Sonic Unleashed showed up in my mailbox yesterday. I was a little aprehensive about the title after seeing one not so stellar review, but I still wanted to try it. I put it in the 360 and gave it a spin for about 2 hours yesterday. I can say that despite it being a gimicky title with a slow warehog, I still like it.

The first thing you'll see when starting a new game is a fairly lengthy CG cut scene the sets up the story. This sequence looks beautiful! It is amazing the level of detail in the graphics! Its only too bad you can't play it because I thought it might be a cool introductory level, but its not. Still the first level you get to play you play as Sonic and you move FAST! Very very fast... It is pretty cool. I did not think the controls felt too automated either.

Once you finish that first stage you're introduced to the new world you'll be running around in between levels and it is colorful and nice, but not much to speak of. Pretty soon you're starting of your adventures as the warehog and he isn't so bad. His stages play like any generic beat-um-up. I happen to like those types of games, but it definitly isn't the same as the speedy Sonic stages. The big problem I think people will have is that the night stages might end up taking 15 minutes or more when you can burn through sonics stages in about 2 minutes each. If the game does end up having a lot of Sonic stages before the end I'll still be happy, because I don't find the Warehog to be perticularly bad, he just isn't Sonic.

Another thing I noticed about the game in my short time playing is the extensive use of quick time events in the game. As the warehog you'll use them to do critical strikes on enemies and defeat bosses. This feels pretty standard and isn't really something to complain about, but then there is that air stage I played. While riding in Tail's plane to a different location there is a very long feeling stage that consists soley of pressing the correct button in time over and over again. The game tries to make it more interresting with the cool graphics and whatnot, but it doesn't feel like a boss fight. It actually feels more like a segment from a rythm game less the music. I hope that those types of stages are kept to a minimum.

If I had to pick a review schore now I'd probably put it at a 7. So far I've been totally WOWed by the regular Sonic stages and the well done graphics. I still have enjoyed being the Warehog, but that is pretty average and feels like any other kiddy adventure game out there. Then I was annoyed by the plane stage, but only because I felt it to be way too long. So all in all I still like the game. I hate to say this because it is already cliche, but if only Sonic Team could have made the whole thing a running adventure as regular Sonic then this game would have been an awesome must have holiday title. It's too bad they didn't.