Sonic Unleashed – Community Day Review

Hey guys and girls, Blake Draco here to make his debut on the site to tell you about the SEGA community day that happened Friday, now I’ll just leave out the very boring part of the journey and get right down to it.

The day started off early for me as I arrived midway through the press sites turn to see and play Unleashed that’s where I first heard the jazztastic Werehog battle music. I continued to watch from my corner as a competition for a PS3 which involved trying to get the lowest time on the first level (Training Level) of the game with a non upgraded (more on that later) Sonic, the competition of course flew by and eventually was won by Sonic Yoda.

Soon the time was up for the press sites as they started to dwindle out (apart from Sonic Yoda who was invited to the afternoon session as well.) After getting a chance to watch the full introduction cutscene in which Eggman delivers a great response to Sonic’s Werehog form and the introduction of Chip, I resisted temptation to play the training level seeing as the others weren’t there yet.

As more people started to fill in there was time to introduce ourselves to each other, I blame myself for not being very noteworthy as I have a tendency to just stick to myself and get things done in my own little fashion, but I did make myself known and maybe the second time around be more active.

We were then shown the first cutscene and talked through the controls for the Sonic and Werehog stages and shown the EXP system which allows you to place your collected experience from enemies into upgrading Sonic’s normal or Werehog form. After taking in all the information we were then allowed to go off and play the game, me, T-Bird and Dreadknux took the large TV with the chairs where AAUK was showcasing the game to us, to take a glimpse of and play the Werehog level.

The Werehog levels are at an opposite pace than the Sonic levels, but it doesn’t mean that you have to walk all the time, there’s a handy ‘run on all fours’ feature that allows you to pick up pace on bits. What I like about this change in pace is that it gives you a chance to fully explore the stages than what the Sonic ones do, seeing as it’s pretty hard to explore when you’re blasting through to the end.

Werehog stages have puzzles as well and out of what I’ve seen and played are fairly easy such as having to heave a block to a switch in order for it to open, to pulling levers and moving blocks to get up to a higher section. The unleashed bar when full can be used at any time (but really should be used when you’re overwhelmed or when you have a boss to face) and when it’s activated he howls like a wolf and is able to dish out twice as much damage.

After a boss and another level we see that Chip is able to pull chocolate out of nowhere which was dubbed as a ‘chocolate space’ much like Amy’s ‘hammer space’ whenever the time calls for it. Chip is incredibly random and is always doing something in the background, which lead to most of us to warm up to him after he managed to allow his body to hit the ground while his spirit floated around.

A Sonic stage later and we met the first Eggman boss, the little touches during it like the destructible scenery as Eggman was flung backwards was a nice touch and added to the whole thing. Again Eggman got the best line of the battle for telling Sonic that his manners haven’t improved.

We got to move to the next continent, which allowed us to see the World Hub in which you can select your destination; it also allows you to move the sun into different places, so if you needed to be in normal form for a stage you could move the sun round onto that continent. If you select a destination that you’ve already played stages for you can replay them in order to improve your ranking without having to search for the level hub again.

After some Tornado guarding and fixing the first continent which gave us an achievement, we got to have ourselves a little competition, the same one as before and the same prize as well. I got a respectable time of one minute but it was ultimately Dread who pulled of the win with 42 seconds. I guess it’s better than me getting it; all I wanted it for was to play MGS4 anyway.

After some picture snapping of the winner with some random Sixaxis controller that was in a room full of 360’s it was time for us to watch Night of the Werehog which is now up on the site http://www.nightofthewerehog.com/, I recommend you see it if you haven’t as it is well produced and humorous. AAUK mentioned that it was meant to be shown in cinemas but that isn’t the case no more and that SEGA was looking into other options to show it.

It was almost time to leave but before we did we got handed a Werehog keychain and even a special Sonic advent calendar, many of us pondered whether to never open them (I know I’ve hidden mine and attempting extraction of the chocolates without damaging it.) Although Violet discovered the chocolates sadly weren’t Sonic shaped.

It was time to leave as we all strolled down to the pub, had a drink and a chat before going our separate ways. All in all everyone had a great time and come 28th November I’ll be heading straight out to buy Sonic Unleashed.