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How bad is the latest Sonic game, Sonic Unleashed?

Sonic Unleashed is so God-awful that after trying to play through it for a week, I not only traded it in, I traded in every other 3-D Sonic game I had in my possession.

I picked up Unleashed for a meager $12.50, thinking that despite the mixed reviews, how bad could it be? I thought it can't possibly be worse than Sonic '06 with its lengthy load times, shoddy controls and unnecessary peripheral hedgehogs, Shadow and Silver. But oh, how wrong I was.

Sonic Unleashed begins with the typical claptrap about Sonic and Eggman fighting over Chaos emeralds in a pretty spiffy intro movie. The world is torn to pieces, and for some reason this turns Sonic into a "werehog," and this is where things start to go to hell.

I can just imagine the conversation that lead to this abomination.

Sega Guy 1: You know what people love? How fast Sonic is! Sega Guy 2: You're totally right. So let's turn him into a kind of werewolf and make most of the game revolve around combat! Sega Guy 1: Genius! You sir, deserve a raise.

To be fair, the werehog sections aren't nearly as atrocious as some reviews make them out to be. It's kind of like playing Ninja Gaiden for kids, if Ninja Gaiden kind of sucked. The problem is that the werehog levels go on for way to long. Each one takes about 20-30 minutes to clear, compared to less than 10 for the true Sonic levels, which are actually pretty decent. If the werehog levels were much shorter, the game would be somewhat tolerable.

But then there's the overworld. Why, oh why do Sonic games have to include overworlds where you don't run around as fast as you can collecting rings, but have trivial conversations with people about hot dogs and cookies? Each overworld has gotten progressively more annoying since the first Sonic Adventure, and in Unleashed, if you aren't being bugged to complete a mission for hot dogs, you're annoying sidekick Chip is constantly bugging you.

And then, to top things off, you have to search for medals in levels and the overworld to unlock the next area. Way to make an already agonizing experience even longer, Sega.

I actually did make it through Sonic, Shadow and Silver's level in Sonic '06, and I had a pretty decent time doing so, but after restoring two of the continents in Unleashed, that's when I had had enough. This is the type of game that isn't just bad in and of itself, it actually made me think less of the Sonic franchise as a whole.

Now, in another year or two, I'm sure Sega will come out with another Sonic game, and promise to fix the hedgehog we used to love, so let me offer a few tips ahead of time.

1. We old school Sonic fans want to play as Sonic and only Sonic. Maybe Tails or Knuckles can be bonuses, but the adventure should only be about Sonic.
2. Focus on speed, speed speed. No damn werehogs or psychokinetic hedgehogs!
3. No chao, Chip, no kiddie crap. Sonic used to be cool enough on his own to appeal to kids.
4. No damn overworld! Sonic should go from level to level as fast as possible.
5. It's OK for the game to be short, just make multiple paths in levels so people will want to replay for a better time, you know, like the old Genesis games. Don't try and stretch things out with medals or mandatory chaos gem collecting.

If Sega follows this advice, then maybe, just maybe the next Sonic game won't be a complete fiasco.