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Sega had their newest Sonic adventure displaying at E3, and as an old-school Sonic fan I had to grab a look. What I discovered was a nice-looking title with some surprise mechanics from the old games, as well as an interesting new game type. Sonic: Unleashed is divided into “day” and “night” games, so I'll provide a look and some thoughts about each of these segments.

Day games! This is the traditional Sonic speed-platforming. Sonic: Unleashed features a new game engine called “Hedgehog.” While this will be used for more than just Sonic, it WAS developed for with an eye towards the high-speed rendering that Sonic requires ... which is probably why it was so named! Flatly, Sonic looks really, really good. The version we saw still had some stutters, but there's plenty of time to fix that and the devs told us up front that the E3 build was still working those kinks out. Locations in the Sonic: Unleashed world are inspired by real places, and the Grecian level that we saw successfully evoked its inspirational muse: Mykonos. The music is a departure from the driving techno commonly found in Sonic games, but succeeds in putting a Sonic spin on music that is traditional to the level's (real life) location.

From a gameplay perspective, there are several new wrinkles in Sonic: Unleashed. Firstly, rings are no longer just a source of health. They now also serve as fuel for Sonic boosts, which can be used to push Sonic up to truly tremendous speeds. At a certain point in the game, Sonic gets the ability to “quickstep” - which is basically a twitchy sideslip that avoids an obstacle, changes rail-paths, or otherwise diverts your path. Speaking of paths, Sonic is given more branching pathways – some of which must be opened by correctly hitting some button-matching challenges at certain points in the level. The last change, and one that I really appreciated, was a return to the original Sonic perspective from time to time. That is, when the devs feel that the appropriate perspective for the level is sideways, rather than over Sonic's shoulder, the camera shifts out and the game controls very much like an older Sonic game. Everything is still very plainly 3D, but all game operations take place in the active plane – so think of it as 2-and-a-half-D!

Night games are something completely different, though they preserve the same locations as the day games, and continue to faithfully remind players of various beautiful places on Earth. Thanks to some evil characters tinkering with Sonic's DNA, he now changes forms at night, and must rampage about as Sonic the Werehog! While Sonic runs around at night, the gameplay shifts to combat platforming, and you wield an array of Werehog attacks that help you further your goals. These attacks generally fall into the thrusting or sweeping category, and should be used as appropriate when you're dealing with single enemies versus ravaging hordes looking to take you down. Combo attacks can be built with both attack types, and will be capped by powerful moves that are appropriately useful given HOW you built the attack up. Amidst all this Werehog hacking and slashing, we haven't forgotten the platforming! Werehogs, apparently, have stretching arms – who knew? Not only is this useful for beating up baddies, it's also a great device to get Sonic swinging around and jumping for last-second ledge grabs. Be assured that between rounds of pounding bad guys, you'll have plenty of leaping, climbing, swinging, and running challenges to keep you occupied.

At the demo, I saw “Mykonos” in both night and day forms. I also saw a stylistically Chinese level, which included the expected race along the Great Wall. All three were entertaining, gorgeous, and looked deep enough to sustain some real gameplay. I'm very excited about this release, which hits all major consoles as a holiday title.