Game Overview
First things first, back in the day, if you had the name of a character in the title 9 times out of 10 they would be the main focus in the game. Sonic on the Mega Drive was nothing but Sonic, Sonic & Tails was nothing but Sonic & Tails so why is it that the 360 debut entitled "Sonic The Hedgehog" is actually aimed at everything but Sonic? OK so you get to run about with the blue hero for a few levels but aside from him there is Shadow, Tails, Amy, Blaze and a new character Silver. Why they feel this is necessary we have no idea.

The game continues whilst constantly switching stories, one minute you'll be playing with Sonic the next minute Silver and then again a minute later you'll be playing with Shadow, all who have different attacks and attributes, i.e. Sonic is fast but Silver has telekinesis and can hover for short periods of time. It must be an attempt at making the game a little more interesting, but for us we want a Sonic game not a Sonic and look-a-likes game.

In terms of gameplay unfortunately it's about as annoying as the character issue (which might we add is an issue in our opinion), the controls are dreadful, truly dreadful. As you'll find out in the very first level you are required to keep your character on a floating road type island in the sky thing, sorry for being so vague! Doing this is next to impossible especially at high speeds; we played for hours and still couldn't get the hang of the very sporadic controls. Due to the fact you are constantly falling off the side and plunging to your death the game does get very annoying and boring very quickly and by the time you have got to the end of the first level you are already eyeing up your games collection to see what else you fancy playing.

Graphics occasionally look quite good but nothing like we have come to expect from the Xbox 360, the levels looks bland, lifeless and you'll often find Sonic jumping from ledge to ledge looking completely the wrong way and then the camera angle making life even harder than it already is. Such a shame as Sega really could have started with a clean slate on the 360 being the first next gen Sonic title but unfortunately Sonic has continued on it's downward spiral it started when it first went 3D.

Our Conclusions
We here in the BO offices are massive Sonic fans as you'll see from previous Sonic reviews on the website but words cannot describe how let down we are with the newest addition on the 360. Obviously it's going to appeal to all Sonic fans to add to their collection but if you are just curious and looking to buy a new game stay well away. Hopefully Sega will go back to square one and produce a cracker next time around, might we suggest an old skool scrolling platformer but better looking, like you know who on the DS?

Overall Score: 4/10

Thanks to Sega