REVIEW: Sonic Unleashed (PLAYSTATION©3)

Sonic the Hedgehog has been a part of my life and was one of the first games I played when I got into Computer Games. Sonic in the Sega Mega Drive days was fantastic and ever since SEGA became a software developer, the Sonic games produced have been from mediocre to crap. Sonic Unleashed according to SEGA is their attempt to revive Sonic to it’s roots but I can tell it sadly fails and it’s very disappointing, their Marketing Department seem to do their job of promoting the game but the game itself does a half arsed effort of being a good, enjoyable and fun game. The question that plays on most people’s mind, “Is it better than Sonic 2006?” Well it’s nearly as bad.

Sonic Unleashed has all the necessities of a platform game. Exploration, Jumping, Action, game play and new worlds but it’s all a mess. Sonic Unleashed is two game play elements, Sonic the Hedgehog which consists of very fast game play offering classic 2D & 3D elements whilst Sonic the Werehog is a new form that Sonic has acquired thanks to Dr.Eggman being an asshole. When the sun sets,  Sonic becomes a werehog but as Yahtzee said, Werehog doesn’t make any sense due to “Were” meaning Man in English so a pretty stupid name for a stupid character which no one wants to play as.

Sorry, did this game WANT to be Kingdom Hearts?

Sonic Team must have sent most of their budget on the introduction movie for this game since that is one of the few positives I can say about this game. That’s okay for people who like Metal Gear [bad joke] but for those who want a decent and fun rewarding game, Sonic Team have failed once again and after playing this game for about a week, I can understand why the game has had such mixed reviews. It simply isn’t good, its a terrible game.

Another character for 4Kids to attach an awful voice to

I’ll start with what Sonic Team did right this time. The graphics look stunning, the intro movie in CGI is also stunning, most of Sonic’s recent friends are NOT in this game sticking to the main Mega Drive crew such as Amy, Tails but I guess I can blame 4Kids for making Sonic and friends sound really annoying with the exception of Eggman. The humans have a cartoon feel in this game which gets the thumbs up from me, it just looked odd in the last game and I didn’t like the graphic style for the previous game. There is also a lot less glitches than before which is a good thing and a great soundtrack but you will soon learn that it doesn’t save this game. That’s all for positives from me. Now to tell you what Sonic Team did wrong.

I’ll sum it up in a few words. Inconsistent, frustrating, lack of reward, difficult, boring and annoying. If word about a game matches any of those characteristics, you can bet it won’t sell well and Sonic Unleashed is all of that. The Daytime levels although they capture the speed which Sonic is renowned for,  the speed  is way too quick thus making it near impossible or very difficult to get an S Grade on the Sonic the Hedgehog levels. The Jumping is inconsistent which is extremely annoying when trying to complete the levels and thanks to the jump, I lost 67 lives due to the jumping being so shit. The Sonic game play even though it has it’s fair problems is sadly the only decent game play  in this entire game and you don’t spend much time in the day! If you can get a S rank on every level you are either

• A Sonic fanboy who doesn’t listen to the criticism
• You cheated or
• A freak [don't be offended]

Sonic Team decided to be very annoying and add something which takes ages to complete…..RPG elements! That’s right! You only paid for Sonic at a basic speed, he can go faster! As long as you kill robots or those dark Kingdom Hearts Heartless ripoffs, he can shove experience up his ass and become better but it isn’t rewarding since you spent half your time leveling up the Werehog which is fucking boring.

Now Sonic the Werehog is the main reason this game sucks so hard. It is nothing but a simple ripoff from some good titles such as Kingdom Hearts (Heartless – Dark Gaia fragment things), God of War (game play) and it doesn’t feel rewarding nor good when playing the Werehog. I like the level music on the Night Levels until you engage in fighting when some Jazzy shit attacks your ears and it is so annoying. I was looking forward to Sonic Unleashed but once again their marketing department made trailers which aroused me like when a sexy woman attacks your hormones so you find them attractive. This game is like a one night stand, it looks good, you do it and then your done in the morning but with Sonic Unleashed you regret spending time with it, investing in it but you can let someone else experience the same shit by parting with it.

Oh you dirty beast

The voice acting as usual rapes your ears with awful voices. One of the many things 4Kids does so well is to get a new Sonic character and make them sound like an annoying little shit. Chip is the latest victim of the notable abuse from 4Kids, every time I hear his voice I want to punch his face and up his head off. Thankfully you can change it to Japanese where your provided magical subtitles, granted it isn’t my language but its bare able. I personally don’t think I can trust Sonic Team nor SEGA when they say their latest Sonic game is going to be good. Games TM quote on the back cover of the box art,

“The best Sonic Game ever conceived, not to mention one of the greatest 2D Sonics as well”

Well I and many other gamers can agree that the statement is bullshit. PR, straight from the rectum bullshit. The best 2D Sonic in my humble opinion is Sonic CD. It looks stunning, has fantastic game play, possibly one of the best video game soundtracks I’ve ever heard [Japanese Version], simple game play but most importantly it improved on the first game a lot and doesn’t provide any bullshit like Sonic Unleashed. One of the most important factors of a good platform game is exploration. The 16 Bit Sonic games did that brilliantly, you could explore for Rings, Special Stage Rings, Switches, Lives, Shields, shortcuts going in a straight line, up, down, left, right. That is what made Sonic fun back in the day and Sonic Unleashed in the daytime levels is so linear and shallow that it DOESN’T TOUCH the 2D games on being a great game. So when GAMES TM said that, they were either

