Behold, the opening cinematic for Sonic Unleashed, presented in Moonspeak. Regardless of whether or not you are a cynic, you can't deny that the sheer quality of this movie is quite something. The return to a more cartoony animation doesn't hurt things either. Sega really should do a full-length animated film with this kind of talent working for them.

The video starts well with a less than subtle nod to Star Wars, and the fight between Sonic and Robotnik is rather awesome too. Things start to go wrong with the arrival of Dark Gaia, where we devolve into dangerous anime territory, but hopefully they keep that crap down to a minimum.

After the jump, there is a first glimpse of the Hub World, from which you will be able to play the main levels. It definitely looks like the weakest part of the game, as Sonic doesn't seem like he can handle walking around a town very well. I don't know why Sega insists on these Hub Worlds, they don't work for Sonic.  Also, I am STILL going to ignore that little flying vermin that is hanging around Sonic. I'm going to just pretend I never saw it.

At the end of the video, you get to see the level that I played at TGS. Even though it looks like it plays itself, trust me -- I was not able to get the game to look quite as automatic as this guy makes it look. It does take some skill to make it flow so well, and this dude only got a "C" ranking. Worth considering if you think the game is just a case of moving forward.

[Update: It would seem that Sega has had the videos pulled. A bit of a shame, considering these videos seemed to do more to raise gamer interest than anything officially released thus far.]