London - If Mario was the gaming Beatles of the Nineties, Sonic was The Rolling Stones. Mario is still The Beatles but Sonic has threatened to be a washed-up has-been.
He’s been reinvented so often - role-playing hero, 3D adventurer, TV series - that when I first saw Sonic Generations (PS3, Xbox) HHHH, on which Sonic shares billing with Young Sonic, I feared a flabby sequel.
I was wrong. It’s cracking fun, and goes back to exactly what made Sonic good: turning the hedgehog into a blue ball to blast him down a track with jingling rings to collect and fatal obstacles you need the reflexes of an Olympian to hurdle over.
It’s not a game you settle down to relax with after a long day at work, but it offers unremitting, merciless speed all the way. One tiny error means Game Over - and it gets harder and harder as you roll on through.
The only sad thing is that fans of Sonic in his original incarnation - myself included - have slowed down in the intervening decades, whereas Sonic has speeded up. It’s great to see classic Sonic villain Dr Robotnik back, but old-timers be warned: your reflexes may not be up to the job.
Goldeneye: Reloaded (Xbox 360, PS3) HHH is another reinvention - and a bold one. The original Goldeneye on Nintendo 64 was the first big hit 3D shoot-’em-up on game consoles. It’s treated with such reverence that for gamers a remake is like a rewrite of Hamlet.
I spent the first level thinking: “No, this isn’t right - he bungee-jumps off the dam first, then climbs in through the toilet cubicle, and what’s all this with the trucks?”
This version is fun enough, and has a pleasing feel of the original - right down to details such as the “click-clack” of a magazine slotting into the chamber. But the missions seem predictably linear, and don’t conjure the glorious chaos of rival shooters such as Halo: Reach.
The game’s presentation - credits in the style of Bond films, Judi Dench on voiceover - is great, but it lacks the motion-controlled gun-pointing thrills of last year’s Wii remake. The nostalgia wears off quicker than you can say: “Bond... James Bond.” - Mail on Sunday