Edit: If Sonic Team can’t atleast make a major sonic title (I’m not counting Black Knight) break 8.0 then I think they should seriously consider just outsourcing their main games…which is really sad. Dimps and Sonic Team make the same game and Sonic Team who is the originator of the series WITH the extra power of the 360 and PS3 lose to a development team that wasn’t them and is on a inferior powered system. If this isn’t a wake up call then I don’t know what is.
That’s almost like Nintendo outsourcing a Mario game but at the same time making the game themselves and the outsourced game ending up being the greater version.
Wii version of Unleashed is fun. Sorry specs, but even though there are some camera bugs, this is hella fun. Fun enough that I will probably try the PS3 version as well.
EDIT: Oh lord I just tried the Mote+Chuk controls and they are terrible. You have to continuously shake the wiimote to remain in boost mode. It gets tiring really fast. Use a GC or Classic controller.
I haven’t had a chance to touch it yet…I’m running on a small number of hours of sleep currently…so it’s all going to be dependent upon whether the caffeine I’m constantly pumping into my system holds up…
Oh and yeah that’s exactly what the reviews have said so far on that…shaking the wii mote to boost is a bit of a dumb idea…should have been mapped to a button similar to how secret rings does their boost.
This isn’t bad though since it scored higher than secret rings and secret rings was a step in the right direction…hopefully this means that Sonic Team will go ‘OHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh…’ but probably not. Speaking of Werehog…
Yo Remy! How are those sections of the game holding up?
You know what? Werehog is fun too. It’s like DMC lite + platforming elements. Honestly I rather enjoy it. I still wish that, instead of making up a new form for Sonic, that they had used an existing character. Any of their brawler-type characters (Knuckles, Mighty, Vector, Bark, Blaze) could’ve filled this role instead and I’d have rather had another classic character to play as than making up more new shit.
Still, it’s pretty fun to play. Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it.
Hmm… I can try.
Daytime levels are great. They are like an improved version of Secret Rings intermixed with Sonic Rush, and even occasional Adventure-type stuff (this is the most rare type of level section though). The different sections of level flow together well and transfer between each other pretty smoothly. Sometimes the camera does have problems, but honestly so far it seems less bothersome than in the last few titles. At any rate, from a design standpoint this is very definitely a step in the right direction for the series finally.
Nighttime levels are also pretty fun. As I said just above there, they are like a simplified version of DMC or GoW with added platforming elements. You earn Red Orbs off of slain enemies, in larger amounts for bigger combos, and can buy new attacks with said Red Orbs (shameless DMC theft there :lol:). They are certainly slower in pace than the daytime levels, but actually still pretty quick compared to say Mario, and in a way it does help ensure that you don’t get bored with a game of nothing but running running running. The boss I fought in Werehog form was particularly fun.
The game has it’s flaws though. Again, the camera is still somewhat buggy at times. The Mote+Chuk controls suck, but this is easily fixed by using a GC or Classic. I also get pretty bored having to do the chat with NPCs crap. And as usual the story is garbage. But despite these complaints, the actual levels are extremely fun, and I hope SEGA continues to develop this style of Sonic gameplay rather than try something new again next time.
Overall: I’d prolly give it an 8 / 10 so far. But I’ve only played a small handful of levels yet.
I have also heard that the Wii and PS2 versions are halfway-decent. Halfway-decent meaning still not great.
If I get through every other game I’m currently playing, I may try Unleashed. I’m in no great hurry; I’m playing through a ton of quality titles at the moment.
PREDICTION: Play Magazine’s Dave Halverson will give it a perfect 10 because it’s a Sonic game, a platformer, and better than Sonic360 even though the shit I just took is better than Sonic360.
I’m actually enjoying the werehog parts a tiny bit more than the daytime parts, though my gaming tastes have always been kind of wierd. Chip needs to shut the fuck up though.
Im getting my hands on Unleashed for the PS2 in the morning. When I get a chance, I’ll tell you guys how it is (apart from the Wii version but Im sure there isnt much too different about the two)
I wouldn’t mind hearing your take on the ps2 version Silent Shinobi when you get it.
Specs:
One step at a time lol. And does anyone really take play magazine seriously? Just out of curiousity…
Edit:
WHY…OH WHY did I even bother to go to the gamefaqs forums to see what they were saying? There was a post complaining about the lives system in the game…
To be fair, there really isn’t any real reason to have a life system when you have a save system. And am I the only one who is running into some other really big problems. Like I’ll go through one of those loops that should give you a boost in the air…nothing happens and I die.
Already found a bug. If you jump and boost while running on water…you will die.
I also dislike lives systems for that same reason. That’s hardly a Sonic-unique problem, though. Megaman and Mario could also stand to drop that archaic concept.
Okay now, what is wrong with having limited lives? They could’ve just as easily given people infinite lives “back in the day,” but nobody complained about it back then. It adds challenge to the game and encouragement to play well.
I do not understand the dislike for the lives system either. There needs to be some penalty for death or the game ends up like an arcade to console port of a shooter or beat’em up. You start right back up where you left off, lose nothing, no reason to get better or really to get into the game at all.
I’m not encouraged to play well when I’m forced to go all the way back to the start of the level instead of the last checkpoint because I keep missing a pixel perfect jump. All I’m encouraged to do is play another game.
Limited lives have no benefit over unlimited. Unlimited is the better choice. The challenge in a game should come from the obstacles you have to overcome, not the number of chances you get to overcome them. Think about it; if that were truly the challenge, shouldn’t the game lock you out of ever passing an obstacle if you can’t in the X number of chances you’re given? Is there really a point to starting over, beelining it to that point, and repeating the cycle? It is much more intuitive to just give the player as many chances as he needs.
Look at N+ and Braid. Either game is quite challenging (I’m pretty sure that either game by itself is way harder than any non-Game Gear Sonic game, and I can speak from experience that Megaman 9 can’t touch N+'s difficulty level), and both give you unlimited chances to overcome an obstacle.
Plus, if unlimited lives is really that bothersome to a player, nothing is stopping them from only giving themselves so many chances to succeed. You can measure that yourself. Alternatively, there can be special achievements (360 style or non-gameplay affecting trophies/emblems/whatever) for making it to the end on a set number of lives, or without dying, or whatever. The best system would be an option to let me turn on unlimited lives. That way if you like limited lives you can choose to play that way, and I don’t have to if I don’t choose. Options are always welcome.
You have to get better to clear the obstacle that is giving you grief regardless of your life count, so your argument doesn’t hold up. In addition, believe it or not, not every player is playing games in order to get better at playing games.
Certain genres work well without lives; RPGs, FPS’ and Third Person shooters do just fine. They penalize you with a degree of lost progress usually determined by when you last saved. And make up for it by making the obstacles themselves a more involved trial to get past.
Platformers, SHMUPs (especially danmaku) and beat’em ups don’t. If you lose absolutely nothing, not even progress, for dying, the game is effectively little more than an interactive movie. You’re gonna eventually reach the end nomatter how badly you play, so you end up just half-assing the entire game. because there’s no drive to get much more into it than that. Maybe you have fun doing that for the first time through, especially if it’s two players- but that game effectively has zero longevity as a result. And that’s terrible.
Lives are a solution to that problem. Give the player some leeway to get through rough spots, but if he doesn’t bother to get better he loses progress. I do not see how this is unreasonable.
In addition, believe it or not, players do like being challenged in their games. If they didn’t, people wouldn’t make up limitation challenges for easy games.
This ends up being a matter of taste. I’m not fond of invincible yawnfests and would prefer some kind of penalty when I die so I have a reason, you know, not to die.
