Sonic R

"Race at ridiculous speeds (and finish the game within an hour)"

I found this game back in 04 and picked up it and THPS:3 for £2. I spent over 50 hours on THPS:3. I spent 1 hour playing good old Sonic R.

For some reason Sonic and his pals have decided to have a race, Dr Robotnik decided to join in. Simple as that, race around a track three times and see who wins. Nothing special really.

Gameplay feels like a copy of Mario Kart but worse. There are no power-ups so the fasted player wins. Period. Once you unlock Super Sonic, the rest of the game becomes a novelty. You can take various shortcuts but games will vary little. You can pay the rings you collect to go on dash pads or through tunnels but those are normally to get coins or emeralds. If you lose, you don't get to keep goodies. At the end of a race, you can race an evil robot if you get all 5 coins and win. They're normally very easy. The Dr can fire missiles but at a 10 ring cost. Not great really.

Balloon Hunting is better but not by much. There are balloons across the map. Go find them. Simple as that. No specialized maps for them, they use regular courses. Speaking of which, there are only 5 levels. Mario Kart has around 20. You can play with 3 friends but it tends to be rather dull. On a PC it's tough because you need 3 joypads or the keyboard will stick.

Graphics are OK. Nothing to wow you with.

Controls are stiff, you'll find yourself hitting a wall and having to turn for 5 seconds to get back on course. There are about 10 characters but half of them are evil robot clones (which are lame). Amy and the Dr are slow and everyone loses to Super Sonic.

Once you play the game, you'll never want to try again. There are 5 levels with various collectibles to get but it will never take more than an hour to complete on any difficulty.

Sound is annoying. The BGM never plays and the announcer is annoying, All you'll hear are slappy footsteps.

Buy or Rent. Don't rent, it's so cheap that renting would be a con. You can buy it in most bargain bins for very little. That's if you want to buy it. Hardcore Sonic fans may enjoy it but I sure didn't.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/08

Game Release: Sonic R (Xplosiv) (EU, 07/13/01)