Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity

Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity - (Wii, PS2)
Developer: Sega
Format: Wii, PS2
Genre: Arcade


A spikey offering from a team who can perform better



Chasing through ring-infested tracks and environments means that in this GameCube clone, Sonic has swapped his super-fast trainers for a hoverboard. Expecting great things from the blue critter? Shame.

Out to keep the gravity bracelet out of evil hands, Sonic and his gang of super-charged beasts have to race through the colourful and quirky courses battling drones, seeking short-cuts and all the usual racer elements you already know. Each character will move differently depending on their weight and attributes (something you take for granted) so moving the hoverboards accurately at speed would be fiddly at the best of times. Here though, on the Wii with the remote as tilt-steering control, it's often clunky and unresponsive. This doesn't bode well for your first entry into the game. ZG has everything the brand demands from characters to sounds to graphics to gameplay but it's just not good enough; it's not as fast as previous racers on other consoles, not as responsive as Wii users demand and not nearly innovative for fans of the hedgehog.

There are a few devices to gain your interest. You can use the bracelet to halt time, sending you and your crew into a kind of bullet-time sequence giving you valuable seconds to avert a wall-splat or track tumble. You can also swap your rings in for an upgrade and while they're not the most impressive of additions the new vehicle upgrades for each character (Tails has a nifty air board, Knuckles a hover-cycle for example) add a little more longevity to the gameplay. No online play is a cardinal sin these days, leaderboard displays and leagues just don't cut it.

It may look good first time round but there seems to be huge trick missed here with delivering something groundbreaking on a console crying out for it. Zero Gravity, zero points.