Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii, 2007)

Sonic fans rejoice because the blue hedgehog is back in true fashion. Many Sonic fans have been disappointed (and rightfully so) with recent Sonic games that have gone awry. Secret Rings returns to the tried and true Sonic formula. In this game, the worlds are 3D, but Sonic runs along a set path, deviating only slightly to the left or right as he runs forward. For most of the levels, Sonic will be blasting forward at his normal "blue blur" speed. Your job is to make him dash left or right to pick up rings or avoid the bad guys. As usual, Sonic can also jump to clear obstacles or stomp on the bad guys. The controls for the Wii work well and are fun. You hold the wii-mote sideways and tilt forward to run, back to slow down, and side to side to move left or right. The buttons allow you to jump, or move backwards. Visually, the game is spectacular. Each world is enormous, colorful, and crisp. The sound is good, but can become redundant over time. The story line is a little and voice overs leave a lot to be desired, but don't affect the gameplay at all. In general this is a fun game making great use of the Wii controls. This is a good overall choice for most Wii owners and a great choice for anyone looking to revisit the Sonic legend.

While Sonic is a classis, the new dimensional movements to control Sonic are cutting edge; they are also a bit complex.

Like previous Sonic games, the movement of Sonic sometimes goes to "auto-Sonic". He hyperdrives to a dizzying speed, all while limiting user input. To make him do simple left and rights, precision is required. Also figuring some of the more complex offensive moves are more than exasperating.

If your are under the age of 10, you will probably be able to master this game instantly. However, if you grew up playing the original Sega version (or you've got it on your computer at work), prepare to be befuddled and a little disappointed.

Even so, it has several party modes for multi-player board games. The movements for these are typically a single movement, decreasing the stress of playing in Sonic's dynamic, 3-Dimensional world.

Starting with the bad things: the story is weird and sometimes even ackward, the pace is very slow in the beggining of the game (I've seen many people quit the game before getting to Chapter 2 -- when things start to heat up).

But what this games does right, it does damn right. After you get some ring powers, you start to run REALLY fast and the game becomes really wild. You will die, a lot, because no human being possesses the kind of quick reflexes that would be required not to die the first time you pass through certain points, but every time you pass a level, you will feel like you're the best player in the world. It's a very rewarding game.

Also, there's a whole bunch of optional missions to do if you want to complete the whole game and unlock all of the extra stuff (art renders, cinematics, sound test, this kind of stuff). And there's also a party mode full of MarioParty-style minigames that are... absolutely not fun. You will quickly forget this mode even exists.

In a nutshell: wild action, extreme speeds, cool graphics, Sonic the way it should be. Buy this game.

Who says an old hedgehog can't learn new tricks? The only problem is the control and the communication with the wiimote. Since you have to use the controller side ways when playing this game, the game often stops in the middle of a stage to re-connect. This can become quite troublesome when you're trying to quickly move the wiimote forward or backward. The communication is with the wii console and the wiimote is the main problem.

Another issue I have is when Sonic is in the air about to do a homing attack you can't really control when he performs the attack once in the air. Sometime enemies are blowing fire and you have no choice but to dive into it and lose your rings. They only give you about 1 second to thrust the wiimote forward to perform an attack.

Other than those to flaws the game seems to be a new generation intergration of Sonic...but I do miss the old theme song a lot : - (

This game is awesome! At first it was frustrating because of the buttons and the way you use the Wii remote. After you manage to learn the moves, the game opens up and is the best Sonic Game since he debuted on the Nintendo platform. The only dissapointment (as many Wii games so far) is that the little animated movie clips are replaced by story book pages. My family loves completing each mission, as the reward is seeing the next clip in the story, so we were really dissapointed with that. My 8 and 6 year old daughters are still having some difficulty with the Wiimote. I'm not that impressed with it. The good news is on Sonic you earn better levels of control as you move through the game so it gets a bit easier. Still A+ for Sega, great game!