While Sega is famous for many things, it's best known as the company that brought the world the punky little rodent Sonic the Hedgehog. His 3-D years, however, haven't done him justice. Sure, running in an open world environment sounded like fun, but the results lacked the thrill of signature Sonic speed. Sega hopes to change that with Sonic Unleashed, a game that ditches complex mechanics in exchange for Sonic's basics -- speed, fun, replayable levels and a slight leap back to the good ole 2-D days. It's a heavy burden for any developer, but from what we saw, Sonic's next game may be his finest yet.

Is it a dragon? Is it a track? It's both and it's beautiful.

Let's talk speed. Patrick Riley, producer for the Xbox 360 version of the game, says that the proprietary "hedgehog engine" was designed to deliver a high-speed experience that kept pace with the game's hero. Speed was the focus, but the team needed to make sure that the graphics looked stellar, that players could switch scenes from night to day and experience the game in 2-D side scrolling mode.

In our demo, Sonic started the ring race in a seaside villa that was inspired by Grecian city of Mykonos. While choosing the villa seemed, at first, like a way to show off a developer's favorite vacation spot, the hilly track was thinner than other 3-D Sonic efforts and the action moves at a quick pace. Players can still miss grabbing rings, but the overall look is what 3-D Sonic should have been all along.

In the next level, inspired by Chinese architecture and myth, Sonic begins his race on top of the Great Wall and then gets up on the back of a long snake-like red dragon. Even while the dragon floats in space, from the players' point of view, it might as well be a rollercoaster. Next, Sega introduced the return of precision platform levels that slow down Sonic's normal pace but add to the challenge as he attempts to leap across platforms while avoiding spikes.

During the course of play, "quick time events" occur during jumps and the speed of the player's response determines whether Sonic heads to more rewarding parts of the track. To mix up the types of gameplay, the game's perspective will switch into 2-D mode (more like 2-D side scrolling with 3-D elements). Thankfully, it gracefully transitions to 2-D mode without an annoying cut scene. As for controls, you use the d-pad or left analog to move forwards, left, right, slow down and use the right bumpers for QuickStep moves that let Sonic strafe left or right to avoid obstacles or get rings.

Sonic does gain several new abilities this time around. In the left hand corner, a Ring Energy meter charges up to release a new Sonic Boost that goes turbo at about 300 MPH (the fastest ever, Sega claims).

Undoubtedly, Sonic Unleashed's more controversial portion will be the introduction of night scenes. The story, so far, is that Eggman captures Sonic and takes away his speed but he gains a set of wolf-like claws that stretch like rubber. During a night version of the Greek level, Sonic (in his Werehog form) slashed enemies with his claws or even held onto them to torture them a little. We noticed that the claws were most helpful in grabbing on to ledges that Sonic would normally miss with his signature speed abilities. Adding a sense of verticality to the game is a nice edition, but it seems like a big departure from traditional Sonic adventuring.

In the end, Sonic Unleashed seems like Sega has listened to fans and plans to design a game that brings Sonic back to his glory. The demo, which did have slowdown in odd places, didn't disappoint with its sense of speed, and a tiny leap back to the 2-D mode made us want to stand up and clap. Until it arrives on PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and PS2 in time for the holiday season, stay tuned to GameDaily for the fastest news on the next Sonic.