Previews// Sonic the Hedgehog 4

And the level design is multi-tiered too. I was shown a playthrough of the first three Acts of Splash Hill (the fourth consists entirely of the Dr. Eggman boss fight) – Act 1 contains an upper pathway and a lower pathway, with the former requiring a lot of platforming and timed jumps and the latter involving some momentum puzzles and spike pits.

Act 2 in particular contains a fairly lovely piece of level design – swinging vines are introduced here which help Sonic travel higher up the level. Towards the end of the stage, you enter an interior section with a chasm that needs to be crossed using these vines. If you don't time it well enough, there's a spike trap to avoid and a lower platform that gives you the chance to try again. Bottomless pits? Nope!

A lot of talk has been made of the homing attack, and that was also a concern of mine before I saw the game in action. While recent 2D Sonic games appear to have been marred by the inclusion of such a feature, in Sonic 4 it seems quite inoffensive. You can come across the odd chain of badniks that can be attacked to lead you to higher places, but the game in no way compromises difficulty with its presence. In fact, while much of Sonic 4 feels like a retread of Sonic 1, there are just enough discrete tweaks in the formula to make Sonic 4 look more progressive than regressive.

For instance, if the game was following Sonic 1, 2 or 3 level conventions to the letter, then the addition of a homing attack would no doubt dumb down the action. But in Sonic 4, the homing attack feels more like an InstaShield 2.0 (InstaShield being name of the split-second double-jump shield you engage in Sonic 3, fact fans).

Special Stages return; modern replications of the Sonic 1 rotating mazes that were the bane of my childhood. But there's a literal twist to these Chaos Emerald quests – rotating the controller (on a Wii or PS3 obviously – I'm told the triggers will be used on the Xbox 360 pad) turns the stage in a 360-degree fashion, giving you somewhat more control over your spinning destiny (but not much). To make things a bit more challenging, you need to collect rings to pass various gates before you can grab the Chaos Emerald for victory.

All in all, it seems that Sonic Team really has got its act together. The graphics are fantastic, the animation on Sonic is wonderful, and the gameplay mechanics are just the kind that fans have been clamouring for. Don't be fooled by selective internet video – this really could be the return to past glory that the faithful have been waiting for.