Despite his recent downward spiral, the Blue Blur remains the U.K.’s top video game character, blazing past the competition with 24% of the vote. It remains a mystery as to how Sonic ranked so high (it must be something about his green eyes, his Nike Check™ like smile, or his ability to just not die.)

This aside, the Hedgehog’s come as little surprise, given the incredibly strong sales titles such as Sonic Heroes and, more recently, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games sported in the region.

The poll was conducted in honor of the opening of the London Games Festival, collecting the votes of 500 gamers. Other notables include Mario (at 21%) and Britain’s own Lara Croft (16%). Hit the jump for the full press release. You may be pleasantly surprised at some of the top 10.

SONIC TOP DOG HEDGEHOG

A bright blue, spiky-haired, lightening-fast hedgehog has beaten not-so-Super Mario, cyber-babe Lara Croft and giant ape Donkey Kong to the title of the nation’s favourite video-game character.

Over 500 UK gamers voted in the poll to mark the launch of London Games Festival, which is expected to attract over 100,000 computer games fans to the capital this week.

Ahead of his appearance at the Festival, Sonic the Hedgehog, the official mascot of computer giant SEGA, was crowned the most popular video-game character of all time collecting nearly a quarter of all votes (24 per cent). Super Mario and Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft came second and third gaining 21 per cent and 16 per cent of the vote respectively.

The UK’s top ten most popular video games characters are as follows:
1. Sonic the Hedgehog (24 per cent)
2. Super Mario (21 per cent)
3. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) (16 per cent)
4. Donkey Kong (11 per cent)
5. Pac Man (10 per cent)
6. Link (The Legend of Zelda) (5 per cent)
7. Max Payne (4 per cent)
8. Pikachu (Pokemon) (3 per cent)
9. Niko Belic (Grand Theft Auto series) (2 per cent)
10. Blanka (Street Fighter) (1 per cent)

Other (3 per cent)

Who wants to bet the “Other” is from people saying Mudkip or Battletoads?