Sonic Unleashed iPhone

[granville]

Here's a surprise. I remember reading on a forum that Sonic Unleashed would have an iPhone version. Didn't think much of it and thought it would be some minigame thing or something. Surprise, surprise. It was unveiled at E3 to be a 2D sidescroller that looks like the lovechild of Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush. Check out the video here-



Sorry about the quality, maybe high quality will be better.

http://wireless.ign.com/dor/objects/143549...one_trl_e3.html

For those who can't or don't want to watch a video, check these screens-

Spoiler

I have to give them credit, this looks good! I'm stunned. It might actually be decent or fun. Although I don't have an iPhone. They should do a DS port of it perhaps. The resolution is perfect IMO. Didn't expect this, and I'll keep an eye on it. No date yet.

It should be noted that Sega appears to not have much of a hand in this if any at all. It is being both developed and published by Gameloft according to IGN. Maybe that's for the best that Sega isn't making it. Some of the better Sonic games during the past 7 years or so have been out of Sega's hands. Dimps made both the Advance series and the Rush series.

 

[Big Kong Boss]

Man, all I can say is..wow.

I wouldn't mind playing this.

 

[ZeroEXE93]

Hopefully this game is a lot better than its console counterparts. This just may be the first paid app I buy for my iPhone. >_

 

[da_head]

best thing sega's made in a while (relating to sonic). seriously.

 

[granville]

It should be noted that Sega is neither developing or publishing this according to IGN. Gameloft is. That might be why it looks decent.

 

[Canonbeat234]

It should be noted that Sega is neither developing or publishing this according to IGN. Gameloft is. That might be why it looks decent.

Yeah but this is sad that this game looks more playable then the Xbox360/PS3 counterpart. I mean it just screams originality; the werehog attack gameplay is not like GoW!

 

[silent sniper]

it should be played on its side to give more horizontal space

 

[DrCaptainHarlock]

Wow, this could be decent, although the controls probably won't be so good since I think the iphone doesn't have any actual buttons, IDK.

 

[Master Mo]

Is this made my dimps? Because this looks really like SonicRush! Looks good but on screen buttons is always not so good...

 

[Hadrian]

If they released this on the DS it would not sit well against the two Rush games unless it is heavily remade or released as DSiWare.

I thought that this will be bad to play with phone buttons or worse with iPhones lack of buttons but you'll probably just have to jump every now and again like eith the DS games.

 

[EnigmaXtreme]

The funny thing is; this probably plays better then the Wii version XD

 

[JDandy]

Destined to fail. Some things just work with the iPhone's lack of buttons, and some things just don't.
Games like Puzzle Quest, Aurora Feint 2; Arena Daemons, Knights Onrush, Peggle and Isotope work marvellously (and they're fantastic games) and really show the merits of the iPod Touch/iPhone as a gaming platform: Quick, Pick up and play games with simple controls.

Then there's the things that just don't work. Hero of Sparta, Resident Evil; Degeneration, Pacman, the first iPhone Sonic game. Sure, they look nice, but the controls suck, and with the iPhone's battery life, you don't want to be playing hardware intensive 3D games. Disregard pacman for a moment, that one's all about the clunky controls.

When it comes to controls, and shoddy iPhone ports (not that Pacman is a shoddy port, again, all about the controls there) the problem is best shown with emulated games.

Be fair, we all jailbreak our iPod Touch/iPhone (unless you're a giant scaredy-cat) for whatever reason. ( I did it so I could have a frikken background, everything else was a bonus)
And we all pirate iPhone apps from you-know-where (since if you're going to do something, you might as well go all the way).
And SOME of us think that playing SNES/NES/GBA/PSX on their iThing is a good idea (getting tired of typing both pod and touch).

NES; Ever tried playing super mario bros with the onscreen d-pad and buttons? Say goodbye to skill AND accuracy, insofar as you had any.
SNES; RPG's, such as Shin Megami Tensei 2 or Fire Emblem 4 work PERFECTLY and excellently with an onscreen pad. Ghosts and Goblins.... not. Zombies ate my neighbors... not.
GBA; FFTA works great since it's turn based. Boktai 3...not so much.

