It's true to say that you can't keep a good hedgehog down and since his groundbreaking debut in 1991 - is it really that long ago? [Yes it is you old fogey - Ed] - Sonic has soldiered on, seeing a glut of releases of varying quality. To my mind, Sonic peaked with the glorious Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast, his first foray into 3D gaming. It was a spectacular game full of exciting levels and gorgeous graphics. However, Sonic Adventure 2 was a big disappointment (to me at least) and seemed like a second-rate rehash of the first game. So it was with some trepidation that I approached Sonic Heroes, Sega's latest release for the lovable blue hedgehog, and whilst it's by no means a classic it's definitely a step in the right direction.

For those of you that don't already know, the big hook for Sonic games has always been luscious looking levels that you fly through at tremendous speed and whilst you can play through them meticulously, discovering the many secrets and bonuses to be found along the way, you are most rewarded for speed. This time around things are no different and whilst the challenge of racing through each level is a tough one, it would have been nice if you could be rewarded more for rings collected and score attained too.

Sonic Heroes takes the classic Sonic gameplay and evolves it with the addition of a big new feature; that of using teams to play through the single player game. There are four teams, each consisting of three characters, and the series of fast, huge and intricate levels have been cleverly designed to maximise the gameplay variety that using teams offers. Each team consists of three character types - speed, flight and power. In the case of Team Sonic, Sonic is the speed character, his young sidekick Tails is the flight character and former enemy Knuckles is the power character. Sonic can run super fast, execute homing attacks on enemies, pick-ups and springs and use a tornado attack to deal with armoured enemies, spin up poles and activate flying flowers, amongst other things. In Sonic's formation, the other team mates run along behind him. When you take control of Tails, the formation changes to a tower, with Tails at the top and Sonic and Knuckles below, one of them stood on the other's shoulders. Tails can jump high into the air and fly for a limited distance, allowing him to access areas that the others can't reach (but with Sonic and Knuckles in tow to bring them with you). In this formation, Tails can send Sonic and Knuckles flying at enemies in a spin attack, which homes in on flying enemies and is an essential skill to master.

With Knuckles under your command Tails and Sonic take up position either side of him. Knuckles can pick up Sonic and Tails and use them as spinning fists to smash up enemies, wooden crates and even fallen rocks that get in your way. He can also leap into the air and fire Sonic and Tails in powerful spin attacks at enemies, carry out various combo attack moves on the ground and get in a triangle formation and make use of rising air currents to get height and then glide back down. This list of skills is by no means exhaustive either, so you can clearly see that with all these abilities on offer, the gameplay variety on each level is much greater than in any previous Sonic game. The other three teams do mix in a little variety, such as slightly different attacks for the power and speed characters, but they effectively use the same mechanics and each team is as such a clone of Team Sonic.

What is slightly different, however, is the level layout for each team. Although you progress through pretty much the same adventure four times over, the level layouts do vary a little. Team Rose, headed up by Sonic's psychotic wannabe girlfriend Amy and including the lovable, bumbling Big, who has lost his pal Froggy yet again, is the easiest team to play through with and definitely the one to pick for those not used to Sonic games; with Team Rose the levels are not as long or difficult as with the others and this serves as a gentle introduction to the gameplay. Team Sonic is tougher, with longer levels that will on average take eight to ten minutes to get through first time around, which should give you an idea of the scale of the levels - they are huge! Team Dark, headed up by Sonic's dark twin Shadow and including the bizarre bat girl Rouge who debuted in Sonic Adventure 2, is the toughest mode of all whilst Team Chaotix, featuring (as far as I know) three all-new characters, is different altogether. With this team you have objectives to complete in each level, such as destroying a certain number of enemies or collecting a certain number of items scattered across the level. The inclusion of these four teams and the slightly different gameplay dynamics is admirable in one sense but in another it feels like a cheap way of extending the game's lifespan and I think only die-hard fans of the game will bother to complete it with all four teams.

Coming onto the level design, Sonic Heroes both delights and frustrates. On the plus side the levels are some of the most fast, spectacular and imaginative ever to grace a platform game and when you are whipping through them at tremendous speed it can be a seriously exhilarating gaming experience. Some of the most exciting levels largely involve grinding on rails that loop and twist all over the place, whizzing around so fast you can hardly follow the action. However, in the later levels in particular, the frustration factor is ramped up by some dodgy camera work and control issues that lead to a lot of pointless falling to your death and this is incredibly annoying, to the extent that I just turned the game off in disgust on several occasions.

