It’s no secret that Sonic has had somewhat of a tough time making a true impact in three dimensional form. While Sonic Adventure was great and the sequel not too bad either, as time has gone by newer unnecessary gameplay ideas have been added and the little blue blur has just appeared to lose his spark that once made him a great contender with the red plumber.

Sonic Unleashed hopes to amend all things that have gone wrong in the past and focus on the main man himself Sonic. This is solely a single player experience with no multiplayer leaving just the adventure to focus on. But is it worth your time?

The epic intro movie picks up mid battle between Sonic and his arch nemesis Dr. Eggman on his gigantic spacecraft amidst space. The action is fast, frantic and the quality jaw dropping. Even the voice acting seems slightly more tolerable. When it looks like Eggman is finally done for he hatches his final plan to capture Sonic and harness the power of the seven Chaos emeralds to split the Earth into pieces. As if this weren’t bad enough a nasty side effect of the process causes Sonic to turn into a raging beast. Laughing at how well his plan has come together Eggman then sends the newly formed Werehog down to Earth where upon waking up he is greeted by a flying creature later known as Chip. It is now your job to piece back together the planet and foil Dr. Eggman’s evil plan once and for all.

Before ever taking control of Sonic you are shown a map of the world which is where you access the games main countries. As you play more become unlocked offering new challenges and further progress the story. There are nine in all taking you from the sandy deserts of Shamar and the ice cold glaciers of Holoska right into the depths of Empire City full of buildings and sky scrapers.

The game is split into three very different parts. The first are the hub areas. In each of the nine countries you can visit the main town itself, meet and greet its people and access the main night and day levels via them. Here you can control Sonic in total freedom completing missions and gaining new abilities in your own time. It’s quite dull and breaks up the flow of the game leaving you wanting to just get to an actual level more than anything. Then there are the night time levels which see Sonic turn into a Werehog and beckon a new found taste for battle. His speed is gone but in place are stretchy arms, double jumps and the fiercest pair of fists you’re likely to see. The order of the day with these stages is to simply beat your way through an area (literally) and then move onto the next and repeat the process until you reach a bigger boss. Throw in some small platforming sections that are far too clumsy and that’s about it. The enemies don’t put up too much of a fight and feel fairly generic compared to the usual robots. There is a whole list of combos but chances are you’ll pick one or two and stick with those. It isn’t awful, it’s just nothing special at all and only pales in comparison to the awesome daytime stages.

The day time stages are where the game truly shines, and honestly if the game had been solely based on these with some more varied missions then Sega would have definitely been onto something. Unlike previous 3D Sonic titles, the action here is rail based. You have 2D areas where you can only run left or right not too unlike the Mega Drive titles and you also have sections that switch to a “behind Sonic” view where you move side to side much like in The Secret Rings for the Wii. The two gameplay types blend together extremely well and make for some excellent moments that include making your way around a Big Ben lookalike and racing through a stone dragon in Chun-nan. This is the best Sonic has been in a very long time and I just wish there were more of the daytime levels available in the game. This is evident in the second and third acts where the difficulty is taken right up offering the kind of action Sonic fans have been looking for.

A nice inclusion is a little RPG element. Upon completing levels you are rewarded experience which helps you upgrade you stats for certain areas such as Sonic’s speed, boosting ability, strength and health. This is especially useful for those completionists who want to “S” grade everything.

To lengthen things out after finishing the main story it’s possible to attempt missions in each of the nine day and night time stages. These range from collecting rings, beating a time and finishing with minimal health. They’re good fun, but have two problems. Firstly is how repetitive they can become. Since you must complete the same mission three times in a level (each getting much tougher) it can just feel like a chore at times. Why not have more of the shorter acts? Or more countries? Secondly is the difficulty. Missions must be completed without dying once. This may not seem so bad, but when some levels can take nearly ten minutes and sometimes more it can be infuriating when you fall to your death just a few meters away from the finish. More variation and checkpoints could have made the game better. This just seems lazy.

Visually the game is astounding. While it is hard to make a cartoony game really take advantage of the extra power on a next gen console somehow Sega have managed to do it. Venturing across temples, villas by the sea and massive waterfalls have never looked so bright and beautiful. Sonic himself and other characters animate well too. The music is also very good using melodies associated with the countries you’re in and not relying too heavily on hard rock. Voice acting though still sounds fairly cheesy and especially near the end of the game you can feel your gag reflexes kicking in with some of the lines you hear.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still awaiting a retro Sonic game created for WiiWare or Live Arcade or a pure 2D adventure made on disc with updated visuals a la New Super Mario Bros or Viewtiful Joe. It’s clear the blue hedgehog is at his best when running from left to right running through loops and jumps so the more of that the better. Sonic Unleashed is definitely a step in the right direction with more restricted daytime levels that focus on speed and bring back a sense of love for the mascot, but the added Werehog levels and repeated missions weigh down what could have been a very good game.

Those believing this is the revolutionary new breath of life for Sonic will be sadly disappointed, however it is definitely a good sign of things to come. Come on Sega. No gimmicks, no ridiculous new characters, just classic Sonic!