Sega claimed that with Sonic and the Secret Rings focusing more on speed instead of free-roaming exploration, we'd be seeing the change that the franchise desperately needed. But now it's out, has it done what the developers wanted?

The story is fairly basic; Sonic falls asleep reading an Arabian Nights book and before he knows it he has been summoned into the book to help stop the pages and the stories within from being erased, by a new villain this time; the Erazor Djinn. Does this mean we've seen the end of Dr Eggman? Thankfully he is still in there but this time as one of the characters from one of the Arabian Nights tales. In fact, all of the Sonic cast star in this title, but not as the characters we (and Sonic) know them as; each of them has taken a role as one of the Arabian Nights characters.

The Erazor Djinn places a curse on Sonic and informs him that if he doesn't get the seven world rings back to him in a set amount of time that Sonic will be erased along with the book. While the story claims to have a time limit, it doesn't affect the gameplay and you can replay the levels as many times as you like and take as long as you like. The game is divided into seven different worlds ranging from a Dinosaur World through to levels that soar miles above the ground - which happens to have some of the most annoying wind known to man.

Each world is broken up into 10 - 15 missions, some of which are vital to the story and others are there to help pad out the game, gain experience points and unlock extras in the game. The good thing about how this is broken up is that you choose how big the game is, you can follow the story or you can play through every level to get your money's worth.

Sonic starts the game fairly slowly, and you'll need to complete a fairly decent number of missions before controlling stops being awkward and for the speed to pick up. Every time you finish a level you get graded and depending on your grade and what you picked up throughout the level you are given experience points. Earn enough experience points and you are given a skill point. These skill points can be used on new moves, faster speeds and tighter controls and you can create four different preset combinations of moves so you can choose the best skill set for whichever level you're about to attack.

While this does work, and it also gets you to retry older levels with the newer moves, it would have been nicer to not have to worry about it at all. Many times you'll get so frustrated with levels only to find that if you just left it for another few hours you'd have no issues at all. Controls shouldn't start weak and loose, and Sonic should definitely not start slow, but most of all, you should never have to fight with the controls just to move back a few steps.

While the mission selection is non-linear, the game is extremely linear in its gameplay. When each mission starts Sonic starts running and you have control over his direction. You can bring him to a stop and with a tilting back of the controller you can attempt to get him to take a few steps backwards. The only problem is that you will spend up to 10 seconds minimum trying to get him to backstep. While this doesn't really make a show in the first couple of worlds, when you do come up against it it'll make you think you're doing something wrong, when really its just bad coding.

The game is played with the Wii controller only and is held horizontally like an old-school NES controller. Tilting it left and a quick flick up causes Sonic to jump. There's not much to it, and that works nicely. In fact once you unlock a lot of the move list, controlling Sonic - for the most part - really works and makes the game feel like a decent 3D version of the older titles.

Graphically the game is one of the nicer looking Wii titles to release so far, and manages to keep a constantly high frame rate. The cutscenes - while extremely simple - work nicely in tying together the whole "book" theme of the game. The only confusing aspect with any of the cutscenes is the amazingly polished opening movie that, strangely enough, you may never see if you don't venture into the extras section. Why they didn't open with this movie BEFORE the "press start" screen is anyone's guess, as it looks amazing and really helps to set the scene.

With the inclusion of a Party Mode, Sonic and the Secret Rings isn't just a single player experience. While the mini-games involved in this mode are extremely simple they just don't seem to work. Controls are frustrating, games are tedious and you'll probably never look into them again after you have checked them out. Fun for a minute, sure, but it isn't something you'll bring out to show your friends.