My basic gripe with the 3D Sonics was that they were too focused on being "adventures" when they should have been focusing on what made Sonic who he is - speed, and lots of it. This is where Sonic Wild Fire for Wii comes into play. I got my hands on this game at E3 and it was exactly what I've always wanted from a 3D Sonic. It was intense, it was simple, and it was fast. Was it perfect? Hell no. Was it fun? Oh yeah.

The story for Wild Fire was more than a little ambiguous, but I'll try and fill in the blanks where I can. There's a magic lamp involved somehow, which is seen at the beginning of the demo. The short tutorial took place on top of a book, so I'm going to assume there's a kind of magic lamp legend being told similarly at some point. When you see Sonic, he's actually quite literally on fire, with a rather large flame bursting out of his chest, which probably has something to do with the lamp and legend that I assume exists. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

The demo starts out with a basic rundown of the controls. Sonic will run on his own for the most part, on a set rail lined with obstacles, baddies, and rings. The game is controlled only with the remote controller, no need for the nunchaku. You held it lengthwise, as you would a standard controller, and tilted left, right, forward, and back to control where Sonic was moving. The 2 button (formerly b) is the only one used, which made Sonic stop in his tracks and, the longer you held it, jump higher as you let it go.

Throughout the stage, there are also little fireball things that Sonic can pick up by running past, building up his speed power. Once that gauge is filled, a few quick shakes of the controller will put you into a hyper speed in which you'll run through the level at intense rates for a short period. Shaking the controller in the air also acted as your basic attack against robot baddies and targeted things like springs on the ground.

So, the level they had playable at E3 was basically just that - an extremely fast-paced rail-driven system with no quirky exploration extras or pointless objects to collect or useless characters getting in the way or Tails bitching that he can't keep up or any of that other shit that Sonic has become known for in games of late. This is Sonic in 3D as he should be. Sega has finally answered my endless griping of "I want to run." How it turns out in the final version is yet to be seen, but of any console Sonic game I've seen recently, this one has by far the most potential to be great.