Me, I'm old school. Back in the day we didn't have any of this 3D stuff; we thought more than six colours was pretty spectacular. When the 3D revolution really hit the gaming world, a lot of casualties were left moaning on the battlefield - Sega's crown, for one thing. At that time, it really seemed like the age of platform games had well and truly passed. Nevertheless, they keep coming, and despite the intense over-saturation of the market in the early nineties, there's still something about a good platformer that leaves you wrestling with the control pad when you really ought to be doing something more productive than really nailing that impossible jump. That's why I'm pleased to announce the arrival of a whole platoon of new screens from some of the most promising platform franchises - Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot and The Legend of Spyro.

Let's start chronologically, with one of the big daddies of platformers - Sonic the Hedgehog, and most specifically the upcoming Sonic Unleashed. I don't need to rehash how important the first Sonic game was or outline with dismay the series' highs and lows (although see this edition of The Warp Pipe if you're interested), but as these screens again seem to confirm, Sega have finally started paying attention to our endless moaning and taken our beloved blue pal back to his roots: gravity defying, high speed fun.


With the abysmal failure of the Saturn and the burgeoning growth of the original PlayStation many of us were convinced we'd never see another platformer, despite horrors like Pandemonium. But then a cheeky Aussie marsupial convinced us otherwise by combining traditional platform gaming with what in retrospect seems an obvious utilisation of 3D graphics, turning a side-scroller into a tunnel game. Oh, you know what I mean; Crash Bandicoot's axis of travel is 90 degrees from from left to right. The original game (which is available via download from the PlayStation Network, by the way) managed to capture the winning formula of speed, dexterity, collection and exploration. Many years later, we're all agog for Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant, and as you'd expect, it's looking very pretty indeed.


Also coming to us courtesy ofSierra is The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, another PlayStation platformer that took us all by surprise. With true 3D movement, tunnel flying levels, and attack moves beyond jumping on heads, the first Spyro the Dragon appealed to a much wider demographic than its colour scheme would suggest. The series has wandered about since then, going through the obligatory emo phase, and has lost much of its appeal simply due to loss of novelty value, but if you can swallow your pride for long enough to look past your manly dignity and guide a tiny dragon through a rich and colourful world, you may be pleasantly surprised at how its gameplay has held up. Not to mention, you can now fly at will (perhaps finally laying to rest the demons that Lair left us with), and as these screens show, the bold colour palate is still in place, but put to good use in creating a gorgeous, much more realistically styled landscape to admire as you flit hither and yon.


Wanna see more? I know you do. Unleash your inner platformer: check out the rest of the recent screens for Sonic Unleashed, Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant and The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon.