Sonic Unleashed does what a Sonic game should do; disappoint on every level.
Cons: Everything else is a complete disaster.
Sonic the Hedgehog has returned with his fun, fast-paced action. There's plenty of running, jumping and smashing to go around. Unfortunately, Sonic has brought a friend this time. A friend whoes only purpose is to absolutely destroy an otherwise great game. Incase you haven't guessed, this friend is the Werehog - a hideous, disgusting beast whoes levels are so slow and terrible that no matter how hard you try, you can't find any joy or excitement in. Platforming segments are terrible, controls are unresponsive, the camera is frustrating, and combat is nothing more than tedious button mashing.
All of the games missions are boring. You're given absolutely no reason to want to complete them, because they're nothing more than "get to the end". There aren't ever any twists in the levels to make them special, it's all just running - or in the Werehog's case, walking - to the goal, with a few awful platforming segments, and some truly random and poorly placed button matching sequences thrown in between. And while Werehog segments are packed full to bursting with enemies that never change, Sonic the Hedgehog's stages have very few enemies thrown in, most of which aren't even threatening unless you're trying to die.
There's not even an equal number of Sonic and Werehog levels in the game. Sonic levels come in very rarely and are short and only contain one real mission, where as Werehog levels take up the rest of the game with long, boring missions that come in packs of at least 3. And everytime you collect a tablet, you have to go back to see the Professor so that you can skip the terrible dialogue and get on to the next level. But don't get you're hopes up, because it's probably just another Werehog segment.
Speaking of terrible dialogue, there are these awful sequences between continents in which you have to talk to civilians to gain information that's completely useless, because all that speaking to people does is open up new worlds, meaning that you have no reason to even read the text. There are also some terrible, blurry, long, boring, useless, unskippable cutscenes, which force you to listen to the game's terrible voice acting. The worst part of all is that Werehog Sonic sounds like a three-year-old trying to sound like a monster. Sonic's voice is different as well - and it's for the worse. Other characters like Tails return to test your patience as well, with voices so terrible that it's not worth muting just because you'll have these terrible dreams about what the company was thinking when they hired these "voice actors". And even if you manage to save yourself the pain of listening to the voice acting from the beginning by muting your television before you begin, you still have to deal with the terrible dialogue thanks to the subtitles that the game just has to have.
The only good thing about Sonic Unleashed is that little bit of joy you get when you finally get to play as Sonic again. But that joy is immediately taken away 5 minutes after you begin the level and you're back to playing as the Werehog again. You can go back to levels and try to collect all the items, but since there's nothing to tell you how to get them, you'll have to play through the levels over and over again to finally get more. Overall, Sonic Unleashed is a disappointment on every level, and while daytime stages are fun while they last, Werehog stages manage to completely ruin the game in ways you wouldn't believe. Sonic fans will be pleased - or otherwise pretend to be, but for the rest of us, it's pretty much what you expected.