He's not so awesome. Trust me.
The similarities between Sonic and Awesome Possum are so blatant that it's a wonder Sega didn't sue. Sonic is a furry animal that moves really fast and fights the evil Dr. Robotnik and his machine army that are threatening the animals of the world by rolling into a ball. Awesome Possum is a furry animal that moves really fast and fights the evil Dr. Machino and his machine army that are threatening the animals of the world by rolling into a ball.
Separated at birth!? Not quite - Sonic games are actually good.
The first place Awesome Possum screws up is with controls. Possum (I refuse to call him awesome from here on, he simply isn't) controls very slippery, and his jumps are off and somewhat unpredictable. This is only solidified by bad and bland level design, which consists of mostly hills and springs regardless of the environment. These hills generally get Possum started moving at Sonic speeds, but the game is set up in a manner that as soon as you start getting somewhere you go crashing face-first into an enemy or trap, so you can't even enjoy the most derivative parts of the game for too long. The levels themselves tend to be longer than they need to be and the only way to get through them in a reasonable amount of time is to start hitting high speeds.
Enemies are plentiful and annoying to kill. You can only destroy them by jumping on them or rolling into a ball, but the jumping sucks so you'll most likely be rammed to death by the enemy and rolling into a ball only happens on certain jumps and when moving at high speeds from springs. Bosses follow the exact same patterns as enemies, or in other words they simply run back and forth trying to ram into you or shoot you. The only difference is you have to jump on their heads a few more times.
The frustrating controls and frequent enemy encounters make the game hard, or would - the game has this odd way of balancing itself out by tossing plenty of extra lives at you. So you die a lot, but have plenty of lives left over. Collecting trash (rather than rings or coins) gets you extra lives. They're scattered everywhere and only picking up 50 pieces will do the deed. Well...whatever.
The game's bland levels are complimented by the fact that there are only 4 worlds anyway: the rainforest, underwater, arctic, and Dr. Machino's polluted city. Is it a good or bad thing that there isn't more? You decide.
Sound design falls apart. The music in the first level is slightly catchy. Apparently the composer realized this because he/she reuses the theme in some way for pretty much every other level. And one of the few notable things about this game was the voice acting. While it certainly isn't the first game with digitized voices, it's probably the first one with this extensive amount of voices. There isn't any deep dialogue or anything, most it is wasted on Possum as he prattles on endlessly after every action you take in a level. Such amazing voice samples include "I'm so cool!" and "I'm awesome." But no, you're not that awesome. And there's no way to shut him up.
Awesome Possum is, simply put, a disaster. And it's no wonder Tengen, or Awesome Possum, aren't here today.