May 11, 2004 - Quietly stuck in the corner of Nintendo's playable area for its upcoming Nintendo DS handheld system was a simplistic game design featuring Sega's blue hedgehog mascot. Simply titled Sonic E3 Demo, this playable software more demonstrated that Sega's interested in bringing Sonic the Hedgehog to the new system than it did show off any cool gameplay ideas.

Basically, players are in indirect control of Sonic as he races along a pre-set path on the upperscreen. By quickly sliding the stylus back and forth against the lower screen, Sonic will start blasting faster and faster in his environment, blurring the screen the faster he goes. When he breaks the sound barrier, the game goes into a "matrix" style of slow motion for a dynamic presentation. Players try to get Sonic across the finish line with the fastest time…all the while collecting coins in his path by tapping the upper part of the screen to make him jump.

If anything, the 3D effects in this Sonic E3 Demo really does show off what the system can do, from decent amount of polygonal geometry for the character models to the detailed backgrounds, to the really cool filtering effects that appear when Sonic zooms faster across the screen. But is it a game? Not even close.