Sonic Mania - RUN FLY CLIMB

Judged on this 90 second hype reel, Sonic Mania is shaping up very nicely indeed. Christian Whitehead, Headcannon and PagodaWest Games' first stab at an original Sonic the Hedgehog instalment looks exactly like the game Sega should have produced for their Saturn console, a wonderful remix with the nounce to draw visual and interactive influence from overlooked 16-bit platformers like Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy or Sonic Team's very own Ristar the Shooting Star.

SONIC MANIA

As a series, Sonic the Hedgehog has been struggling with irrelevance since the late 90s. While arch-rival Mario has made several successful generational leaps, Sonic has floundered, lumbered with dozens of games that wilfully obscured the core appeal of colourful speeding to concentrate on empty RPG worlds and an extended cast of insipid furry friends. Thankfully, Sega has finally wised up, handing over the needle mouse's reigns to Christian Whitehead, the ace programmer / digital curator who lovingly rebuilt Sonic's best games on the iPhone. Sonic Mania sees Sega's mascot back leaping and sprinting around pixel landscapes that resemble Saved by the Bell's opening credits.

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To mark the 20th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 this week, blast processor Christian Whitehead released this proof-of-concept clip for an iOS port. Bizarrely it seems Sega are reluctant to take Whitehead up on his proposal, despite the developer's superb track record with the company mascot. Whitehead's conversions of Sonic 1, 2 and CD are world-class digital curation, Sega should be beating down his door to put together a re-release of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, not the other way around. Really, if the Japanese Corporation had any sense, they'd be issuing his ports on every format and have him building a Sonic game from scratch.