Sonic & the Secret Rings: phew, just made it

Gosh.

It's a Sonic game, in 3D, that's not got the word "Adventure" in its title, and it's, well, good.

Really good, in fact.

It started off a bit iffy, with an overly-long story board, and then some tutorial missions which were meant to be in the pages of a book but instead just look brown and really really boring. they only took 20 minutes to get through, though, and I've now finished most of the Sand Oasis stage, which is very pretty indeed.

The developers have realised that the whole fun of Sonic is that you're barely in control, going fast and just missing obstacles, and this game's essentially an on-rails into-the-screen running game, where you can move left and right across the track but can't really choose your path. And it works really well with the remote controls, tilting to move and pressing the button to jump. Although I do wish you jumped when you pressed the button, and not when you let go of it.

I've now built up a nice library of special skills, though it took me a while to realise that you have to equip them in your skill ring before you can actually use them. I was doing the mini-turbo move like an idiot and getting nowhere for ages before I actually turned the skill on.

I'm getting bronze medals on most of the stages (resulting in the "phew" line in the title - oddly, when you don't get a medal at all, Sonic says "no problem", which is rather more upbeat), though I expect I'll be able to get the silvers later once I've got more skills available. In the meantime, I'm working my way through the levels.