By Jorge Ba-oh 29.02.2008
After chasing chaos creatures, saving the world and trying to cross the road, the unstoppable hedgehog decides to give his feet a rest and take on their airwaves once more in the second outing of Sonic Riders. Sega's answer to fast-paced, adrenaline-fuelled racers, comes complete with more cheese than a mouse's love-nest, but does the blue wonder cross the road in style or does he get run over? Read on to find out...
Zero Gravity brings back Sonic the Hedgehog and friends to the world of high speed air board racing. The original saw a release towards the end of the GameCube's life, aiming to bring a little tingle to Sonic's world and despite introducing something new to the franchise it lacked refinement: control was loose, the learning curve incredibly sharp and computers cheating more than a student at a brothel. With the success of the Wii, and the continued strengths of Sony's Playstation 2, Sega decided to take another risk with a sequel.
The concept is simple: it's a racing game and you hurtle around a blend of futuristic, fantasy worlds on your hover board, performing snow-boarding-inspired tricks to earn boost points, collecting rings and trying to overcome your foes
Gravity also comes into play in some interesting ways to heat up the default racing styles. Players can defy physics by stopping in mid space to take sharp turns at 90 degrees, fly along certain walls for shortcuts and with the flick of the wrist (or shoulder button) can launch into an impressive-looking gravity boost that sends you literally flying high above others for a few moments
All in all, it's a step forward from the original, but still retains much of the flaws and annoyances. Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity isn't the best racer on the market, and in the case of the Wii's catalogue it's not the worst either. Sonic fans will be chuffed to see regulars making appearances, and the storyline coming together as the game progresses. However, much more work is needed in control and difficulty to tighten up a potentially good formula. Perhaps only for the hardcore fans of the blue wonder then...
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