Sonic Bashing

As someone who wants a career in the games industry I'm the first to defend a developer. After spending quite a few hours with the xbox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed I felt that Sonic Team deserves more credit than it got upon release. The first few tastes of Sonic Unleashed given to the gaming community in videos and screens showed a return to form for Sonic. The upset for the press came when Sega showed the nighttime levels of the game complete with a transformed Were-hog Sonic. Alarm bells rang as Sega on form have in many peoples eyes forgotten the core gameplay that makes a Sonic game fun, fast paced running through exciting dynamic environments. Upon the game release last year many critics panned the title. The overall consensus established was that while the pure Sonic running and jumping levels worked the nighttime levels ended up just plain rubbish. The Were-hog levels included fighting enemies over and over again and compared to the daytime lacked any sense of speed or fun.

In the defense of Sonic Team as a designer I understand why they have to include all the nighttime stuff to make the game 10 hours rather than 3. The problem for Sonic Team is audience expectation. 3 hour games do not cut it these days. The first Sonic and Mario titles could be completed in less than an hour and no one complained paying £40+ for them. Sonic Unleashed is a fantastic step forward for the series because the Sonic speed daytime stages are exactly how a 3D Sonic game should be.