It was 1993 and I was stuck at the mall with 4 hours to kill and I’d already window shopped the Babbages 6 times. So I was glad to find the Sega Genesis display with Sonic the Hedgehog free to use in the electronics section of the Montgomery Wards. I had always been a fan of the Super Mario series and with its snappy 16 bit graphics and high speed game play Sonic was a great experience.

16 years later I was pleasantly surprised to see that Sonic is back and you can take him wherever you go on your BlackBerry thanks to EA mobile.

Now there are some BlackBerry games which started as console games that can leave the user high and dry, mainly due to control issues. However while there is a slight lag in game play on the BlackBerry, Sonic’s simple running and jumping transfers well to the phone and it isn’t long before you find yourself moving from level 1 to level 4.

Game play is identical to the Genesis. You run at high speeds, defy gravity, smash robots, and collect the rings in order to free the kingdom from the rule of the evil scientist. It does seem like a few of the levels have been abridged but that doesn’t affect the fun factor of the game at all.

On a BlackBerry Tour I used the S and F keys to run left and right and easily jumped while running with the E key. And if I need to do something else I easily paused or suspended the game to read an email or jump on the web.

Needless to say it is great to see Sonic again and the ease of play and portability only add to the experience.