The Wii House is nice. A little semi-detached house in London, it’s essentially a marketing apartment by Nintendo for their latest console. Today, SEGA took over, with playable demos of Sonic and the Secret Rings plus a rare visit from Director Yojiro Ogawa (more on our interview with the Ogawa of Power soon).

We played the first two stages of what essentially is the final version of the game. Sand Oasis is as you all have seen it in screenshots – Sonic dashes through a desert with platforms over streams and spikes. Dinosaur Jungle has Sonic running through caverns, being chased by Triceratops and facing a massive purple dino trying to eat your face off. Nice.

Control of Sonic is simple really. The blue blur is constantly going; you simply tilt the Wii remote left or right to move the hedgehog the corresponding direction. Pressing ‘2’ will make him jump, while holding the button down can make you leap higher. This will come at a cost though – Sonic slows down, and if you’re running at full pelt you’ll need to hold the button down real early to brake in time to make the jump. Enemies can be attacked by flicking the remote forward when a red target surrounds them. Button ‘1’ halts Sonic and can be used to cancel a charging jump, while holding the remote backwards can make Sonic do a moonwalk to pick up medals and items you just missed.

Enough about what you know already, what don’t you know? Well, the cutscenes are very artistic. The intro movie is your obligatory CG Sonic intro, with cheesy rock and great graphics. Inbetween levels, you’re going to see these kinds of storyboard scenes (see above). This one is after Sand Oasis, where you meet King Shahryar only to find it’s Dr. Eggman.

The voice acting isn’t nearly as annoying in this game. Probably because you’re too busy trying to engage in the game, but perhaps because the dialogue is that much more sharp. In-game voices aren’t always telling you to do this, that or the other like in Sonic Heroes – although Sonic’s guardian fairy Shahra does say to Sonic “it’ll be cooler inside” on Sand Oasis. Followed by Sonic replying with “Eh, are you sure about that?” after seeing flamethrowers on the floors and ceiling.

Speaking of which, the difficulty in this game is unique for a Sonic game. We say unique because it takes some getting used to before you can really adjust to the control system. Yet it doesn’t suck royally like Sonic 06. There are times where Sonic can’t reverse effectively when you’re holding back on the remote, but besides that it’s all intuitive. There are 12 missions per stage, SEGA tell us; 6 of these must be cleared before progressing to the next level, and as you may know they all feature different challenges.

Some are level specific – Sand Oasis has an alternative mission where you cannot run into any vases. This is where it gets interesting – variations on the ‘Story Mission’ level path (or a different level path entirely) can be experienced through different missions, requiring you to keep on your toes. Dinosaur Jungle places you in an area where springs are available to send you to the next platform; in an alternative mission the springs need to be activated using timed switches. Each mission gets more difficult than the last and we’re told the later levels get very hard indeed – this is hardcore territory.

Yet despite the number of times we cacked up and fell to our death in a bottomless pit, we still managed to keep on trying the same bit over and over. You see, Sonic and the Secret Rings doesn’t have a lives system, per se. If you muff up and die, you simply restart the section again until you get it right. This can be obviously infuriating if you’re really cackhanded, but it’s a godsend (and a middle finger) to the mach-speed killathon in Sonic 06, which included the nerve to limit lives so eventually you had to restart the entire stage all over again. The difference is you want to play Secret Rings until you beat it.

The amount of unlockables appear to be vast as well. The ‘Special’ section of the game is a massive gallery of movies, illustrations and BGM from the game (and possibly Sonic’s back catalogue of 15 years) that you can earn by collecting Silver and Gold medals. SEGA weren’t kind enough to let us see any of the unlockables, but believe us when we say there are loads – there are at least ten tabs selectable at the top, with the last being ‘???’. So we’re not even given a hint as to what that is. Still, the many abilities you can earn and equip to your rings (on your finger, dirty boy) are just as cool. They include making Sonic jump higher, running faster, getting a better head start and more control when jumping.

The Party mode is a collection of 40 unlockable minigames, and although we know that Shadow, Cream, Silver and Blaze are a number of the 8 selectable characters, only Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy were available for us. Myself, IGN UK, Total Games Net and Rom from SEGA all got together for a quick bash (I was Sonic, obviously). We will be adding all the games we played to the Secret Rings Game Archive tomorrow, but here are a few examples:

“Spot! Pitch Black!” has all four characters holding torches/flashlights in the dark. Four near-identical panels slide across and players have to look at the panels with their torches and select the picture with the difference. It can range from something as silly as Knuckles with Tails ears to a minute difference in a Sonic picture that neither of us still understood what the alteration was.

