So, just what is Sonic Riders all about? The story isn’t at all interesting – Sonic and his crew are wandering around one day and see some characters steal some chaos emeralds. Sonic chases, but fails. Coincidently, the evil Eggman happens to hold a racing tournament a short time later, where the thieves show up to compete. Sonic and co. of course get involved, battling it out with the evil thieves for chaos emeralds. Fun ensues, or something. Thing is, this isn’t an ordinary racing tournament. All the competitors ride hoverboards – or gear as the game calls them – which handle like unresponsive snowboards. Exciting stuff.
Revenge of the lens flare.
Once all that rubbish is out the way, you can jump on your board and tear around a variety of tracks. The boards aren’t terribly easy to get to grips with – you generally have to know the course so you can get your board in the right line to go through the corner, as the floaty handling doesn’t allow for much improvisation. If you don’t know what’s around the corner, you can find yourself pinballing around the course a little too much. You can hold R1 while turning to dig in for a tighter turn (and a boost once out of the turn) for those hairpins, though. This may sound like a bad system, but with a bit of perseverance, it can work well. However, you really have to question why a racing game staring Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t a pick-up-and-play affair.
An important aspect of racing is the hoverboard’s air meter. Boosting drains air, while performing tricks builds it up again. If you run out of air, not all is lost – your character will just have to run to the next pit stop in order to top up. This system works well enough – but the trick system needs some work. For example, you can’t perform any tricks unless you jump off a ramp – try and jump on the flat, and you will barely get in the air, as opposed to rocketing several stories when going off a ramp. The trick system consists of holding a face button while moving the stick to flip or rotate in mid air – just button bash when you get in the air, and you should top your air meter up. Hardly a skillful system. You can also attack your opponents to slow them down and make them drop a few rings. You have to get pretty close though, so it won’t happen too often. It’s quite a disappointing combat system for this sort of racing game, to be honest.
Sonic grinds and grabs all at once.
The best thing about the game is the sheer speed – which, from a Sonic game, is to be expected, really. The game motors along at a lightning fast pace, rarely showing any drain on the smooth framerate. Helping the game speed along is the nice idea of turbulence. Fast racers in front of you leave a trail of air for other races to hop onto, which will pull them along at an increase speed on the line the head-racer took, helping them catch up. It can also be used as a spectacular half-pipe for tricks every now and then, too. As well as looking cool, it also works as a rather nice handicap system, be it against humans or other races.
Conversely, the worst thing in the game is probably the track design. It is simply DISMAL. There’s straights which go on for far too long, blind corners, inappropriate jump locations, speed-boosters at locations which can’t be hit without dropping all speed and stupid hazards, which often can’t be avoided. So often you will come screaming around a corner, only to shoot off the track without warning and have to be reset. Worse than that are the teleportation link systems. Reach a certain point in a track and you will be placed on a rail or into a launcher of some sort, and you will be launched or carried to the next part of the track. This screams laziness – could they not bother tying up the tracks properly?
Aside from the rather average story mode, there are some other ways to keep yourself amused. There are single races, obviously. A tag mode lets two racers share an air tank, which is about as fun as it sounds. In mission mode, you can perform missions for the Babylon Rouges racing team, if you’re into that sort of thing. Plug in an extra controller and things get a little bit more interesting. Unless you play the battle mode, anyway – it’s absolutely dismal thanks to the sub-standard combat system.
Sonic - so fast, he needs vehicle now.
As mentioned, the game moves at a lightning speed, with the framerate rarely showing any significant drop. It’s surprising, because the tracks are actually quite busy. Scenery is plentiful and often animated and other racers are often ripping around the track, making things rather pretty. The art design is suitably varied, too – from your standard city metropolis, to a dark forest. Unfortunately, the audio lags behind the visuals significantly. In fact, the audio is flat out awful. The character voices themselves are fine, and the effects, while not particularly interesting, aren’t bad, but the music is horrid. It’s absolutely soulless dance music, which doesn’t ever seem to change.
Sonic Riders isn’t really a bad game. It’s a missed opportunity more than anything – with some better track design, some more responsive handling and a better combat system, it could have been a fun little arcade racing game. But, the facts are that the track design and combat system are dismal, and the handling isn’t really snappy enough for this sort of game, making this one for the Sonic faithful only.
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