Bottom line extends to Sonic Unleashed iPhone; There's games that work with a no-button all-touch setup, and there's games that just NEED a solid controller.

 

[granville]

I'm partially in agreement with JDandy. Which reaffirms my opinion that they should have made this a DS game. They could easily port it to the DS too since the screen orientation is similar and it uses simple 2D for sprites and graphics. The DS can actually do much better than this technically.

And no Master Mo, this is not made by Dimps. It's Gameloft. They made a ton of mobile games, which were both good and bad. They did some DS and console games too, but they seem pretty shovelware like or puzzle oriented. But perhaps they WILL port this to the DS one way or another eventually. This looks like the Sonic Rush 3 we haven't gotten (yet).

 

[AshuraZro]

The speed the game seems to play at looks awful compared to what is actually capable with the device.

 

[Trolly]

Hooray for having an iPod Touch. Someone needs to have an iPod Touch/iPhone Essentials thread, I have no idea what all the good games are for it.

 

[JDandy]

I'm partially in agreement with JDandy. Which reaffirms my opinion that they should have made this a DS game. They could easily port it to the DS too since the screen orientation is similar and it uses simple 2D for sprites and graphics. The DS can actually do much better than this technically.

And no Master Mo, this is not made by Dimps. It's Gameloft. They made a ton of mobile games, which were both good and bad. They did some DS and console games too, but they seem pretty shovelware like or puzzle oriented. But perhaps they WILL port this to the DS one way or another eventually. This looks like the Sonic Rush 3 we haven't gotten (yet).

"Which reaffirms my opinion that they should have made this a DS game. They could easily port it to the DS too since the screen orientation is similar and it uses simple 2D for sprites and graphics."
You're right. This would have been much better for the DS, and a much more logical move.

"The DS can actually do much better than this technically."
I don't really know how to tackle this one/what you're trying to say here, so I'll make an assumption and fly off on a tangent.

Surprisingly, the iPod has better 3D than the DS, and a bigger screen (and patch support, but that's not really relevant).
The iPod can emulate NES/SNES/GBA/GENESIS/PSX and some (lame) others, whereas the DS can only emulate GBÂ, GBA and NES. (Yes there are SNES emulators, but they suck; graphical glitches, freezes, not nearly all games work. etc. DS can't do SNES period.)
So the iPod IS the stronger game system (in terms of hardware), look at games like Prey: Invasion and Real Racing; both of those do 3D that the DS just can't handle. FF3, FF4, Sigma Harmonics and KHDays are the 3D capability posterchildren of the DS, but their 3D is still the kinda-ugly-though-it's-not-so-bad-as-long-as-you-don't-look-too-closely 3D the system is known for.
That being said, of course the DS has all the fun/awesome franchises that Nintendo brings to the table.

That rant aside, this Sonic game is kind of shitty looking, but I'll chalk that up to GAMELOFT since they make (like Granville said) a ton of mobile games.
Especially on the iPod their games are known for having the best-looking 3D (TV Show King, Terminator;Salvation, Hero of Sparta, Brothers in Arms etc), but it's not past them to churn out some shitty cash-in games (My Stop Smoking / Weightloss / Word Coach, Hawaii waterfall, Plasma Ball etc).
...Which is exactly what Granville said. (Curse you and your ability to convey ideas in less than a million words!)

QUOTE(Trolly @ Jun 5 2009, 09:26 PM) Hooray for having an iPod Touch. Someone needs to have an iPod Touch/iPhone Essentials thread, I have no idea what all the good games are for it.

Too bad we're at GBAtemp XD. But yeah, iPod gaming news and reviews are kind of hard to come by. I use this site for the latest news. (If you liked Puzzle Quest on the DS, pick up the iPod version, it's superior.)

 

[Trolly]

Too bad we're at GBAtemp XD. But yeah, iPod gaming news and reviews are kind of hard to come by. I use this site for the latest news. (If you liked Puzzle Quest on the DS, pick up the iPod version, it's superior.)

Ooh, thanks very much, that's really useful.

EDIT: Oh wow, they're making a version of Prey for iPod Touch

.