(Lazy Force Unleashed joke goes here)

You may have heard, but a new Sonic the Hedgehog game called Sonic Unleashed had been announced a while back. Well, the first screens have been revealed and they are actually somewhat ... impressive.

While some of these have to be pre-rendered, the shots that appear to be in-game are pretty damn beautiful. That said, after so many games rendered only with browns and grays, any game with some actual color is going to look gorgeous.

Take a look over the screens, see what you think. They sure look pretty, but Sonic has struggled time and time again to remain both entertaining and relevant in the modern gaming world. While Mario appears to go from strength to strength, the character who was supposed to be edgy and cool has, ironically, ended up appearing deflated and aged in comparison to his old rival. As someone who grew up adoring Sonic, it's demoralizing seeing my icon of old fail to recapture his magic so many times.

Will Sonic Unleashed break the trend, or will I once again invest naive hope in this game, only to be thoroughly disappointed again and end up cutting myself? It's far too early to tell, so I'm going to just gawp at these pretty pictures some more.

[Via Cheeburga's CBlog]

[Update: S'apparently fake. Blah. That's what I get for thinking something interesting might happen on a Saturday] 

[Update again: Okay, so NOW they're f'n real again! I'm getting mighty sick of this. They were apparently leaked from an FTP client and you can see even more screens here. Frankly, I'm done trying to decide.]

[Update ten billion: Might be real. Might not be real. I don't care anymore. We'll find out after the weekend. Now go eat Easter eggs.]

[Update? Yes, Update: We've had to yank the images for legal reasons. This has no become both the most updated, yet least useful, page on Destructoid.]