New Sonic Unleashed Preview

360 Preview Shows Continental Setup, “Speed Drift;” 1-Player Only Confirmed

IGN recently got their hands on the latest playtest of Sonic Unleashed.  There’s plenty of new information within their preview, including tons of new screenshots.

With the preview, we’ve learned that Dimps will not only have a hand in the Wii edition, but also the Playstation 2 version.  Whether this means an experience of almost two different games is yet to be seen (pardon the pun,) as only the XBOX 360 edition was previewed.  Sega, reportedly, is not ready to showcase the Wii edition and the preview indicates there will be some significant difference, but they did say that Sonic will be controlled classically by the Wiimote; that means no more sideways controller.  The Wii build will allow for Gamecube and Classic Controller setup, though.

Sonic Team will be more involved on the PS3 and XBOX360 editions, with Yoshihisa Hashimoto at the helm.  (You may remember he was interviewed by the UK Official Nintendo mag a couple weeks back.)

The preview is in a continental setup–thus far only Greece and another European stage were close to completion.  Says IGN’s Matt Cassamassina:

both areas show a lot of promise. Sonic is controlled through the locales with the left analog stick, while the right stick is used to maneuver the camera. Pressing the X button will trigger Sonic’s temporary speed boost, which looks spectacular. The hedgehog blasts forward, a subtle fisheye view kicks in and, naturally, the entire effect is surrounded by motion blur. The A button makes the character jump and you can target and dash into enemies mid-air by tapping the X button. The lock-on system seems a little friendlier than in previous titles since the camera follows the action much more coherently. The B button sends Sonic into a slide and the right and left bumpers execute the all-new side-step maneuvers — Sonic can very quickly dodge left or right to avoid quickly advancing enemies and obstacles.

The game will incorporate some Secret Rings style elements, including a ring meter and some special moves.  One such move, the Speed Drift, hasn’t been finalized, but could make way for some very stylized methods of movement.  Sega wouldn’t talk to IGN about the day/night motif (Read: Were-Sonic) that has become so controversial within the fan base–the preview just wasn’t that far yet.  Also, Sega confirmed that the game will  be a single-player experience; there will be no multiplayer modes muddying things up.

Overall, Cassamassina writes:

We’re definitely psyched about what we saw and can’t wait to get our hands on a 360, PS3 or Wii controller to try everything out for ourselves. The biggest concern we had with the latest demo relates to framerate fluidity. Unleashed definitely chugged in certain spots (and at others, the game actually froze for a few seconds as the level loaded in new geometry and textures). Clearly it’s unfinished and improvements will be made, but Sonic Team is gunning for an end product that runs at 30 frames per second, not 60 frames. This is disappointing given that Unleashed, like all Sonic games, is so thoroughly engulfed in character speed and for these game types the coveted 60 frames mark is always ideal.

It appears the 360/PS3 experience is downpat, but there’s almost no indication of how the Wii or PS2 versions will look or even feel like.  We’ll continue to give you every bit of Sonic Unleashed information as it passes through.