Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity

"How Does It Feel to Ride Throught Gravity?"

Story: 5/10

I did not really like the story all that much. They basically involve a couple alien meteorites/stones that fall from space. Tails finds one and tells Sonic about it on a trip through out the city. As they are riding, it turns out that a certain group of robots are searching for this stone. In the following series of events, Sonic is falling and accidentally activates the stone causes him to control gravity which he learns. At the time, the Babylon Rouges find a stone as well which Jet gets and decides to use to beat Sonic.

Gameplay:7/10

Sonic Riders' gameplay is decent. It provides aspects from the elder game and mixes it with the new. As many of you know, the main powers in the game have to do with gravity and the two main ones are the "Gravity Turn" (I forgot the real name) and the "Gravity Dive". I have to admit, the main reason I decided to rent this game is to use the Gravity Turn. Once I saw it being used in the videos, I had to try it out! Another thing that the turn lets you do is find alternate parts of the level. You'll sometimes you a horizontal sections on the wall with arrows on them, when doing a trick or in the air, use a gravity turn and dash onto the wall to ride on it. It's pretty good. Some accessible areas will not have arrows though. The Gravity Dive is an enhanced version of the boost up(A VERY ENHANCED VERSION) from Sonic Riders. Once this is used in the game, the character will do a "Chaos Control" type action from "Shadow the Hedgehog". They will blast off disturbing gravity pushing large items in the air. Bouncing off these items will push you forwards. On the other hand though, this gets rid of the standard dash so at times, you will desperately push forward to go faster and hoping for some sort of dash, but there will be done. You will eventually catch up to others without the dash, but the gravity dive is your best bet. A few points were taken away because of that. The whole game also takes away the "Air System" and runs on some sort of bar which goes up doing tricks kind of like the Air System. Lastly, another added thing was the fact that you change gears. You see, the characters in this game do not have any special abilities like being able to fly or grind, it's all in the gear. Once you collect ring, you can "change gears" and gain a special ability which range from speed ups to being able to grind or fly.

Graphics/Music: 9/10

These are the two things that Sonic Team is known for now days and they still don't fail The CGI cutscenes are a beauty and definately don't hurt the eyes. There are some points at which I feel like I'm watching a real movie. The bad part is that there aren't many..Only 3. The regular in game cutscenes are standard. They look like Gamecube graphics(Which was expected), and a point was taken away. The music is great! I really like "Un-Gravity" (Atleast that's what I think it's called). It's the main theme and I really like it. It's nothing special, but it was enough to be stuck in my head for 2 days straight. The bad part is that there aren't any levels in which you race to it.

Replay Value: 7/10

Like many Sonic games, this game involves perfecting your skills. This game has a single player mode which includes two storylines which take around 20-30 minutes to take finish each. I am dead serious. You can basically finish this game in maybe..30 minutes if you are skilled. The hardest level took me maybe 3-4 tries to beat and that was because I was approaching it at wrong. I would say that it is at least three times as easy as Sonic Riders, but this is only my opinion. After beating the story mode, you unlock around 7 characters or so and then you have around 100-120 missions to beat. The incentive to doing this are the fact that you unlock Billy Hatcher, NiGHTS, and Samba De Amigo. You can also get ranks on the missions, so if you want to perfect your mission, you can do so at your will. The incentive to doing this is a certain emerald that turns Sonic into a certain golden hedgehog.. Aside from this, there is online..Which Sonic Team did not take advantage of. Once again(like Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games), you cannot race against others online, but there are World Records you can get into. You can also play against "Ghosts" of others to try and beat them..or just to find out how they did it. What also adds to the replay value is the buying gears. You can shop for other gears via a store using Rings as currency.

Controls: 6/10

There are three controls schemes which you can use to play this game. I tried two of them. One of the classic Gamecube controller which I found to be useful. The a button is to jump, triggers for the Gravity Dive, B for the Gravity Turn, and X/Y(I believe) are Gear Change when active. The analog stick can be used to move. The second is the WiiMote which I currently use. 2 is to jump, 1 is to activate the Gravity Turn, A is to change gears, and moving the Wii Mote up will cause the rider to activate the Gravity Dive. The D Pad and moving the wiimote horizontally will cause the player to move. The third is using the WiiMote vertically which I did not get a chance to try. You can point at the screen and the player will move in the direction at which you point. Now..The sensitivity is way off. I'm not sure if this was my sensor, but there are times where I turn the Wii Mote CLEARLY, yet the character continues to move straight. After playing with it for a while, I discovered, in a middle of a race, that I could use the D Pad to move. I gave a sigh of relief and ended up to win the race(I was 5th place). I understand that it is the same way with the vertical WiiMote. I would recommend using the WiiMote(DPAD) followed by the Gamecube controller.

Conclusion: 6.8/10

This is a really solid game. It almost met my expectations which is more then I can say for a lot of games by Sonic Team. There are times at which I wish that I could play with others online, but it's a shame that it wasn't used. If you are a hard-core Sonic fan, I recommend buying this game. If not, I would highly suggest renting it before buying it. Renting is always a good idea. I wouldn't say that this game is a complete success, but it's close. Some things I would fix are the controls, the length of the single player mode, as well as allowing the players to enjoy the online mode. My final words? Bring it up Sonic Team and then keep it up.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/08

Game Release: Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (US, 01/08/08)