Reviews Thread

[famicommander]

I'm not sure what to think about these reviews. If I can play it in my tiny ass room with next to no problems once I'm fully calibrated (which took roughly 20 minutes at best), I can't help but wonder what they're doing wrong, and what I'm doing right.

Well enough of the critics, let's see what the real players say.

[Barry the Nomad]

Is the calibration process you're referring to some in-game process or is the the Kinect Tuner and that happy face card? I did the normal calibration when I first got Kinect (before buying Free Riders) and it took roughly 8 minutes, and I haven't done it again since. Free Riders played well from the get go. My only issue was the spinning jump, but that was mainly because I play late and was too tired to be that active.

[Barry the Nomad]

My review for SEGAbits: http://www.segabits.com/?p=5543

I gave it a

B

[Scar]

Frankly, the biggest problem is Kinect itself. I'm pretty sure if this was a multiconsole release with more extras instead of the Kinect gimmick, the controls would have worked fine.

I'm not bashing Kinect or anything, but so far Free Riders is perhaps one of the more physically demanding Kinect game; not to mention its an early title, which could mean that its not as good as it could be, because developers aren't used to it or whatever.

[Aquaslash]

Is the calibration process you're referring to some in-game process or is the the Kinect Tuner and that happy face card?

The latter.

[Detective Shadzter]

2/5 from Cheat Code Central:

http://cheatcc.com/xbox360/rev/sonicfreeridersreview.html

EDIT:

Just noticed the score is out of 5. Sorry

[Aquaslash]

Yet another fool who failed to calibrate his system and then outright lied about the cutscenes :| Pretty sure the manual tells you how to skip them.

Edited November 12, 2010 by Aquaslash

[Detective Shadzter]

1up gives it a D:

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3182371

GamePlayBook gives it a 2/5:

http://www.gameplaybook.com/reviews/sonic-free-riders-review-xbox-360kinect/

Game Boyz gives it a 6/10:

http://www.game-boyz.co.uk/content/node/16199

Metacritic has dropped from 59 to 52:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/sonic-free-riders/critic-reviews

[Aquaslash]

The gameboyz one was the best review out of them all. They just didn't like the premise, but at least they actually bothered to set it up.

[HunterTSF]

I've never even calibrated my game and I have had no troubles whatsoever with Free Riders. My jumps, turns, and attack motions are all recognized just fine and I don't even have a large or well-lit game space to play it in! wazzupwiddat

Hrm. Apparently Kinect just hates reviewers for some odd reason. D:

[Scarecrow]

Out of interest, does anyone know how the scores, or even the metacritic score, compares with the other kinect launch game?

[Detective Shadzter]

Looks like we've finally found someone who ranks it as high as IGN and Official Xbox Magazine. MS Xbox World gives it a 7.5/10:

http://www.msxbox-world.com/xbox360/reviews/review/632/Sonic-Free-Riders.html

Gameblog.fr gives it a 1/5, who Metacritic seems to think are Gamekult.com, who they say give it a 10%, even though Gamekult hasn't reviewed it yet.

http://www.gameblog.fr/test_771_sonic-free-riders-xbox-360

Mygamer.com gives it a 5/10:

http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?page=gameportal&mode=reviews&id=555921

Metacritic has now dropped from 52 to 50:

http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?page=gameportal&mode=reviews&id=555921

[Barry the Nomad]

Well screw the reviews (except for mine ), I'm enjoying the game a lot! I played a lot this weekend and had a blast.

[Detective Shadzter]

thisismyjoystick.com has put their review out, but no score.

They say

http://thisismyjoystick.com/reviews/review-sonic-free-riders/

GamerDad/GameSanityBlog has put a review out that has no score, too:

http://www.gamesanityblog.com/2010/11/14/game-review-sonic-free-riders-xbox-360-kinect/

[-Mark-]

Wrote my own review of Free Riders earlier;

Right, I may as well throw this out there right away- Sonic Free Riders is, basically, the reason I bought not only Microsoft’s Kinect add-on, but the Xbox 360 console in itself. Even as a die-hard Sonic fan, the thought of missing out on a major, main-series Sonic title back in 2006 (I mean, before everyone knew it was a broken mess) wasn’t enough to make me go out and buy a 360. Similarly in 2008, knowing that I was missing out on the ‘proper’ version of Sonic Unleashed whilst having to make do with the quite-clearly-inferior Wii version; whilst this admittedly almost had me reaching for my wallet to fork out for one, I still decided that one or two games simply weren’t worth buying an entirely new console for.

