I love my job at SEGA.

I had the chance to run through our Gamer’s Day presentations and got a first hand look at most of our release schedule in one concentrated dose. Normally, the Gamer’s Day is for Press and PR only, so this was quite a treat for me. I’m still very much a fan of Sega and the games we create; and having a chance to see our games demoed by their creators is always a thrill.

The rest of the gaming press has been writing on the day with their impressions of Gamer’s Day, as well as other companies that had showings last week. There’s a lot of good info out there on all of the titles shown, but I wanted to put together a quick rundown of some highlights for me. So of the day, here are some brief impressions of three games I saw:

Sonic Unleashed

The newest Sonic title is basically the game I’ve been waiting to play since I first saw high resolution shots of our favorite blue hedgehog. The graphics are simply amazing, Sonic has never looked better. The world is highly detailed, and the sense of speed has to be seen to be believed.

One of the few ‘wow’ moments for me was when the action swapped from 2D to 3D and Sonic was grinding a railing. From this vantage point, the next challenge was visible from afar and Sonic was racing towards it full speed. The draw distance was huge; you could really get a sense for how big the level was.

So far I’m amped to see how the game will come together; it looks like a good mix of great graphics, great controls, and great gameplay.

Sonic Chronicles

The one thing you don’t get a chance to see in the screens for Sonic Chronicles is how the environment looks in motion. This may seem like a simple thing, but it brings some life to the game that you just don’t see in static screenshots. Of the section we saw, there was noticeable depth to the area with billowing smoke from toxic pipes, surrounding lush green hills. Sonic Chronicles is looking like a lot of fun, and I’ll definitely be looking to play more with the build they had for the Gamer’s Day event.

Samba De Amigo

I actually own two original Samba controllers on the Dreamcast. Every now and again, we’ll break out the maraca boxes and make fools of ourselves to friends and family. I’m not terribly coordinated, but I love the game, and was thrilled to get a chance to actually play it at the Gamer’s Day.

So the big question is: how does Samba feel compared to the original? Pretty much the same! The Wii-motes are much lighter, that’s probably the only major difference I could tell right off. The play mechanics seemed identical, I was able to quickly jump in and start waving my arms like a Samba crazed maniac. It felt really good to play Samba again, and I’m looking forward to playing more of it in the office. This is big on my list to share with friends when it launches later this year.

So there you have it, those are my top picks from the day. I’m looking forward to seeing all our games come together, in addition to these three. If you haven’t already done so, please do check out the coverage across the major sites, there are a lot of good games coming out from SEGA and we had a great Gamer’s Day showing them to everyone.

If you haven’t seen all of the screenshots released for the day, do check out our Flikr page!