Earlier this year we got to play Sonic 4 with its retro-inspired gameplay and its pared-back view of the Sonic universe. In Sonic Free Riders all of his friends and enemies are back in full force.
Free Riders, at its centre, is a kart racing game. You race against other characters from the Sonic canon and you collect weapons along the way to throw at them. It has speed boosts, collectibles, power ups and huge jumps. The unique aspect lies in the control system.
The player stands, as if on a virtual hoverboard. Lean forward to speed up, left and right to steer and face head on to brake. You can make jumps by literally making a jump and if you get the timing right your on-screen character will perform tricks and earn you more Air power to help increase your speed.
Unfortunately, the controls don’t often work as you expect them to. The issue isn’t that the Kinect sensor is misjudging your movements; rather that the game is endlessly inconsistent in how it interprets those actions. What once caused you to turn in a graceful sweep will now make you jerk harshly to one side and lose all momentum. On the next corner you might try to smooth your actions and the game will not notice you leaning at all so that you slam into a wall. The same inconsistencies are rife throughout all aspects of the game’s controls.
When you get a race where it all seems to click this can be a really enjoyable experience. Leaning into a turn and watching Sonic gracefully glide around it before you jump off a ramp, pulling stunts all the way to your landing is a joy to behold. Add to that sequence a well-timed flick of the wrist to launch a successful missile at an opponent and you might feel like this is a wonderfully inspired take on the karting genre. Unfortunately, these positive experiences are hugely outnumbered by the negative ones.
The most attractive game mode will be Grand Prix where the player is presented with a selection of challenges ranging from collecting a number of rings to just winning a race. Usually this concept would be welcome but the crippling inaccuracies in control make the objectives an often-frustrating target for your simmering fury rather than an attainable goal you will strive for.
Despite some really rather clever track design, encompassing shortcuts and alternate routes, the game is rarely enjoyable because of the way it fails to interpret your movements. The dropped weapons and obstacles become almost impossible to avoid without slamming into another wall. The frequent confusion shown on screen when the game thinks you’re facing right even though you’re actually facing left is reminiscent of Kudo Tsunoda’s now-infamous “Bam, there it is” moment on stage at E3 in 2009.
Even the sections of certain courses where your hoverboard changes form don’t present enough of a difference to compensate for the shoddy controls. Some courses contain sections with alternate control methods, such as swimming, and although these are a nice trick to change up the control method and give the action some variation they’re not enough.
Collecting rings over the course of a race (by holding out your arms in the appropriate direction) allows you to buy new equipment in the store. You can upgrade your board for a faster or more manoeuvrable one although they won’t save you from the control issues. Interestingly, you can also purchase parts which give you special abilities. This ties-in with the impressive track design in that certain parts will give you certain abilities (like grinding) which are more beneficial on certain tracks than on others. Your board will only take a limited number of these upgrades so you will have to constantly consider what is best based on your knowledge of the tracks.
Pros:
- Great track design.
- Upgrades add a sense of strategy.
- Visually decent with a good sense of speed.
Cons:
- The controls are simply abysmal.
- Constant retries after failure due to awful controls are infuriating.
Sonic Free Riders had potential. There is actually a very good take on the karting genre buried beneath the over-saturated Sonic styling and the hovering vehicles. Unfortunately the lack of any consistency in the control system renders this almost unplayable and completely negates any of the good aspects of the game. If this was pad-controlled it would be scoring comfortably above average but as it is we can’t, in good conscience, recommend it to anyone but the most ardent and patient Sonic fans.
Jordaaaan
Haha, oh wow.
Dan Lee
Ouch…can’t believe it’s selling for £40 too.
MadBoJangles
I bet it actually sells too…
moshi
ooh look what granny got you for xmas
bajere
it sure will. the adverts show it works, people will buy then be pissed off… i wonder if trading standers could get involved over fraudulent advertising??? Surly these ads cant be taken likely
Ryan1991
I can’t believe IGN gave it a 8.5!
Kovacs
I can.
:)
Armonster9000
7.5
iAvernus
They also gave Fight a 3…so we know what console they lean towards.
DRCD1
You can’t spell IGNorance without IGN. They usually tend to score better the games most advertised. They gave 007 BloodStone a 5 because it wasn’t in 1st person.
solidsteven
IGN are very biased, 8.5 for a broken game. That must of cost sega a lot to bribe.
Klart
I doubt it was SEGA who bribed, they don’t have this kind of money. The problem lies with the controls, guess who designed the controller…
Jumping Monks
Can’t help but think something like the Wii balance board could have addressed the control problems.
Charmed_Fanatic
Not that surprising
DJ Judas
The visuals really remind me of TrickStyle – Awesome game! It’s a shame that the gameplay doesn’t appear to match :(
Sympozium
Like the original, what a surprise
Apnomis
Well this confirms what I suspected about IGN and their “World Exclusive” review. My favourite aspect of TSA is the integrity of the articles, please don’t ever sell your soul for ad revenue or corporate back handers…
TSBonyman
What a shame, this is probably one of those games that many kids/casual players will buy, expecting that it will be great with Kinect.
bunimomike
I’m trying to work out how you know it’s not Kinect’s sensors and the game itself. Surely the interpretation of the incoming data captured still lies at the quality of the source or do you know that Kinect is absolutely fine and it’s the devs that have screwed up the translation somewhere along the line.
a inferior race
I think that you could judge Kinect based on how well other titles work. If they all work fine, which most seem to do, then Kinect must be fine and this would place the blame squarely at the feet of the devs.
bunimomike
I was half thinking this but wanted more finely-tuned comparison with other rail-racers (if there are any on Kinect).
a inferior race
Ahhh… I have no idea then.
Klart
I think the game’s genre also has a lot to do with it. Imho Kinect is only fit for a very limted palette of games.
MegaBonez
A bad sonic game, you can’t be serious?!
Sympozium
Sonic’s back! (oh wait)