Sega will release Sonic Unleashed on Xbox 360 and Wii tomorrow (PS3 in December), and here are the first 10(or 20) minutes in video. The game looks great and it has many of the classic Sonic moments in it, but then again we have that certain Werehog too.

When the sun goes down, you morph into the Werehog. Basically you walk slower, have a darker voice and the stages turn into puzzle & fighting arenas. While the Sonic stages can be finished in three minutes, the Werehog stages instead take up to 20 minutes. You fight a big number of enemies (sometimes 15 or more), then move on and do puzzle's involving switches and moving objects.



My biggest issue with the Werehog is that everything is so slow. You jump, and he kind of hovers in the air. Quite the day-and-night difference compared to Sonic, and this is what I can't understand - if they add a new character, why would they want to make him even slower than any other typical video game character? If they just could have made him a decent movement scheme, it wouldn't be such a pain to do the puzzles and knocking out the enemies. It's not catastrophically bad, but it's bringing the game down.



Thankfully you have the dash button, where the Werehog goes down on all four and runs faster. There's a small movement angle while running in these speeds, so it's mostly used when you run through corridors or open spaces. After finishing a stage you can divide new ability points to either Sonic or the Werehog, and thanks to some new moves for the latter the fighting doesn't get as bad later in the game. You also gain higher Unleashed levels, making Werehog faster for longer time.



The fighting controls are not just about button smashing, he can perform different kombos and grab the enemies. By killing enemies, a meter is filled, and when it's full he can go in Rage mode and get more critical hits and do more damage. The game has an open world where you can talk to people that often give away hints for the next stage.

In the video below you'll find the first three stages in the game, where Sonic's movement is explained through the tutorial. Since there are so many in-game cut-scenes, I had to edit some out. Enjoy!