Sonic Rivals

"How Sonic..."

Sonic was quite the legend back in the day. At a time, he was the mascot that carried a whole system to glory, and eventually, like any company facing difficulties, his udders were brought out for the milking - say hi to Sonic Rivals, and it won't be a while before you say goodbye.

The game is a 2D race effort with 3D graphics for added flare. The action is fast, power-ups are there, and there are a good bunch of characters up for choosing, so what keeps it from netting a win? It's the fact that this sort of game DOESN'T have much to offer before the frills are used up. See, when it comes to running while stopping a bit for jumping and picking up rings doesn't offer much in the name of entertainment in the long run.

The story is usual mascot fare, Eggman has done something terrible and it's up to you to take each one of the initial characters up for choosing--Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver--on their own route of storyline in order to stop the man of evil in his tracks.

Speaking of tracks and puns, there are a good sum up for selection, and what it boils down to is the same old with a new coating: grab a set of greenery as your locale, give it a shade of white, and there you have your snow level. As previously said, the developers did a nice effort doing the game, it's only the nature of the game calls for used up resources a bit too fast.

The game-play is pretty much making a run through levels against another character. As an added side dish to your running and jumping, you can punch other characters out of your way. Each character has his distinct special, so while silver warps the sense of direction for other characters, Sonic speeds up in a vortex of speedy white. Basically, it's a neck-to-neck side-scrolling race to the finish.

So, when it comes to games of this nature, the saving grace comes in the form of multi-player: up to four players can participate in races, and they can range from drags to pretty intense, and indeed, if you can set up an ad-hoc multi-player session, this game has found its saving grace for you. You will have fun, yes, but only for a limited time before going back to much more fun multi-player PSP efforts. OTHERS who don't intend to use this for much short-lived multi-player, just veer off and get something else that's worth your money.

Pros

+ Multi-player can be fun for a bit
+ Graphics are good
+ A sense of speed is conveyed at some points

Cons

- Gets BORING fast
- Tracks are indistinct besides a few coatings
- Plenty of slowdowns aren't good for a racing game that has nothing but racing going on for it

Story - 5
Visuals - 6
Audio - 5

Gameplay - 5
-BORE Factor - 10
-Controls - 9
-Difficulty - LAME

Lifespan - 2
It gets boring really fast, no matter how much content is stuffed into the game.

Overall - 5
If you want to have some short-lived multi-player fun, get it for a while. Even then, other games seem much more attractive.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/21/08

Game Release: Sonic Rivals (US, 11/16/06)