"Subpar racing game"

Story Late one night at Sonic Team's home office, the programmers start using some illegal substances. They come up with an idea for a game. It stars Sonic and friends and its a racing game. They decide to stick some story about Eggman holding a race so he can get the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic. Now Sonic Team try to think of what other characters besides Sonic and Eggman. They pick Knuckles, Tails and Amy and slap in some really dumb secret characters. Now they start making the track design, they make them full of paths and stuff to get stuck on cause they think it would be funny. Finally after a hard nights work, Sonic Team calls Sega and tells them they have a new Sonic game done and ready for release. Now Sega, the guys who will milk a snake, if it was possible, send a guy over to Sonic Team's offices to pick up the final version of Sonic R. They take the game to the plant and make a billion copies cause Sega knows Sonic fans will buy anything wit the name "Sonic" on it. This is how Sonic R came to be. Well not really but it feels like what happened. The real story is Sonic and Tail go on a vacation and see an ad for a racing tournament and that Eggman is in it. So they join the race. It's not the greatest but it would have worked if it was mentioned once in the whole game, it is only mentioned in the instructions. I give story a 3/10

Control
I have never played a game with stiffer controls. All you do is hit forward and everyone has a special skill that you can use by hitting A. Its very simple but it's very very stiff. Hit left or right on the D-pad without holding forward it will make you stop right where you are. Turning takes about six seconds and seems long but the computer characters can turn very fast. I give control a 4/10

Voice Acting, Sound Effects and Music
There is no voice acting in this game. The characters don't even shout anything out during races. There should have been some voices. The sound effects are average at best. The sound of foot steps sound right but when a person who is running stops it sounds like a car is stopping. A lot more work should have gone into sound effects. The game does do one thing right though. The music is great and really catchy. The title music is really good and most of the songs for a track are good. I wish there was more then seven songs. I give voice acting, sound effects and music a 6/10

Game Play
Run around collecting rings, coins and emeralds. There is a good amount of racers but most of them aren't very good and the secret characters are really disappointing. There are four tracks you start with and one secret track. The tracks have a ton of shortcuts except the secret one. The tracks are badly designed with a ton of stuff that you can get stuck on. There are ring doors that lead to emeralds or coins but you need a certain amount of rings. Unlocking stuff is hard if you don't know about the speed boosters that use your rings, these speed boosters are always in the middle of the track and its really annoying when you are trying to get enough rings to open a door. Each character has a special move they can use but most of them are useless. There are a couple extra modes like time attack, bust five balloons and tag. Bust five balloons would be great if the balloons weren't always in the same places. Tag is a lot of fun but the game doesn't let yo see very far away so it's hard to find some characters when they are running from you. There needs to be more tracks and better track designs. I give game play a 5/10

Replay Value
The game can be beat in about 40 minutes and getting all the secrets takes a couple hours but that still doesn't make the game long. The extra modes are fun for a while but get old fast. Two-player mode is average but it gets boring since there is only 5 tracks. This game just needs more. I give replay value a 4/10

Final Score
I give Sonic R a 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/07

Game Release: Sonic R (US, 10/31/97)