Sonic Unleashed is basically two games spliced together: daytime, normal, speedy levels as the Sonic we love, and night-based beat 'em up levels as a mysteriously stretchy armed werehog Sonic, who actually isn't as bad as he sounds (though we still think it would've made more sense to put Knuckles in the beat 'em up sections and whack a big 'Sonic & Knuckles 2' sticker on it). Still, only core characters such as Tails, Amy and Robotnik are with Sonic this time aside the throwaway humans, so we can't whine too much. They've been a bit sneaky this time, too, by saying there are no new characters (Chip the flying chihuahua-thing excluded) - technically true, but werehog Sonic is so drastically different to normal Sonic that it might as well be another addition to the ever-growing roster of friends. We can't help but think, however, that another reason is that Sonic Team have become set in their ways of offering more gameplay styles than are strictly necessary. What's the reason behind the werehog, then? Officially, it's to lengthen the game, as creating a game with 'proper Sonic' levels alone would have been tiny due to the amount of time, effort and money needed to create them. Things are not looking good…until Sonic squashes a little red flying chihuahua and teams up with him to save the world yet again. He steals the power from the Chaos Emeralds, splits the planet into pieces, awakens a big monster and fills Sonic with a dark force that transforms him into a werehog before sending our favourite little blue chap headlong to Earth/Mobius/wherever Sonic lives now below. It all kicks off, rather excitingly, with a space-based showdown between Sonic and Robotnik (yes, yes, we know he's called 'Eggman' now, but we're flying the flag for tradition here) in which, shock horror, the blue wonder's nemesis actually convincingly gets the upper hand for once.