Ladies and gentlemen, let us introduce you to the Chris Tarrant of videogames. After all, the evidence is obvious – a propensity for entertaining children (albeit some years ago), fondness for unsettling and quite bizarre video clips and, crucially, the ability to dangle something very exciting in front of your face only to swipe it away again at the last minute. As Sega might well be saying right now, we don’t want to give you that. Predictably enough, then, here we have another frustrating episode in the famous mascot’s demise, changing a structure now ten years old little, only to include yet another bone-headed, dark and brooding concept. Sadly, that portion of the gaming populace over 20-years-old must continue to have their childhood memories torn to pieces by Sega’s perception of ‘what kids want’. At least characters introduced in the series’ early life actually brought some gameplay variation to the table, rather than another model or action figure that can be flogged.

The fundamental problem here though hasn’t anything to do with distaste for any thematic direction Sega has taken. It’s simply to do with the fact there are more barriers between gamer and fun than there is between you and the Locust queen at the start of Gears 2. For starters, the flowing, rollercoaster levels Sega paraded before gamers worldwide at preview stage have sadly turned out to comprise only about a tenth of what’s on offer. In their stead stand a number of things, including cut-scenes that feature yet more anonymous doe-eyed animals nobody cares about discussing the economic performance of ice cream in times of financial strife. Minus a big word or two, that’s not even a joke. Besides this, you’ll have a tired gem collection system to deal with, elongating the act of gaining access to further action stages by making you go through previous ones with a fine-toothed comb first, to find them. That’s a bit like if you had to control Fight Night via a selection of windows operating each upper body muscle, and so inappropriate for a Sonic title it’s frankly difficult to believe.

Difficult, that is, were it not for levels of idiocy that trump even that elsewhere. We refer of course to our mascot’s alternate guise, as Sonic The Werehog. For you see, Unleashed is based upon a day/night time cycle that in theory affords levels Super Mario 64-style duplicity, but in reality just creates stages with one meaningful path for each type of creature. The Sun setting or rising causes our hero to become either furry or assume his trademark sheen, and it’s at night-time that most of the trouble occurs. Just one element in a long list of things you shouldn’t be doing in a Sonic game, Werehog levels are comparative mongrels, mixing parts of other popular titles the focus group no doubt picked up, Prince Of Persia and God Of War rising foremost in the mind. No matter – the fact is a lot of what goes on will be vaguely familiar. Lasting well over half an hour a pop, such jaunts see you returning to original Tomb Raider standards of environmental puzzling. Crates that can only be pushed at right angles, brain-dead rotation switches placed exactly in front of what they’re operating, arbitrary barriers preventing progression past each set of grunts – it’s all there. Of course, the fact remains that this is clearly what people buy Sonic games for, but that’s by the by.

As for the combat itself, well, matters are a bit limited. Sonic collects a selection of combo attacks as he progresses, thanks to experience points collected from downed foes. Another thing you shouldn’t be doing, there. A system of instant knockdowns would complement this stream of bludgeoning attacks, were it not for the fact screen prompts that enable you to do this appear when you’ll be too committed with a follow-up blow to stop. Couple this with the fact that failed set-piece attacks cost Sonic about a sixth of his health bar, and you’ll conclude that battles can be really quite pressured indeed. In fact, several difficulty bottlenecks present themselves as players are surrounded by an overwhelming collection of tin robots – something that won’t be lost on a childhood audience so distractible as to require Sonic’s acquaintances to pack heat. Besides, combat in Sonic games should never get more complicated than seeing an enemy then jumping on its head. As if that wasn’t enough, save points around such obviously poorly designed sections are sadistic, demanding crates to be re-shoved and switches to be laboriously reactivated. There was one section in which a door had three switches for no apparent reason (other than diluting the good bits until there’s no more taste in them, naturally). Truly jaw-dropping stuff – we had to stand up while playing, such was the uncontrollable anger. Oh yes.

As far as we’re concerned, there’s even a debate to be had over Sonic’s daytime levels, whose direction in the age of three dimensions we’ve never been entirely happy about. Yes they’re occasionally spectacular and all, but it’s all a bit like dangling a set of keys in front of a new-born baby. The way it’s evolved, control has been wrestled just too much from players. Look at the evidence – homing attacks on bad guys that make forward progression as simple as pressing X, many different zip lines, boost rings and mid-air flights that send the camera wobbling around like a hopeless drunk. There’s even a boss in here that simply gives up and flies off if you don’t manage to kill it in time. Sonic, back in the days of blowing on cartridges, was a great deal more subtle than it is now – sure it was graphically resplendent but levels simply weren’t about dazzling players until they suffered some kind of fit. The reason we know this? Every occasion we fire up any of the Mega Drive classics, we’re within a few seconds of the same time on most zones. What’s more, we’re fairly confident we could re-draw most of Sonic 2’s environments without too much trouble. That’s if we were the most pathetic individuals on earth, naturally. Ahem. The point is, Sonic’s glory years didn’t pass by in a primary coloured blur, and could tackle intricate platform action as much as the speedier stuff. Regardless of having changed into something that isn’t quite the genuine article, daytime levels featuring Sonic (aka the actual game) have been crafted with significant love. The almost isometric camera angle, positioned behind our hero, shows great promise for what could come if Sega would spend as much money on level design as it did on its opening cut-scene. There’s impressive variety on show too, sliding Sonic along collapsing bridges, on vines high above an imitation African savannah and, of course, along the backbone of an ever-present whale. It’s an exhilarating ten minutes or so, to be sure. The bosses Sonic faces off against are also rather imaginative, however much they might resort to tired old Quick-Time Events to spice things up a little. One in particular has you fending off rockets by tapping various face buttons as you glide through the air on Tails’ plane. Another takes full advantage of Unleashed’s side-stepping mechanic, commanding players to chase after the rotund ragamuffin as he glides over a wooden bridge, dropping bombs. In the end, we were pleasantly reminded of the preamble to Angel Island Act 2’s boss. Sadly, this doesn’t then lead to five Zones of 2D platforming bliss. Happily too, the soundtrack doesn’t see fit to descend into street culture in quite the same fashion its visuals have, sticking to uplifting ditties Sonic games have become famous for. Ultimately though, there’s no salvaging matters.

When coming to a decision on a review, it’s always handy to use some reference point, and where better than our own ‘the scores explained’ box on the reviews cover? Sadly, the truth is many more helpful places exist, as all this did was present us with a problem. The sheer number of genres on show here that should come nowhere near a title featuring Sega’s erstwhile mascot, coupled with the near total dilution of enjoyable elements, leads us to near unbearable levels of anger. This also leads us to the conclusion that there is no justification, except perhaps expense, for yet again making a Sonic game this rubbish. As you will know, this would necessitate a score of three and, well, there’s ten minutes of gameplay here to leave you waving your arms in the air like Kermit The Frog. On the other hand, anyone paying 50 quid for this is going to explode like a bottle of champagne before very long at all. It isn’t long before you start running out of hands to place a counter-argument on. Frankly, we’d probably have reacted more favourably to the hour-or-two-long title that would have resulted from playing Unleashed’s day levels alone, in sequential order. As it is, we have seconds of brilliance wrapped in minutes of adequacy wrapped in hours of boredom. That’s probably a four, then.

Dave Shaw