Sonic Unleashed: Views of a slightly disgruntled Sonic fan

(This probably would have been posted earlier, but I just got the chance to now.)

I doubt I've made a big deal out of this here, but I'm a pretty big Sonic fan. For some reason, despite knowing the later additions to the series lack the quality of its 16-bit era games (here's looking at you, Sonic '06), I still own ShadowTH and Heroes, and enjoy them from time to time. I've been a major fan of the Adventure series for who knows how long, and praise both the best (Sonic 2, CD) and the worst (Sonic The Fighters, Sonic R) of the series. After looking at the recent E3 '08, both my fanboy side, and rational side are at each other's throats.

First off, the scenery. I can't help to love the areas and they do look gorgeous at times. But it's really been bugging me - they could have done much better with the graphics, and High Europe (the supposed name for the stage used in nearly all of the trailers now) reminds me of Elise's homeland a bit TOO much. Plus, whatever happened to that Africa stage, shown in the first one? That appealed to me a lot, it seemed a lot more open and different, compared to High Europe. Plus, I'd love to see the nighttime version of it.

Next, the music. Now, when I first heard it, I was estatic as I'm tired of hearing Crush 40 ever time. After taking some time to hear it again though, I can see why people are pissed, and would want the old music from the first two trailers back. But really, I doubt (or hope) Sega is that stupid to get rid of the first themes, and not use them as BGMs for the stages themselves. Either way, this new Blink 182 song (as everyone seemed to have coined earlier) is probably the title theme, and honestly, I didn't expect them to drift off that much.

Lastly, who could forget the new Weresonic stages. The design isn't that great (but still looks good under those CG cutscenes), but it's something I could live with. I remember someone comparing the new stages as Knuckles without those damn [4th] emerald shards, which is a dream come true for me. Besides that, I really can't complain much about these, as it's a good break from the breakneck speed shown in the Sonic stages.

All in all, this honestly is looking pretty fucking awesome in my eyes, but I'm pretty sure once a demo comes out, the controls would probably make me cry.

At least there's MadWorld.