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> Results: Sonic Riders
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Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are on the trail of a Chaos Emerald when a band of thieving airboard riding birds called the Babylon Rogues snatches the fabled jewel from them. Almost right on cue, the evil Dr. Eggman announces that he is sponsoring an airboard race. Knowing that the mad doctor is up to no good, Sonic and his pals grab airboards of their own and head out to the races!
The characters, old and new, are really cool, as they usually tend to be. The new bird characters make great rivals for the three main heroes. Jet is a spiky green hawk that creates some speedy competition for Sonic. Wave, a purple female sparrow, is the mechanic for the bird team and knows as much about machines as Tails does. And Storm is a big and dumb tough guy grey albatross who always gets in Knuckles' wayﾗand under his skin. The story sections and interactions with the characters are depicted through great CG cutscenes and in-game scenarios. You have to hand it to Sonic Team for making a character based racing game that is NOT a Mario Kart clone. Taking a little Kirby's Air Ride, blindingly fast speeds from F-Zero GX, and a hint of extreme sports tricks from SSX, Sonic Riders becomes its own racing beast entirely.  You never have to hold down an accelerator button because the airboards are always on the go. You can push a button to slow down during turns and another button gives you a speed boost, but this will cost you air, as noted on a meter on the side of the screen. To gain air for your meter, you must do tricks while in the air with simple analog stick movementsﾗjust make sure you land properly! Another cool idea is that each racer ahead of you leaves a trail of wind that you can ride on like a slipstream or a wake. These trails are really easy to see and it is advantageous to ride them because if the guy you're trailing goes around a corner, you automatically zip around the corner too, without losing any speed. And if you ride the wake long enough, you can do half pipe-like tricks and go even faster. Each character has his or her own racing skills and attributes. Sonic and other speedsters can grind on rails. Tails and the rest of the flying class can zip through accelerator rings in the air while Knuckles and other power races can bash through obstacles. Race in Story, Grand Prix, and Multiplayer modes. Use rings you collect on the tracks to buy better airboard gear. Graphics are smooth and colorful even at the fastest speeds, which is pretty fast. The rock soundtrack fits the nature of the races, too. Unfortunately, it's not all smooth sailing. The game is unforgivably tough with next to no learning curve. With no tutorials and brutal CPU players, the game expects you to be an expert right off the bat. One small mistake and you won't place first. The squirrelly loose control and confusing track design don't help matters either. Many of the racing track sections are on rails and you have no control over your racer during these times. You're just a passenger and opponents zip right past you for no reason. You go from 2nd to 7th place without even knowing it. The unfathomable difficulty keeps Sonic Riders from becoming remotely enjoyable at all. 
Kids seem to love Sonic the Hedgehog and extreme sports, so putting the two together seems like a winner. Young gamers will love the bright Saturday morning cartoon visuals and fun characters. Violence is equally as cartoony. Racers can punch other opponents, and when flattened, they sail down like they were just run over by a steamroller.
Good reading skill isn't necessarily required. But most kids (and adults too) will find the insane difficulty and poor controls frustrating. Sonic has his own cartoon series, plush toys, comic books, and even canned pasta. Kids love Sonic and my little brothers are proof of that. Sega could have at least put an ﾑeasy mode' in Riders for the younger Sonic fans. Parents, if you don't want to be replacing broken game controllers all the time, you want to zip on past Sonic Riders faster than a spiky blue hedgehog on an airboard. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Sonic Riders |
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