Surprise Central: IGN Says Sonic Unleashed Is Not So Hot
This is a good chart. Its colour-coded steps make it easy for a kindergarten student to follow along. God knows even kindergarten students have been burned by Sonic at this point.
“Children, Sonic Unleashed is in between the yellow circle, getting closer to the red circle—Jeffery, stop scratching your bum. Nancy, put away that paste.”
IGN’s hands-on impressions indicates the game is, to quote Sonic himself, No Good.
The main issue outlined in the report (subtitled “Sonic Raped Our Hopes Again, vol XVIII”) is almost hard to believe: a bad frame rate. The world’s fastest hedgehog moves like a Pinto, according to IGN:
“The framerate just can’t keep up with all that’s being thrown on the screen and it tanks far below 30 frames more often than it can stay there or above it. There’s hope for the game being 60 frames per second at the start of a level, but once the camera swoops in to look at the lay of the land in front of you… it kicks to 30 and below. And that becomes incredibly noticeable when Sonic’s zipping at light speed and the screen refresh chunks up so bad it’s nearly unwatchable.”
Note that this issue applies to the Xbox 360 version of the game, though I can’t say I’m holding my breath for the Playstation 3 either.
The second problem is less surprising: Sonic the Werehog is very silly.
“So when the moon comes out, Sonic wolfs out to match the darkness… and the gameplay changes to highlight the other side of Sonic, turning the dash-as-fast-as-you-can design into a combo-heavy brawler with Prince of Persia-like platforming. Wait, what?
“It’s an idea that seems like an incredible reach for the character, a concept that’s completely tacked on for no other reason than to give the game its own hook just to say it’s different than the other Sonic games. And then when you see Sonic attack enemies or grab ledges with limbs that spring outwards like a Stretch Armstrong doll… well, it’s hard to turn your brain off when that happens. It just looks dumb.”
Hey, maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
It’s been said before, it’ll be said again, Sega has no fucking idea what to do with the Sonic franchise. They simultaneously seem to be running in several different bad directions with this and Sonic and the Black Knight. This is an interesting, if dubious, achievement simply because it means they’re managing to run the franchise further into the ground in multiple heart-breaking ways at once.
I was going to make a joke about holding out for Black Knight. Apparently my doppelganger (or is it the other way around) has taken even this from me!
Clearly you two need to fight to the death. I’ll be happy to document the bloody event.
I punch and kick my evil doppelganger several hundred times then, when the large bloody letters saying “FINISH HIM” appear, I give him an autographed picture of myself along with a friendly handshake. FINISH HIM is replaced with a colorful FRIENDSHIP and a confused disembodied voice repeats the words in disgust. I win the fight, while still staying away from Nietzche-esque philosophical conundrums.
I stay in the dizzy animation, silently cursing my lack of experience outside of the Capcom ring of fighting styles. A few seconds pass before, exhausted and unable to continue further I fall to the ground, alive, but beaten.
BAD END.