Throughout May, IGN is taking a look at games set to appear at E3 2011, from June 6-9. We'll let you know what to expect and what we hope to learn about these games at this year's show. Will we see Gears of War 3's single player? Will Sonic Generations be... good? We'll answer as best we can amidst publishers' E3 secret planning.

We know that the premise for Sonic Generations is a sort of celebration of the blue hedgehog's 20th birthday - that's right, he's been racing through green hills, colliding with animals locked in robot shaped cages, and putting a sneaker footed boot up Robotnik/Eggman/Whatever-he-is-in-your-territory's ass since 1991. Go ahead and take a minute to feel old.

To celebrate the occasion, Sega is taking classic Sonic stages through the years and reimagining them in two different ways. For the die-hard traditionalists, There's a somewhat strangely faithful version of the 16-bit Sonic, chubby midsection and no elbows to speak of and all. Playing levels as "old-school" Sonic does away with almost every advancement the Sonic series has seen since Sonic 2 - there's no homing, no super wild 3D platforming or behind the back camera angles, and Sonic's physics are very, very similar to the sprite-based 2D titles.

For players who loved last year's Sonic Colors for Wii (and you should - it was a hell of a platformer that made Sonic feel fresh for the first time in decades), Sega also has you covered. The modern Sonic you know and are ambivalent about is also available for every stage, and he plays as you'd expect, with boosts and homing attacks aplenty. There are also the sorts of wild rollercoaster in the sky sequences you'd expect after playing Sonic Colors, and every level has multiple paths for the modern Sonic to find and explore.

We expect to see Sega debut at least one or two more level types from Sonic's 16-bit era. While Sonic Colors actually did a pretty stunning job of modernizing Sonic's oeuvre, we want to see it in HD the way Sega couldn't pull it off on the Wii last year. We also expect (and dread somewhat) the reintroduction of several of Sonic's friends, who were blessedly absent from Sonic Colors. Maybe Sega can surprise us and figure out a cool way to have a trash-talking alligator in a Sonic game. Or at least in a way that doesn't make us want to throw our controllers through the TV.

• More PlayStation 3 Previews
• Latest PlayStation 3 News, Reviews, and Videos