Sonic Riders Game Sample - Playstation 2
0Sonic Riders is another Sonic the Hedgehog racing title long in coming, and the fourth Sonic racing game. Sonic Drift & Sonic Drift 2 (for Sega Game Gear, etc.), and Sonic R (Sega Saturn, etc.) preceded this game, and the time between Sonic R and Sonic Riders is close to ten years. Sonic Riders is also one of the titles to mark the 15th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. If you don't like 3D/Modern Sonic, this may be another title that gives you a reason to hate. If you enjoy or at least tolerate 3D/Modern Sonic, it's a decent racing title a bit shy of being a great racing game due to problems within the gameplay and a so-so presentation (Great movie quality).
The game features your mostly typical Sonic plot (which is a bit extensive as far as racing games go); Sonic and co. are just hanging in Metal City one evening when they discover a Chaos Emerald, which a mysterious group known as the Babylon Rogues (a group of birds skilled at racing on hoverboards and thievery; the racing tools in this game are known as Extreme Gear) steal. They want to prove that they are the best racers and win the Grand Prix being held by notorious Robotnik/Eggman. Sonic notices the rogues are on the run from the police and tries to stop them, but couldn't keep up. In an attempt to get an extra boost, he rides one of the Babylon Rogues' (Storm) Extreme Gear in an admirable attempt to stop them, but ultimately fails (though their leader, Jet, acknowledges Sonic's potential). Shaken but not stirred, Sonic sees this as an opportunity to learn more about the Babylon Rogues, find out exactly what Robotnik/Eggman is up to, and prove that he is indeed the fastest thing alive.
The game features 16 racers and 16 neat main tracks. The main thing to moniter in this game is your "Air Tank", which is used for making slick turns, boosting/attacking, and building power to jump ramps. Air can be restored in several ways, such as grinding rails, doing cool tricks, reaching Pits, etc. In order to be competitive, one must learn to boost at every given opportunity and successfully land tricks. If you run out of air, a character will run on foot, and be put at a major disadvantage (low speed, unable to boost/attack, lowered manueverability, etc.). Another element of the game for those falling behind is the inclusion of "Turbulence", a wind tunnel of sorts that trails behind fast characters in which a player can ride if they're fast enough and have enough force to get in. While riding the turbulence, you can move left and right to do tricks, gaining speed and air and it's a great opportunity to get in the lead.
Characters can upgrade their boosting/attacking abilities by grabbing rings throughout the courses, and rings can also be used to buy things like new Extreme Gears. There are also a few cameo characters in the game (omitted for spoiler reasons) that are pretty neat. Some things I don't like about the game are some of the camera views and basic attacks slow you down to attack enemies, but you have no real control over characters during this time. The game also suffers ocassional glitches. Reviews for the game are generally mixed, but if you love Sonic, you could do quite a lot worse than this game and it should be very cheap these days anyway, so I'd pick it up. A sequel was developed titled "Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity" and a thrid title, "Sonic Free Riders", is coming out for the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral November, 2010. This is a video of some things in the game. Enjoy.