Then they went and announced Sonic Free Riders back in June. Yes, for the first month or so, I simply tried to come to terms with the fact that there was going to be a Sonic Riders game on a console I didn’t own. By September, I had an Xbox 360.

Thus is my love for the Riders series, and as such, I suppose you might want to take this review with a pinch of salt, since I can’t entirely guarantee that I’ll be able to prevent said affections for the series from affecting my opinions at least slightly, try as I might.

With that out of the way, let me get down to the basics; if you didn’t like the previous two Sonic Riders games, don’t buy this. There’s nothing here that will redeem the series for those who already didn’t like it, and it’s certainly the weakest of the trilogy, however you try and look at it. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth buying, even if you own the previous games.

To those of you still with me, I’d assume you at least have a general idea of what the Sonic Riders series is about- for those who don’t, it’s basically a racing game on hover boards. Levels are generally branching and complex, with different characters able to take specific routes depending on their abilities.

There are two ways to approach this game- how does it hold up compared to the previous Riders games, and how does it hold up as a game in its own right? The answer to both is generally ‘pretty well’, if not brilliantly. If you’ll remember to what I said earlier, Free Riders is the weakest of its respective trilogy- in that case, what’s different? What’s changed from the previous two?

The most noticeable change is in the game’s cut scenes; or, more notably, it’s lack thereof. Whereas the previous two games both had full 3D cut scenes between races in the story mode, this iteration opts instead to show still images of the characters with a voiceover of the script. For fans of the series, it’s certainly disappointing, although granted the plot is particularly bare-bones this time around, too. Think Sonic Heroes on hoverboards and you’re basically there.

That said, these matters hardly affect the gameplay itself, although sadly, the game manages to let itself down a little in this respect, too. It’s not so much a matter of what’s there being bad- in this case, it’s more what isn’t there that’s the problem. Whether you’re comparing this to the previous games, or as a standalone game, the game is pretty light on content. The game apparently has sixteen courses (which in itself isn’t a particularly high number for a racer by today’s standards), but this matter is made worse by the fact that this time around, there are technically only eight. Previous Riders games had sixteen courses each, and whilst some stages admittedly had a similar look and feel to them, they were still clearly different stages. In this case, rather than sixteen different tracks, we have eight main ones (one of which is a straight-up remake of the first stage from the first Sonic Riders- whether that’s good for nostalgia or a lazy way to pad out the stage count is a matter of preference), with an ‘expert’ variant of each, which is usually little more than a ‘remix’.

The stages themselves, although lacking in number, are still well-thought-out and clever. Whist things have been made wider and simplified ever so slightly to accommodate for the new input method, the courses are still satisfyingly strategic and complex. One of the key staples of the Riders series, as mentioned earlier, is the fact that different characters can take different routes depending on their skills- whether they can grind, fly, or smash through obstacles. This system has been tweaked a little in Free Riders, which, when coupled with Kinect as a means of control, does simplify this somewhat.

Whereas before, Sonic could grind, Tails could fly and Knuckles could break things (although this could be tweaked, admittedly), who you choose to play as now has little impact, as the skill types are now entirely down to how you choose to customise your Extreme Gear (hoverboard). Each gear has two slots (although some have less), which you can insert any skill you choose. In addition to the basic Grind/ Fly/ Smash powers, there area multitude of extra skills such as higher jumps, higher maximum speeds, and so on, which replace the strategy lost in character selection. You can switch freely between which skills you’re currently using by changing your stance between ‘normal’ and ‘goofy’ (basically, whether you stand facing to the left or the right).

However, this is where the controls come in- as a Kinect title, this is the one biggest difference the game has from it’s predecessors that really sets it apart. As a result of the controls, grinding ends up being the only skill you can use successfully with any real consistency. Not to say the others are broken, but the controls whilst trying to fly or punch are hit-and-miss enough that, if you want to do well in races, you’ll probably opt for the grind skill every time, which negates a lot of the strategy involved in taking alternate routes. However, Kinect manages to at least somewhat make up for this in another area, by way of having cleverly-hidden poles around the stages, either horizontal or vertical. You can grab these to be swung along various shortcuts- it’s massively satisfying, and certainly wouldn’t have been possible with a regular controller.

