Coming this holiday, Sonic Unleashed is the first Sega title built on the Sonic-loving “Hedgehog Engine,” a next-gen platform in development since 2005. Perhaps to show off the new engine’s muscle, Sonic Unleashed will take place in real world settings on a fractured Earth and feature both 3D third-person and 2D side-scrolling action. I caught a glimpse of the first level set in Greece and the fourth set in an unnamed European city during Sega’s recent Gamer’s Day.
The multiplayer-free game has Sonic travelling through the fractured chunks of an Earth recently shattered by Dr. Eggman, collecting Chaos Emeralds in an attempt to return the planet to its former state. The game will include stylised humans, but likely no hot hedgehog-on-female action.
The developers said one version of Sonic Unleashed is being developed for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and another for the PS2 and Wii. The Wii version of the game will allow you to use the remote and nunchuk or the classic Gamecube controller.
The developers showing off the game to media said that, while the engine was designed to “work well with Sonic titles,” it can be used for other games.
When Shogun: Total War first hit back in 2000 I was quite a fan. Sure the game had it’s problems, especially when you went into battles, but its blending of turn-based and real-time strategy really captured my interest.
The thing is, I eventually got burnt out on the games tragically flawed real-time simulations and while I know that has long since been fixed, I’ve never really been able to summon up enough interest to try any of the Total War games that have followed in Shogun’s footsteps. Until now.
I was a huge, huge fan of 80s strategy title The Ancient Art of War at Sea, the game managed to capture what I imagined the tactics were for sail-powered ship-to-ship battles and I loved the pacing, the ebb and flow of those raging fights.
That’s what drew me to MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea and it’s what will finally get me to return to the Total War franchise when Empire: Total War hits.
My first chance to play around with Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood left me more than a little impressed.
While we didn’t get a walk through of the game’s storyline, we were given a chance to mess around with a chunk of the game.
The DS title shows the action of the game on the bottom, touch screen, while the top screen is taken up by a large colorful map of the section of the world you are currently exploring.
The game has you playing a team of Sonic characters, selected among 11 playable in the game.
Typically while playing only one of your team is shown on the screen and controllable, but you can switch between them by tapping on their icons. Each character has different abilities, which can be used by tapping icons that pop up at times while wandering the map.
