When we first heard that Sonic Rivals was going to be more of a competitive racer than a standard, 2D side-scroller, some brows began to furrow. After playing through a race or two, that area of concern seems pretty well founded.
The E3 demo of Rivals put Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehogs against each other on a left-to-right raceway that looks right out of the classic Sonic titles - springboards, spiky pits and giant loops all made several appearances, but the most important aspect, speed, was