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.

… continued