Sonic the Hedgehog platforming of the main levels. The 16-bit "Sonic the Hedgehog " consisted of a giant rotating maze, which many considered a major technical achievement. The most common special stages, however, were segments with the character running through a long tunnel to collect certain items. 3D "collect item" levels, as in "Sonic 3" and "Sonic & Knuckles", used the same perspective but had Sonic collecting all the blue-colored orbs on the surface of a giant sphere. Finally, "Sonic Advance 2" employed a 3D ring-collecting stage, and "Sonic Chaos" ("Sonic and Tails" in Japan) used a variety of gimmicks for its levels.
Sonic the Hedgehog (character) genres other than 2D and 3D platform games. These include "Sonic Spinball", "Sonic Labyrinth" (1995), the racing games "Sonic Drift" (1994), "Sonic Drift 2" (1995), "Sonic R" (1996), "Sonic Riders" (2006), "Sonic Rivals" (2006), "Sonic Rivals 2" (2007), "" (2008), and "Sonic Free Riders" (2010), the fighting games "Sonic the Fighters" (1996) and "Sonic Battle" (2003), the "mobile game" "Sonic Jump" (2005), and the role-playing video game "" (2008). Video games such as "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine" (1993), "Knuckles' Chaotix" (1995), "Tails' Skypatrol" (1995), "Tails Adventure" (1995), and "Shadow the Hedgehog" (2005) starred supporting characters of the "Sonic" series,