Mysterious insider on the E3 show floor news now, with the image of a brand new hedgehog character neatly landing in our lap(tops). According to our informant, the next-gen Sonic game, cleverly entitled Sonic the Hedgehog, features 3 different playable characters - Sonic, Shadow and Quicksilver (not his actual name, just us trying to be clever). Sonic and Shadow do the usual running and jumping thing at ludicrous speeds, but the the silver hedgehog seemingly has telekinetic powers, allowing him to deflect missiles and initiate area-clearing blasts with impunity. If he has mind-altering psychic powers to boot, consider us keen to control this guy as he dashes through a lopp. According to the video footage of the Xbox 360 and PS3 game that recently showed up on GameTrailers, the game features everything from controllable vehicles to deranged and twisting level design--just the way we like it.

It certainly is a relief to see an all-hedgehog lineup of speedy characters in the game, as opposed to a rabbit, a fruitbat and a llama with obscenely cute dispositions and equally annoying voices.