Graphically the levels are a mixed bag too. On the whole the levels look excellent, full of detail, vibrant colours and incredibly imaginative layouts, with all manner of runways, ramps, loops, twists and turns, making the game feel like a non-stop roller coaster thrill ride. There are a number of themes to the game, starting off with the obligatory beach levels and moving onto a futuristic city, a sprawling casino (complete with huge pinball tables for which you become the ball!), a dense jungle, rocky canyons and even a haunted house level. There aren't as many themes as in previous Sonic games and there aren't really a huge number of levels, just 14 in total (not counting the bosses) but what is here is so huge and well designed that there is enough to keep you entertained.

The animation on each Sonic character is superb, with all of the lovely touches that have been present right since the original Sonic and the various attacks and weapons effects all look very nice. However, whilst everything in the foreground is great, the backgrounds are still quite basic looking and haven't really improved since the Dreamcast. There is rarely any slowdown and the levels really do move very fast - I wouldn't want more detailed backdrops at the expense of speed - but it would be nice if the background didn't look so much like graphics, as it takes away from the spectacle of the levels. Also, the enemies really aren't that exciting, the evil Eggman (come on, we all know his name is Dr. Robotnik!) has built a new range of robots to attack you and whilst they all do the job they are nothing special or interesting, which is a shame.

The sound is up to scratch, with all manner of boings, crashes, booms and bangs as you bounce on springs, smash into enemies and destroy containers with bonuses. The voice acting is fine but sadly the dialogue is some of the most nonsensical, stilted rubbish I have ever had the misfortune to endure. The "story" and "script" such as they are reach new lows and whilst Sonic has never been any good at this aspect, these unskippable abominations really are too much to bear. It's a shame they're so pointless, as they feature lovingly rendered graphics. The music is a mixed bag, mostly full of catchy tunes but with a few that grate and sadly none that come close to the brilliant score of the original Sonic Adventure.

Delving beneath how it looks and sounds, Sonic Heroes is ultimately a shallow and incredibly frustrating gaming experience. There is without doubt some fun to be had and some of the level designs really are spectacular as you speed through them, but there are too many flaws and too many things that don't really work, which spoil the fun. It is far too easy to dash or run straight off a ledge, especially when trying to use Sonic's light dash move to collect a trail of rings or when carrying out a homing attack on an enemy that doesn't home in. On the grinding levels there is no way to actually home in on the rails and there are many moments where only trial, error and repeated death (that's the trial part) will lead you to figure out it's best if you just press up on the thumbstick and hope that you don't miss the next rail. On a number of occasions I have been on a loop, rail or path where the game carries you along only to be dumped into a fall to my death at the end of it and left wondering what the hell happened. Either way, this means that a lot of the time you are left nervously operating the controls and carefully watching to try and prevent yet another fall to your death.

The faults don't end there, either. The camera doesn't behave that well and the system for moving it yourself is decidedly unintuitive. The Team Blast special move that each team can use looks seriously lame (it's a Final Fantasy style super attack where time freezes) and Team Chaotix's attack (where the three team members suddenly get musical instruments and play them so abysmally that the sound kills all nearby enemies) is just the weirdest, dumbest thing I've ever seen in a game. There is a strange pause of about 6 seconds at the end of each level, where the Team just stares at you, waiting for the end of level stats to appear. One level has you chased by an alligator whilst you jump from vine to vine in the jungle, but because you're jumping towards the camera you can't see what you're doing and one split second mistake is fatal. The Special Levels are frustrating in the extreme; you rush down a tube filled with turbo boosts to collect and mines to avoid but you can barely control your character when things get too fast.

One of the biggest problems in the game is with the enemies. Killing the enemies is not only strangely unsatisfying, but you are conscious that every enemy you stop to kill is wasting precious seconds that will affect your rating. Furthermore some of the enemies must be killed to progress and they all take multiple hits now, meaning that the speedy despatching of foes of past games is gone. The boss encounters are totally lame too, despite their variety, consisting of huge vehicles that Eggman drives, wave after wave of enemies, or a duel with another Team, where the first team to knock the members of the opposing team out of the duel ring wins. The implementation just isn't there and the frustration far outweighs the enjoyment of these sections. There are no less than seven multiplayer games but none of them are particularly exciting and the best of them is the straight race against your friend through your chosen level. The team duels are mindless button bashers with unpredictable results and the special levels are no less frustrating against a friend. Furthermore, you have to unlock these mini games, meaning that unless you're a die-hard completist you'll never get to play them anyway.

I've been pretty negative about Sonic Heroes and whilst it is full of thrilling moments and packed with variety and good ideas, the gameplay just isn't what it should be. Control issues, far too many pointless fall-to-your-death moments and a general lack of purpose or incentive to explore make the fun fleeting and the frustration lasting. It's by no means a bad game and it's one that I'm sure many Sonic fans will enjoy, but I strongly suggest you try before you buy, as I doubt many gamers out there will have the patience to go the distance with Sonic and co this time around.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).