A neat concept along with fun gameplay. This isn't without flaws, but Sonic Riders is a decent ride to try out.
Sonic usually deals with his speed on feet rather then on other stuff. But in Sonic Riders, he and his gang ride on air boards and race through different tracks. The storyline is very thin, but it's there. Sonic and his other friends, Tails and Knuckles are walking around in a Futuristic city, when they see a gang of birds called the Babylon Rogues riding on air boards and taking a Chaos Emerald. Later on, Sonic finds out that Dr. Eggman, Sonic nemeis, is holding a Grand Prix on air board racing. So then, Sonic and his friends enter the race.
The concept of Sonic Riders is rather fun and addictive, but it isn't without flaws. When you begin each track, you are given 5 seconds to get a good head start. You are able to run around the starting line up. If you start too early, you'll be zapped and start out slowly. So it's important to have good timing here. Once you start, you will notice you have a speed meter which runs on air as you move forward. If your meter drops you will run around instead of riding on your air board. To fill up your meter, you can ether open item boxes layed out on the tracks to get air (or sometimes rings) or to jump off ramps and do multiple tricks. You can dash forward by pressing X or B buttons to go faster then normal, but it will just drop your speed meter more. As you speed through, you'll also notice that characters ahead of you will sometimes have half-pipe style turbulance waves. You can ride on them to go fast, and you can go even faster if you do tricks on them, which is a good way to get very far ahead of your competers. Also, if you are close to a racer, you can press the X or B buttons to attack them which slows them down dramatically. Even more impressive is there are sections where only certain characters can enter. There are Speed, Flying and Power sections. Sonic, for example, is a speed character, so he can go through speed section to crusie through the game faster then others. The Speed sections have rails to grind on, the Flying sections have loops for flying charcters to leap through to dash in the air, while Power sections have a lot of obsticles in the way, and the power characters can punch them out of the way to get through the shortcuts faster.
Another important factor of Sonic Riders is that if you collect a certain number of rings, which are spreaded out across each track, you can level up your skills to progress through the race better then before. Noticable changes include a larger speed meter, a faster dash effect and stronger attacks on other racers. Unfortunitly, it's only temporary if you make mistakes. If you fall off of the track, which you can easily in some courses, then you level drops down. Most of the tracks are orgainized nicely, but there are some annoying elements. Some corners are hard to turn on, so you'll have to drift well and carefully each time. While all of these concepts sound fun, it's not played quite as well to be fun. The controls in Sonic Riders are hard to get used to. They are a little loose when applying tricks and turning sharp corners, which is sometimes an annoyance. But aside from that, the gameplay, overall, is impressive, but it's plagued a little by loose controls.
Graphics:
At least the visuals are pretty good here. The level designs are big with no pop-ups, but a couple textures look a little bland. The character models look decent, but they are a little bit on the blocky side, but it's not too bad. The rest of the graphics, such as special effects, are ether decent or a little bland. But Sonic Rider also makes up for a couple bland graphics by having a cool colorful look to it and having a solid smooth frame rate at 60 fps. This is no graphical showcase, but this game does get the job done.
Sound:
The music feels more in the techno/trance area. There's nothing great about the soundtrack, but it's not bad ether. It's just background music to set the mood of the game, that's all.
The voice acting, however, has some issues. Thanks to the actors of 4-Kids, they make the characters in Sonic Riders sound ether childish or overexcited. The acting is decent, but you can tell a couple actors had multiple roles. Sonic, Tails, Amy, Shadow (unlockable character), Cream (unlockable character), Wave (New character), and Dr. Eggman are the only passable voices. The others sound weak or not right for the roles. Knuckles sounds off character if you know his personality well enough, and Jet (new character) sounds too much like Sonic. Some people might be annoyed by the announcer's voice during the races, by the way, since it talks so much. Sonic Riders has a kiddy atmosphere, so the voice acting overall fits, but it's still not great.
The sound effects are typical Sonic fare, so at least they feel welcome here. To sum it up, the audio is pretty fair.
Conclusion:
There are 13 tracks after you beat the Story mode of the game, but there are a couple unlockable tracks as well. Sonic Riders also offers up some replay value thanks to the unlockable characters and gears for racing needs. However, with the loose controls and the difficultly of the game, do you want to come back for all of that? Probably, but it won't be an easy ride. Sonic Riders fails to compete against other extreme racers like Hydrothunder or SSX in terms of quallity, but those wanting a decent alternitive of the two, will find some enjoyment out of Sonic Riders.
Pros:
-Cool concept with mildly fun gameplay
-Colorful solid visuals
-Good replay value
-Once you get things right, Multiplayer mode can be fun.
Cons:
-Controls are a little sloppy
-Kiddy overracted voice acting
-Some frustrating momments in a few tracks.