Arch: What're your first impressions of Sonic Riders, Shadic?
Shadic: It's not a game you can pick up and play, the controls will take awhile to adjust to. The
levels seem pretty short, even if there are 3 laps. I hoping there's plenty of unlockable levels, but the levels are
fairly interesting. It seems that this game might get a bit frustrating as there are some random "pop ups" that just hit you
in the middle of a race.
Arch: So it's more frustrating than anything? I thought it was meant to be fun.
Shadic: It can be fun, but it can also be very very frustrating. Don't expect SSX, this is nothing
like SSX...It's more like Snowboard Kids on crack. Not to say that it's terrible, but there's a lotof things that make you
think "Why would Sonic Team do that!?" I don't know if the game will get funner as I progress in storymode, but as now (5th
or so race) it's damn frustrating.
Arch: How does the Boost system fare up and how difficult are some of the races?
Shadic: The boost system, IMO, seems pretty crappy. Basically you have your "air tank" which
increases as you do tricks and get capsules, by using boost or attacks the airtank goes down until you're left running. What
I dislike about it is that air tank goes down consistently, even if you don't use boost (which is fairly unusual since without
common boost, you're definitely going to lose). The A.I is already annoyingly difficult, there's also a lotof "WTF!?' moments
when you realize that they miraculously get in front of you.
Arch: How does Sonic Riders rate against similar 'racers', such as Mario Kart, SSX or even SEGA's own F-Zero GX?
Shadic: It fails at it's genre...a party racer should be a game you can pick up and play, there's
no way in hell a new player would last 4 seconds in most of the levels in these games, not to mention the controls.
Arch: How does Riders compare to Sonic's last racing game, Sonic R?
Shadic: I don't know if I like it better than R, but then again i'm comparing it to R as how I saw
it when It came out.. rather than how I feel about it now. R obviously hasn't aged that well. But at least it wasn't unneedingly
frustrating, there's moments that you just go "WHAT THE HELL?!" Like I was trying to get golds in the grand prix, and I was
doing fine until I hit a robot in the middle of the road on the last lap, that one bumped turned me around and led me into
the corner, It took me 15 seconds to switch myself around, by that time I went from 1st to 6th.
Arch: Is there anything special Riders has to offer later in the game?
Shadic: There's a lot of cool unlockables in the games that bring back memories from Sega's history.
Arch: What's your general overview on Sonic Riders, then?
Shadic: Riders steadily gets more fun as you adjust to the controls. It's still nothing amazing or
ground breaking, but it's kind of fun. Overall i'd give the game a score of 7.5/10.
