The little blue puffball suffering from ADD – aka Sonic – is back once again to fulfill his obsessive-compulsive disorder to collect rings and run really, really fast. Sonic hasn't really had a good game since his Sonic Adventures on the Dreamcast, and even then some people will argue against you. Sega is once again trying to recapture the glory of the Genesis era Sonic by making sure that there isn't so much running around but rather just speedy flights from point A to point B.

Personally, Sonic looks the same to me. Obviously the game looks better than it has ever before, but it still just seems like it is Sonic running as fast as he can and suffering from the safe problems that has plagued his adventures since the Dreamcast. Given this was a preview build and not the final product, there were still some issues I hope are tweaked before the final version is released in stores.

I mean, if I wanted to, I could sum up my time with the Sonic preview like: run, run, run, jump, get hit by enemy, collect rings, more rings, more rings, run, run, run, run, jump, stupid platforming, fall to death, run, run, run, more stupid platforming, finally die and use up all my lives. See? Doesn't that just read like someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder? I kid, I kid.

Anyways, when Sonic was going really fast things looked bright and promising for the most part, though his controls still felt wonky to me; occasionally I'd try to make him go left just a little bit and instead he would veer extreme left and head right off the level. Also, Sonic has his patent pending homing jump, which did help me dispose of the enemies, but then it would finish me off by jumping me right off into the empty void the levels hang over.

The preview also had some odd platforming bits that were either too hard because there was such a large margin of era or because the speed had you moving too fast to properly judge such things as distances. For example, after one long jump you have to land on a thin piece of rope and bounce up into the air and onto another rope, and it was quite difficult to land on it just right. Other instances included trying to ring dash after performing a jump, accomplishing only a fall to my death for my troubles.

I did manage to play another level after this, which was a strict race from beginning to end while avoiding enemies and obstacles. I felt this level worked the best though I sucked the worst at it. You didn't have to worry about pushing forward on the control stick to make Sonic run forward, because it was automatically built into the level design. The only thing you had to do during this level was watch where Sonic was going, not fall into any gaps, jumps hurdles, and avoid the gunfire from the enemy machines flying after you.

Overall Sonic The Hedgehog was a mixed bag that showed promise but yet faults too. Hopefully those will all be worked out during the debugging and tweaking for the final release whenever that is this year or next.