Sonic Riders
SCORE: 71
We can’t fault Sega for trying new things (editor: with old franchises), and Sonic Riders is definitely something new. They took Sonic the hedgehog, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, etc. and put them in a hover board racing game. The storyline has these hover boards being faster than Sonic is running. This game was released in the year of our Lord 2006 to recognize the 15th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. I may be old and wise, but celebrating an anniversary of a fictional character makes no sense to me. Dr Eggman is in this game as well, since he is hosting the races where a chaos emerald is the entrance fee. I have always had a soft spot for Sonic when he first came on the scene freeing little woodland animals from enslavement inside robots. Sega has not had a very good track record with Sonic racing games though (remember Sonic R?).
Some of the graphics in Sonic Riders is nicely done indeed. Others are hard to see because the hover boards are going so fast. I stopped in a few places to look around, and was not as impressed. I also found some of the animations are choppy, and the screen can be shaken around. If you have trouble with some video games giving you a headache, then steer clear of this one. Players are also allowed to hit the other riders, in an attempt to slow them way down. This violent content is not necessary in this day and age.
The voice acting of the characters is at the level of the Sonic X television show. The rest of the music is pretty standard, and classic Sonic styled tunes. The story mode talks about gods, instead of God. If you play this game bear in mind, you will be learning eastern religious ideology. These sounds are all crisp, and clear.
Sega normally includes a lot of replayability in their games. Sadly Sonic Riders does not include that. For a racing game, this one does not have enough additional content. More than one player can play this at a time. Even though this one can be picked up cheap, the migraines it causes makes it a waste of your money.
The controls in this game take a little getting used to, and the on screen instructions are not always placed properly. I lost quite a few races because the game told me to do a certain button combination. This instruction came too early, and I wound up stuck facing a wall. Each different race is themed like a world in a Sonic the Hedgehog world. There are three laps, and Sega put the difficulty level of this game really high. I suppose they had to do that since they included so few race tracks.
I was shocked when the game was
teaching the false ideology of many gods, and there was hitting
involved. Sonic Riders was quite a disappointment to me. As a racer it
is not very good, and as a Sonic game it is not very good. Sega spent
too much time on the story, and too little time on the game play
mechanics. Skip this one.
- Frank
Graphics: 77%
Sound: 78%
Replay/Extras: 67%
Gameplay: 66%
Family Friendly Factor: 79%
System: Gamecube/PS2/PC/Xbox
Publisher: Sega
Rating: 'E' for
Everyone
{Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence}
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