“Look Up! Skydiving!” featured players falling from the top of the screen, with angel wings attached to their arms. With the Wii Remote pointing upwards, flicking the ‘mote up and down will make your character flap their wings to avoid thunderclouds on the way down. First to the goal wins.

“Seek! Edge Race!”……… That little git is back. Yes. Omochao. Only thankfully he keeps himself to aiding your Party games and this minigame. All characters are blindfolded and YOU control your associated Omochao, using the A button to direct your character through a maze full of pitfalls to the goal first.

We also managed to see the final level of Sonic and the Secret Rings – the name of which is currently being kept a secret. What we can tell you is that the difficulty curve is ramped supreme. Sonic is seen running through falling platforms in outer space, and mid-level has to survive being poisoned by noxious gas. One point sees you warped to a large room full of gas that rapidly depletes your rings – you will need the help of some of your equipped ring abilities to get out fast enough.

Another point in the final stage has Sonic running through glass in a space environment. The graphics are really gorgeous here. We only managed to find one image of it (and it’s not one we took unfortunately, it’s from a Famitsu video that ‘TBF Bri 10’ on Wikipedia snapped) so take a peek at that for the time being.

So first impressions? All looking super. Of course, whether the challenge within will be sufficient, whether it will wear thin or whether this will be another broken game remains to be seen. Although we have to say, after playing this for about two hours it looks ten times better than Sonic 06 did. We’re not saying this is your miracle game just yet, but… a Story with a decent challenge and a ‘Sonic Shuffle 2’ party mode with tons of extras. All we’re saying is keep those fingers crossed.

We’ve had a look at how the main three characters will play in a general sense, but you will get to enjoy the presence of many more Sonic stars. Each hedgehog will have two ‘Amigos’ helping them out throughout the stages and within cutscenes, and they all play pretty differently.

Sonic will be followed around by Tails as per usual, and Knuckles. The two tailed fox can do his signature flying move, as he’s no longer strapped in a mech, yay! His attack involves chucking item box bombs at enemies, and a sniper style mode is available by holding down the X Button. Knuckles on the other hand can glide as always, and has his Heat Knuckle move. You will usually call on these guys whenever Sonic needs help finding a switch, because apparently the blue blur’s thick like that.

Shadow is partnered with Team Dark favourites Rouge and Omega, and just like the Team Sonic crew Shad’s extra pairs of hands retain many of their signature moves from Sonic Heroes. Omega has a lock-on feature that attack nearby enemies, while he also has a beefy Omega Launcher as a midair attack – lobbing bombs in the face of Iblis for maximum pain. Rouge glides like always, and like Tails has a bomb move – it’s similar to that used in Sonic Battle, really. Play is switched to Rouge to find items – Kingdom Valley has you looking for three keys, in the only throwback to the SA2 days. Omega comes into force as backup for Shadow, so you’ll be using him in moments involving a lot of firepower. He’s also a bit of a dab hand when helping Shadow out in a boss battle.

Finally, Silver has Blaze and Amy Rose tagging along. In a rather interesting addition to the ‘canon’ game series, Blaze makes her first entrance to the console platform, so we get to understand a bit about her background and why she’s in the future with Shadow instead of that other dimension like in Sonic Rush. Blaze is about the best Amigo character to work with, as all of her Sonic Rush moves have translated well into 3D. She has an attack move which sees her launching at her opponents, but as a midair attack it works similar to Sonic’s homing attack. Amy finds Silver, and – yes, AGAIN – mistakes him for Sonic. Which is how she gets involved in all this mess. Amy has her trusty hammer, but she can only use it on a standstill and aside from a double jump, doesn’t really have much in the way of defence. At all.

Achievables also come back in Sonic the Hedgehog with a vengeance. Medals are awarded for completing levels, achieving special conditions in Soleanna and earning ‘S’ ranks in Action Stages. There’s a total of 5 Gold Medals per Action Stage, two for completing them in normal and hard, two for ‘S’ ranks and one for collecting silver medals within the stage. Sonic the Hedgehog aims to be a challenge for the hardened fan, if only to clear the Achievements list on your 360 and begin boasting.