Sonic Riders- Zero Gravity review.
Sonic Riders- Zero Gravity is the new fast paced game from Sonic team. The sequel to Sonic riders, which was the best
sonic game ever made for the gamecube, I feel is better than Mario Kart for reasons I shall explain.
The story-
As in every Sonic game the story is always a big part of the game, whether it be Sonic fighting Robotnik, Sonic
fighting a clone of himself, Sonic pretending he's Mario by rescuing a princess from the clutches of evil, but
after time these elements start to repeat themselves somewhat and people got very bored. What we wanted to see
was a comepletely new storyline and we got that with Sonic riders. Now, the original game is about a group
called the babylon rogues stealing the Chaos Emeralds which Sonic and friends have lost AGAIN, then getting recruited
by Robotnik and racing Sonic in an air board grand prix. Needless to say, Robotniks plan works and his real motivation
was to find a magic carpet. Wow.
Anyway, the second is a continuatuion of the first, obviously, but this time they can fly. Yes, this time Sonic and CO
take to the skies by defying the laws of gravity. With bracelets. There are some holes in this story, but I shall point
this out later. Now, robots are going on a rampage. Hmm I wonder who could be behind this! Well Sonic and friends decide
to go to the factory and meet the Babylon rogues who, surprise surprise, can also use magic bracelets to fly. They go Robotnik
and find out it wasn't him. HOLY CRAP SHOCK HORROR. Anyway, they find out the bracelets are actually an engine and make
a thing fly.
Now, with this in mind, I went into the game with great anticipation. The thought of controlling gravity is one that I like very
much, just imagine it, you could fire your worst enemy into space. His eyeballs would pop out and you can get away with it. But nooo,
they only use it to race each other. Stupid *****.
Gameplay is an essential part of gaming like potatoes are an essential part of chips, if there are no potatoes, chips can't be made.
Just like if there is no good gameplay the game turns out to be a peice of s***. I'm glad Sonic Riders ZG didn't turn out like this
though, the gameplay is perfect, as much as there is for a racing game. You tilt the Wii remote to turn and that's it. Well there is
the issue of jumps but all you do it press 2 at the top of a ramp, it's easy and fun.
The A.I is even difficult at times which is very rare for a Sonic game, but so it was in Sonic riders aswell so thats not really new.
I'd just like to talk about something. Some parts of this game are a blatant rip off of some movies. For example I-robot. The gang
get attacked in a tunnel in a futuristic car and tails ends up banging against walls and floor to get them off. The robots heads
resemble the head of the Xenomorph from the Alien series. Now this is a good thing as both these movies rocked, but had me wondering
when the robots would grow tails and being spouting acidic blood on Sonic and co. therefore ending there lives in a very horrific
way.
Back to gameplay, obviously the new additon of this game is the Zero gravity feature which can be used by tilting the wii remote and
pressing the two button at the same time to do a gravity turn thing. Then there's that chaos control- I mean gravity dive feature which
does the exact same thing as chaos control. Original. But during this you can hit objects and speed up. Destructive.
But there is one question. During the storyline, one bracelet seems to work for 3 people at the same time. I'm still trying to figure this out. BLACK HOLESS.
The speeds in this game are slow at times, if you continue to go in a straight line you wonder how the hell you are doing 167 miles per hour,
which also raises the thing, couldn't Sonic just run faster than that? Whatever, he decides to board let's go along with it.
There is also the addition of online gameplay, but this is exagerated somewhat since those *****s at Sega decided that it will not be
online racing, but downloading ghosts of other players. DAMN YOU SEGA!
I've heard many stories about other reviwers talking about lousy controls. They need to check they're brains aren't lousy as they are
perfect for me.
The characters in this game are mostly the same as the old one, we have the original 7 that appear in the storyline and then unlockables which
include Eggman, Blaze, Silver, Shadow, Cream, Rouge, a robot, Nights and Billy Hatcher. There may be more, I just haven't unlocked them.
Oh wait. Super Sonic. This annoys me somewhat as they are mostly the same characters. Then again, there isn't much of a choice in SEGA
characters because Shinobi hardly looks right on a hover board.
Graphics are fairly good, they are better than the playstation 2 version at least, and they impress me. The levels are bigger and better than
that of the last game.
I mentioned earlier that this was better than Mario Kart. Many people will disagree, but Sonic Riders ZG is just... so much better.
The level design, the gameplay, the fact it has a story, all compare favourably to Mario Kart.
My final conclusion is this, if you need a game to keep you going untill Brawl then here is one that might just make you keep playing after
you've got it. Well done Sega.
Now, there's something I must ask you. Is there anything I can do to improve this review? If so, post in this thread or PM me. Thanks for reading.
