It has been a long time since we’ve seen a decent Sonic release on consoles. Since the blue mascot has attempted to move into the realms of 3D he’s always been a bit ropey. It’s a long time since the glory days of the Sega Mega Drive.

You play with two different versions of sonic after a big shadowy baddie rips open some kind of time-related black hole, leading to several sonic characters being trapped. To free them you must play with both new and old sonic to free them, defeat bosses and bring order back to the world.

When playing as the new sonic you will play levels that are mainly in 3D. These are by far the most exciting of the levels. Here the action is pretty fast and you are encouraged to use your ‘boost bar’ as much as possible. The game has clearly been made to be fun with few chances to die in each level, unless you are completely useless at platforming games. It also encourages speeding around as much as possible and nice cinematic touches have been put in place. One section has you speeding into and through an office building, another has you dodging lasers while running up a building. It’s brilliant, the camera swoops around at the right moment and moves with sonic perfectly to fit the situation he is in. It all felt really exciting and where other 3D sections in sonic games felt frustrating this felt smooth and exciting.

The other half of the levels are in the old 2D style. Here each zone is played out old-style. These are brilliant and while they may not be as breathtaking as the 3D levels they are really well designed. Just like the 3D levels I was rarely left frustrated and really enjoyed playing these. It almost felt like playing an old game from my childhood with nostalgic memories coming back.

Sonic Generations seems to have been made for fun. The game has used cinematics, enemy placement and camera work to make sure that the 3D levels flow, instead of being held up by the player’s skill. I found that in both the 2D and 3D levels, if I missed a jump then I’d most likely find I was just taking a longer or slower route.

There are even several bosses in Sonic Generations. Before playing them I was slightly worried. I feared that this was where the game would flounder with poor design that deviated from the design of Sonic Generations. Surprisingly the game delivered fun boss battles and even though there aren’t many of them they give that game a sense of variety and break up the main game.

There is even a set of different challenges and races to play through. While these are fun, other than the three rival races, these are all slight variations on the main game’s maps. Which is disappointing as there aren’t enough of them. The game is pretty short and as it has made to be fun and accessible it isn’t too hard either. This means that you’ll only be likely to go back to Sonic Generations if you want to beat high scores.

So, Sonic Generations is meant to be a celebration of the series bringing old and new together and blending both 2D and 3D environments in what should be the best sonic game in years. Now usually I’d palm this off as Sega having a pretty good PR agency, but for once they’ve actually delivered. If you take one thing away from this review it is this: Sonic Generations is awesome.