E3 06: Sonic the Hedgehog Preshow Report: Sonic Goes Next-Gen

It's hard to believe that Sonic the Hedgehog will be turning 15 this year. As one of the last mascots to appear during the heyday of platformers, the speedy blue hedgehog shook things up with his feisty attitude, blistering speed, and cutting-edge visuals. It's a testament to the character's appeal that despite the leap to 3D not being an easy one for the franchise, Sonic is still around. For the little guy's 15th anniversary, developer Sonic Team is aiming to have Sonic's next-gen debut revisit his roots for this new era in gaming, marrying the classic Sonic elements of graphics and speed with the power of the new boxes. We got a taste of how this is going to happen at Sega's recent pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo event via a demo of the game with Sonic Team and a brief chat with the veteran developers.

The demo of the game began with an overview of the project by the team. With Sonic's 15th anniversary taking place this year, the team opted to revisit the hedgehog's roots for his next-gen incarnation. In reflecting on the hog's history, the team viewed Sonic's speed and visuals as the key components to a new game. The power available, thanks to the new consoles, posed a new challenge, which the team has embraced, with physics and artificial intelligence opening all manner of possibilities. The biggest challenge the team has wrestled with, though, is how to craft a game that matches the widespread appeal of Sonic's early Genesis games.

In the years since the franchise's splashy debut in 1991, the series has wound up taking all manner of detours, for better and worse, which have resulted in a loss of focus. These days, Sonic games are viewed more as kid's titles than anything else. To revive Sonic's appeal to both kids and adults, the team is taking the speedster into the more realistic setting of the human world. How this is being done was illustrated by a CG video that set up the new game's premise and showed off the new look for Sonic and company. The cinematic showed a seaside town at night and segued to a scene of Dr. Eggman doing his menace thing, with some informative monologuing illuminating his intentions. While the realistic city was an obvious nod to the team's intent to "real" things up, Eggman's new look offered a more dramatic display of the new direction. The good doctor has shed more than a few pounds and no longer looks like a Weeble. Though the doc was looking pretty trim, at the moment it looks like his makeover only appears to be in the weight department, as he was still rocking the red and black jumper and sporting the goggles he's had since his debut.

Sonic's appearance in the video and in still images shown during the presentation also revealed a sleeker look, one that's light on the baby fat of his early years. In fact, Sonic's looking like he grew quite a bit in height as well, resulting in longer legs and a track-runner-esque appearance. His spiky coif has also seen some work, keeping him from suffering from any big-hair issues. The final two characters in the cinematic show were a princess, who featured a very realistic look that's more in line with character designs seen in a Square Enix game and a mysterious white hedgehog with a big, wispy white 'do.

So who are these new faces, and how does this all fit into the game? We have precious little to share due to the team's caginess on info getting out too soon. The basic gist of it, though, is that the city seen in the cinematic was the seaside town of Soleanna. The town's protector is the young princess Elise, who apparently has a secret she guards with her life from fear of it being used to affect the world. Of course Eggman finds out about it and makes plans to seize it. As you'd expect, Eggman's plan entails a little kidnapping (it had to right?) and finds him snatching the princess. This, of course, pulls Sonic into the adventure, as the hedgehog has never been one to turn his back on a damsel in distress (except, possibly, Amy Rose, but she's more of a stalker). The adventure is guaranteed to have complications, thanks to the presence of a mysterious albino hedgehog, who seems to view Sonic as something called an "Ibliss trigger" and is willing to use the supernatural powers at his disposal to stop our hero. If this all sounds a bit convoluted, fear not: Sonic Team is intentionally keeping mum about a fair chunk of the story until later so as not to spoil anything.