• Chatting from their anus
• Paid by SEGA to say something good
• It was either from a preview build
• They must have been smoking weed

This is the best 2D Sonic game, play this and not Unleashed

Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 got exploration right! You still went around levels looking for essentials such as animals or power ups for Chaos, Rings, shortcuts, power ups, etc. and you were rewarded for your efforts such as emblems or leveling up your Chao. That is the simple reward in Sonic Adventure which works and makes people happy. At the same time you did levels and collected power ups, you were rewarded by progressing through the main story, your Chao gets stronger and your rewarded an emblem. Sonic Unleashed is so shallow. It gets many things wrong which just ends up pissing off the gamer. There is exploration in both game play mechanics. In Daytime, you either see it and go so fast past it that you miss it and in the Nighttime, the exploration is there which is great but the Werehog is so boring, slow and not Sonic at all. The reward in Sonic Unleashed? Your rewarded with nothing but frustration and disappointment. I will be very shocked if this game sells well in Japan next month as there is much better offerings.

Don’t get this game nor play it. You will feel ripped off and depressed that you invested your time and money in Sonic Unleashed. I did and I would recommend that you buy Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection next month for PS3 and Xbox 360. That way I hope SEGA get the fucking message that the simple game play mechanics which made their games successful in the 90’s doesn’t need to be molested with some shit transformation in the form of a Werehog and with such shit reward. Don’t buy this game at all, please.

Overall: Don’t buy at all costs

Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit Review – PLAYSTATION3

Dragon Ball Z, this animé brings back sweet memories of my teenage years where I would literally watch it being glued to the TV every day after school. Being the owner of a PS3, I was excited to hear that a Dragon Ball Z game was being made for Sony’s latest entertainment system. Looking at early trailers, Promotional Videos fed me with hype and I really felt I had to buy this game. Come June 6th, I had picked up Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit to keep me busy before Metal Gear Solid 4 and I thought it was going to be a great game, only I felt after an hour of playing it ripped off and unhappy.

Burst Limit is fantastic at but I sadly can’t say the same thing about the gameplay

I’ll start with the good parts of the game. Burst Limit looks fantastic! From every generation of consoles Dragon Ball Z has appeared on, the graphics have not just improved but have at the same time looked closer to the look and feel of the animé and with Burst Limit, it looks stunning and really gives the player a great impression. Burst Limit also introduces On-line Play which allows players to take on fighters around the world so if you happen to import like myself and think that you can only play people from the game’s region, you can take on anyone! The On-Line play is great and I had no problems when I went On-Line. The game play is very good also, its not broken and keeps the simplicity of the Budokai games which DBZ fans will like with Burst Limit. Finally, Vegeta’s famous “Over 9000″ scene is also in this game which made laugh but that is where the positives of the game stop there.

I have a lot of issues with this latest Dragon Ball Z game. Firstly, it feels like the game was seriously rushed and lazy. When playing Z Chronicles, the mode was shallow and didn’t really any brief detail what the hell was going on. I know what happens in Dragon Ball Z but some of the cut scenes weren’t true to the anime version and it is weakly executed. The original Budokai game’s cut scenes were excellent and recreated them flawlessly but Burst Limit is very poor and the animations within those cut scenes are scene over and over and over again which left me disappointed. It further pissed me off when I completed the Frieza saga when a movie played with the in depth cut scenes I wanted to see with dialogue but also proves that the game feels rushed.

The other problem is characters. There is only 21 characters for this game which for £40 is ripping your wallet a new asshole. Previous Budokai games have MUCH more characters, even Budokai Tenkaichi has more than 100 characters. I really wanted to play as Cooler (favourite enemy) but was annoyed to hear just Bardock and Broly from the Movies and Specials were going to be in the game so again this is something which will be a major problem with many potential customers and fans of Dimp’s Dragon Ball Z games.

Cooler like me is very pissed off with Burst Limit

Drama Pieces is the major pisstake with this game. Drama Pieces activate when certain conditions are met within the fight but not only does it make change the characters’ effects such as Health, Ki, Attacks, Defense etc. but it also kills the flow of the fight for players and at first I thought it was cool thing as I could see what Dimps were trying to do. For those who have watched DBZ will know that fights will get interrupted with assists from friends and foes, long dialogue and plot twists but in Burst Limit it simply doesn’t work and you can’t skip the Drama Pieces either which is a shame as it is very annoying.

Imagine playing Gears of War or Unreal Tournament and the game pausing every time you’ve got one or two frags with useless, non-skip dialogue. That is the true annoyance of Drama Pieces and if Dimps are planning a sequel, this is the first thing I would remove.

Overall, I am very disappointed with this game and it failed to live up to my expectations. It feels like a dummed down version of the original Budokai but in HD with added inconvenience and mediocre value . If you are curious to see this game, I would rent it or buy this game when it goes down in price but it certainly isn’t worthy of the RRP and is very difficult to recommend for its asking price.

Being the mediocre game it is, the next day it found itself back at Woolworths where I claimed my refund