an adventure to reunite the pieces of the Earth and stop Eggman’s devious scheme. But the laser has an unexpected side effect on Sonic, and now whenever the sun goes down, Sonic transforms into a beast with fangs and razor sharp claws. He uses the seven Chaos Emeralds to fire a laser from space, splitting the world into seven continents (think planet-sized jigsaw puzzle pieces), and thereby releases the monster, Dark Gaia, from the center of the Earth. Robotnik for all you old school gamers out there) is at it again, trying to enslave all of humanity and rule the world. In a move to satisfy what was surely a focus-group filled with six year olds, Sega has crafted a game in which you spend half your time playing as the speedy blue hero by day and the other half as his mutated, werewolf-like form at night.

This is why it’s so frustrating that Sonic Unleashed, the first multiplatform Sonic game to actually get the basic Sonic gameplay right, ends up shooting itself in the foot by adding a totally unnecessary new gameplay component: Sonic the Werehog. Sure, they have found some successful ways around it (by incorporating the adventure-based gameplay of other Sonic characters, see: Sonic Heroes), but one thing or another always seems to get in the way, be it an awkward camera system, frustrating controls, or poorly designed levels. Over the past several years, Sega has all but proven that the blue hedgehog’s pure, speedy gameplay, found in the 16-bit sidescrollers of old, just can’t be translated to today’s systems. If it sounds like I’m bitter, I have good reason. Oh, how the once mighty Sonic brand has fallen. Unfortunately, Sega’s change in company strategy has only resulted in multiplatform games that are haphazardly thrown together, slapped with the “Sonic” label, and pushed out the door just in time to meet a ship date. Being the diehard Sonic fan that I am, I thought that this meant more time for the company to make great games, rather than using their resources to continue participating in the never-ending console wars. When Sega declared that they would no longer be producing video game consoles, I was very excited about the possibilities.

Sonic unleashed gameplay