The controls in general are relatively problem-free, although admittedly there is a considerable learning curve to ‘getting’ them, which some people may not have the patience for. The tutorial doesn’t always tell you the best way to go about getting Kinect to understand what you’re trying to do (sharp turns, for example, become a lot easier once you realise that holding your front arm to the left or right- as opposed to simply leaning your body- will do wonders). That said, they’re still not 100%, and can be erratic at times. I also had an issue with the game pausing completely at random, although this was likely more Kinect at fault than the game itself (it should be noted I wasn’t doing anything close to holding the default ‘pause’ pose for anywhere near four seconds).

Returning again to the issue of the games longevity, unless you’re the type who obsessively chases after Achievements for 100% completion, there’s very little for the single player here outside of finishing the main story mode, which will, allowing time for adjusting to the controls, probably lasts about six hours or so at best. Whilst this generally wouldn’t be much of an issue (racing games are usually all about multiplayer anyway), when you consider that a lot of people simply won’t have the floor space for multiplayer to work in their room, it’s a slightly bigger concern.

The previous Riders games had an extensive mission mode (around a hundred missions each, if memory serves), and whilst the story mode in Free Riders is basically presented as a bunch of missions in itself, there are little more than forty on offer, and considering these missions actually comprise rather than compliment the story, the lack of content does become rather noticeable.

For all its shortcomings though, none are particularly game-breaking, and there’s still a great deal of fun to be had from Sonic Free Riders. Fans of the previous games should certainly enjoy this entry to the series, if feel a little disappointed at how bare-bones and slapdash it feels in terms of presentation. Is it worth buying a Kinect for? No. Is it worth buying if you have one already? If you enjoy the series, it probably is. If you disliked the original Riders and Zero Gravity, you probably shouldn’t bother.

(For the record, Kinect plus Sonic Free Riders set me back £150, and there aren’t any other Kinect games on the horizon I care about. I don’t feel cheated in the slightest. Yeah, I’m that much of a Riders fan.)

Edited November 23, 2010 by Mahzes

[Aquaslash]

Part 1 of my (scoreless) Review of Sonic Free Riders

[Barry the Nomad]

@Mahzes:

Oddly enough, I didn't like the previous two riders games at all and yet I bought and enjoyed Free Riders! Exception to the rule I guess. I think the reason I like Free Riders despite disliking the first two is because they went with the standard character designs rather than the deformed designs from the previous games, which I hated. Also, I never liked using a standard controller with the first two games. I didn't find the controls all that responsive in 1&2, and with other far superior SEGA racing games out there, I didn't see the point in forcing myself to complete those games. I'd rather pop in SASASR or Outrun Arcade.

Good review though!

@Aquaslash:

Good review to you too! Don't let the turkeys get you down in the comments. You gotta fly like and eagle, not like a turkey.

[Silver*]

I don;t really sound like that, I raised the pitch that's all.

[Detective Shadzter]

SEGA Online gives the game a 7/10:

http://www.segaonline.nl/blog/2010/12/31/recensie-sonic-free-riders/

[Woun]

So I went through the game!

It was hell!

God I'm so tired after the story!

Everything hurts!

Generally the game is good, just a silly story all the spoils!

I advise everyone to play...

I really liked the passage of Sonic, Shadow, Silver.

It was not quite bad...

Edit:

Edited January 4, 2011 by Дед мороз - Woun

[Danj86]

I have been wondering if this is worth getting. But I don't like to bother listening to those reveiws from the gaming magazines and websites. They think they know everything.

My biggest concern is if the kinect controls work. I watched my brother play that My Pet, PS3 thing with the Playstation Move. It was terrible, the actions he was doing got a late responce or no responce at all.

The other thing is if I get the kinect, then chances are that Riders will be the only game worth playing. And that's just annoying.

The only way I would ever consider dancing is if I was on fire.

Edited January 18, 2011 by DanfieldJ86

[Sean]

The other thing is if I get the kinect, then chances are that Riders will be the only game worth playing. And that's just annoying.

The only way I would ever consider dancing is if I was on fire.

Well I'm going to suggest against getting the game at all. I haven't played it (nor will I ever) but buying a system with only one game you're interested in is a terrible investment.