Sonic Unleashed for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

I haven't like a 3d Sonic game since the first Dreamcast one but this has made me a fan again. The most important addition in this game is the "Dark" Sonic in which the game play is more of an action brawler God of War esque type of gameplay. That type of gameplay lends itself to better exploration of the stages in general and the ability to explor each stage in each form defintely add a lot to the replay value of the game. The "daytime" Sonic relies more upon the speed run of the stages and most of the time it's on rails but there's tons of eye candy during those moments. For those that lost faith in the Sonic series, this may restore it. For those that are not even fans of Sonic this will be a great game that came out this holiday season that DOESN'T INVOLVE SHOOTING! A definite rental but this is definitely leaning towards a buy for me. 8/10

I grew up playing Sonic games. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the first video game I ever owned and is still my favorite game ever to this day. Sadly after the Sonic games passed the Genesis the poor guy quickly went downhill. I was excited about this game at first because it was being advertised as a return to form for Sonic. And it could have been.
The daytime levels are gorgeous, fast, and fun. There are some minor issues with the controls, but overall they are great. It's the night-time "werehog" levels that got me. The werehog levels are boring and dumb. The controls are sloppy and the combat (really? there just HAD to be combat?) is horrifically bad. They take awhile to finish because Sonic is slow as a werehog and because they're not fun in the first place they feel like it takes an eternity to finish them.
Another irritating aspect is the fact that you have to walk around towns and talk to people. WHY? Whose idea was it to include this stupidity?
What the developers don't seem to understand is that Sonic doesn't NEED stupid extras like combat and RPG elements like levelling up and skills. What the franchise needs is what this game was originally advertised to have; a return to form. If I want combat then I'll play an action game. If I want to talk to people in towns I'll play an RPG. What I want out of Sonic is to run really fast, go upside-down and fight Dr. Robotnik (NOT Dr. Eggman). Why is that so difficult?