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YES. YES. YES. Finally Sonic Team has made amends for past mistakes with this wondrous piece of video game entertainment. ‘Sonic Riders’ is a game that perfectly simulates everything we all enjoyed about Sonic to begin with and takes it to a new level of enjoyment.
The story is simple; Eggman is up to his old tricks again but his motivation isn’t as simple as getting his hands on the Chaos Emeralds. This time Eggman has set up the EX Grand Prix; a tournament that will decide the greatest racer on Mobius. Naturally Sonic and friends get involved after they encounter the Babylon Rogues stealing an Emerald. So the premise for the game is set but what about the actual game itself I hear you say? Well if you haven’t already guessed I’ve been incredibly satisfied with this offering from our friends Sonic Team. The game captures that sense of speed and urgency that gripped us to the series in the first place magnificently. The pace the game keeps is astonishing and I haven’t noticed any frame rate lag at all. ’Sonic Riders’ could well be the most enjoyable 3D Sonic game made for a next generation console. On your ‘gear’ you can execute a number of tricks by simply moving the analogue stick after firing your character off a ramp. The B button allows you to boost and the L and R triggers allow you to manoeuvre your character round corners at ease. That is the basic premise of the ‘Sonic Riders’ engine but of course using too much boost or cornering to hard will consume a lot of ‘air’ (the fuel your gear uses to work). Run the air gauge out and you’ll have to take a pit-stop, perform more tricks or simply find a monitor that contains air. You can also gain more air by taking advantage of your characters special skill. Use a speed character and grind to gain air, use a fly character and fly through boost rings to gain more air and use a power character to punch obstacles to gain more air. There is also a better use for your character’s special skill. Grinding, flying through boost rings or punching obstacles enables you to take a personalised shortcut through the stage. Now this is all a little much at first but after replaying the tutorial movie a couple of times and just generally using the ‘Time Attack’ mode to experiment a little bit, you can soon understand that there is a lot more to this game than simply being another cutesy, racing spin-off. But where ‘Sonic Riders’ really shines is in it’s lastability. There are mounds of things to do which will always keep you coming back for more. We have your standard 1 player modes and multiplayer modes, the story mode which anchors the game, the mission mode you unlock after completing story mode, the grand prix mode and more! There is also a shop which allows you to purchase new gears for your characters using the rings you have collected during races. If you are looking for that Sonic title to bring the blue blur back up to speed with the next generation consoles then ‘Sonic Riders’ is the game to get. Sonic Team have really spent time in making a well rounded, polished and most importantly, enjoyable Sonic title. Sonic was never about gimmicks that were fun for a hour (ahem, ‘Sonic Heroes’), pointless spin-offs to make a bit of money on the side (ahem, ‘Shadow the Hedgehog’), Sonic was always about vibrant, fast paced action that would appeal to everyone and ‘Sonic Riders’ has replicated this flawlessly. 9/10 |