Finally, Sonic the Hedgehog is old enough to vote and join the Navy. That's right: Sega's iconic video game rodent is 18 years old today, so if you fondly remember playing the first Sonic The Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis, you're officially old.

In his long career Sonic has competed in the Summer Olympics with bitter rival Mario, defeated Dr. Robotnick many times, and collected like a million, billion rings. Sonic's game oeuvre includes classics like the original Sonic the Hedgehog, the Advance series, and Sonic Adventures as well as unfortunate missteps (Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 3D Blast, etc.).  In fact, if you really look at Sonic's "career" you'll see just about every kind of game represented: Fighting games, RPGs, mini-game collections, racers, and just about everything except a first-person shooter.

To celebrate, Sega is running a contest to give away years worth of Sonic swag.   Check out the site for more details.

All due respect to Sonic on his birthday, but do you think it's time to put the little blue guy out to pasture? He's worked pretty hard for a long time and must be having joint problems from all that running, so maybe he should retire. It seems to me all Sonic ever really brought to the table  as a character was some generic "attitude" and the ability to move really, really fast. That was pretty innovative 18 years ago, but is it really enough to hang an entire franchise on for nearly two decades? There's something so rooted in the time about Sonic; know what I mean? If you do still dig Sonic, where do you see the character/franchise going in the future?