Sonic the Hedgehog used to be a name associated with quality. During the Genesis days, buying a game featuring the blue hedgehog usually guaranteed an excellent gaming experience. Since that time, Sega has stumbled with its star mascot, casting him in the decent Sonic Adventure games while terrorizing audiences with the lackluster Sonic Rivals and Sonic Riders games, it's biggest offense coming in the form of the abysmal (but best selling) Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 bug fest, Sonic the Hedgehog. Yet, despite this rocky road, the latest adventure, Sonic Unleashed feels different. We're not one to get our hopes up, but based on the early screens, we can't help but drool just a little.

Available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and PlayStation 2, Sonic Unleashed is a 3-D adventure with 2-D roots. It appears that instead of creating a free roaming game, a la Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega intends to blend old school Sonic platform mayhem with detailed 3-D visuals. You'll explore the game's environments as you would in the original Sonic the Hedgehog, limited to moving left, right, up and down, but you'll do so within these grand locations. And judging by the recently released trailer, you'll have limited 3-D movement, but nowhere near as much as in Sonic Adventure. So, in a sense, Unleashed appears to be a compromise between Sega and its fans. The latter have clamored for a traditional 2-D Sonic games for years. While Sega won't give them that, Unleashed appears to be the next best thing, a game that lets them have that old school feel within a tech savvy world.

As per the usual, the story isn't exciting. Sonic's arch nemesis, the diabolical Dr. Eggman, has somehow broken the world into pieces and Sonic must put it back together harnessing the power of the chaos emeralds. To do this, he'll visit seven distinct continents and complete various challenges. Aside from mentioning that day and night alter gameplay, or at the very least determine what sorts of missions Sonic can complete, Sega hasn't spilled much information about the game. Done right, this could add more replay value to the experience, as gamers will need to revisit locations at different times for 100% completion.

In addition, the game includes four new speed mechanics and combat moves, but Sega won't discuss what those are. With that said, we're glad to see that the company intends to make this game more about speed than aimless wandering.

Furthermore, Sonic Unleashed runs on Sega's proprietary Hedgehog Engine, which has supposedly been in development for three years. It remains to be seen whether this technology will overshadow the stuff used to create previous Sonic's games, but thus far, Unleashed looks gorgeous, sporting lush, green forests and a Middle Eastern environment.

Regardless of how this one turns out, Sega might have a multi-million selling hit on its hands. Sonic used to be the mascot to dethrone Mario, and we'd love nothing more than to see him return to glory.