It plays really badly because of the shabby sprites and weak animations
Graphics:
At start up you'll get a really cool starting screen and the menus look cool with many small images of cogs, tires and engines. The in-game graphics are horrible though. The signs and boxes at the edge of the road look the same no matter if you're in Japan or Sweden and the track design in general leaves a lot to be desired. The sprites move very unnaturally and are very flickery and unclear, just like the road. The sprite detection feels very random and sometimes you can ride right through another rider and be fine but if you nudge the same rider at another time you'll be engulfed in flames. Another VERY annoying thing is that other motorcycles can crash into you from behind and you'll have NO chance to avoid it. The explosions look pathetic and consist of 3 or 4 frames with a sad attempt of fire surrounding the bike. The road is very unclear and at times it's hard to know in what direction the road will turn. You DO have signs to help out but since they blend in with the background pretty well, you miss them sometimes. I have to admit that I like the stills in between races and as you win etc. The last thing that should be mentioned about the graphics is the dashboard and the decision to have a vertical splitscreen even in one player mode. BOTH the dashboards are in the middle of the split-screens with arrows up and down toward respective player's screen, a very strange and confusing layout. The splitscreen works ok in multiplayer but is annoying in single player mode. The stills save this from being a complete failure.
22%
Sound:
The pumping tune in the start-up is cool and the other short jingles are ok sounding. As always, the engine sound is useless and the break and crash sound-effects the same. As if the bad audio weren't enough, Sega decided to put voice samples before each race; "Prepare to qualify" and "Prepare to race", it sounds terrible and it's probably the worst effort of sampling I've heard so far on the SMS. Why? The only thing you hear is the crackle of the sample and a lame voice in the background and if you wouldn't have had the text to read, there's no way you could hear what he or she says. Useless.
20%
Gameplay:
You get an Arcade mode as well as a tournament, training and a Grand Prix mode to play and many options to tweak. The game plays as any other racer of the era and all you do is steer your bike left and right and press firmly on the gas. You'll quickly reach high speeds though if you race with a "thirsty" engine and you need to break sometimes in the turns. Collision detection drains the fun unfortunately but the multiplayer tournament mode is still passable for a short run. The only thing you'll want to race is the Grand Prix and, maybe, the tournament. It plays really badly because of the shabby sprites and weak animations. It's a shame because all the options and everything surrounding the actual game would have made for an, at least, average game experience. Instead you get a sad attempt of a Grand Prix motorcycle-racer and the low-mark of Sega's game development.
25%
Lastability:
Had the game been better programmed it would have lasted a long time. In the options you can set the gear (auto or manual, close or wide), tires (wet or dry), Engine (lean, medium or thirsty) etc. as you play the tournament mode you also get to choose what tracks you want to include in the race. This is a cool feature as you can take turns choosing tracks with your friend. There's also training to be done and arcade and, finally, the Grand Prix itself. A variety of options, but who really cares, when the gameplay is the way it is. If the faults in the gameplay had been ironed out before its release, GP Rider would have scored more than the double from me.
28%
Overall:
GP-rider is a game with a healthy variety of options to tweak but no gameplay or graphics as support. Falls flat.
22%