The Digest: While the controls may not feel perfect, Sonic Free Riders offers the most full featured experience of any Kinect game currently available

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: November 4, 2010
PUBLISHER: Sega
DEVELOPER: Sonic Team
ESRB RATING: “E” for Everyone
GENRE: Racing

PRODUCT OVERVIEW:
Sonic Free Riders has Sonic and pals racing to the finish line at hi-octane speeds. Sonic’s first controller free experience will have players jumping and moving side to side as they compete for first place on more than ten maps and using more than twenty customizable Extreme Gear which consist of boards and bikes. Play against your friends and family or face new foes online.

PRODUCT FEATURES:

• Sonic’s first controller free game
• Three offline racing modes
• Lots of customizable gear parts for special abilities
• Online multiplayer
• Pick up one of the many items to use against opponents

Kinect’s launch lineup is filled with a fairly small variety of games. There are sports games, fitness games, dancing games, and racing games. Sonic Free Riders from Sega is one of the few racing games that launched with Kinect. Is Sonic the Hedgehog’s first Kinect title worth playing or should Sonic just stop trying?

Sonic Free Riders is the third game in the Sonic Riders series. The racing game has Sonic and his pals riding hoverboards and motorcycles known as Extreme Gear as they collect rings and various items to attack opponents as they speed towards the finish line. Surprisingly, there is a lot of depth to this title that is rare to see in launch titles. Free Riders is heavy in content from four Gran Prix story lines, sixteen different track variations, multiple game modes and offline as well as online multiplayer. There is definitely more to chew on in Sonic Free Riders than most Kinect games available. Getting into just about everything this game has to offer can take a lot of time.

The gran prix modes feature your favorite Sonic characters competing to be better than the rest. Team Sonic, Team Babylon, Team Rose, and Team Dark are in deep competition. The storylines are all connected but always makes the team you are playing as the winners. The cutscenes look like they were added at the last minute with just pictures of characters with very few animations. At least the voice acting is slightly better than what has been seen in past Sonic titles. There are 10 missions in each team which involve grabbing rings, grinding on rails, and racing. The first nine missions for each team are relatively easy but the difficulty spike goes up way too much for the tenth mission which at times can feel impossible compared to the previous missions.

Racing in the game is very fun. Learning each map and learning to use each gear part which can be equipped to your Extreme Gear can take some time which makes you want to keep playing. Gameplay can also change within each map so you can be swimming or operating a mine cart which changes the way you can play and the way you move your body. There are so many different controls to be learned but most of them are self explanatory, especially with items. It is pretty amazing how many different gestures and control Sonic Team implemented so early in Kinect’s lifetime. As cool as they are, the controls were also one of the biggest problems I had with the game. Turning is sometimes not as easy as it seems. It can be difficult plenty of times. The game also had trouble registering whether or not I was leaning forward to make a large jump when on the hoverboard. Calibrating before each and every race is also a pain. These setbacks can be easily overlooked as you get better acquainted with Free Riders.

Sonic Free Riders is a nice looking game. It’s great use of lighting and animation definitely makes it one of the best looking Kinect games around. The voice acting as I said is definitely better than what has been seen in most Sonic games. Tails actually does not sound like a girl! The only complaint about voices is that characters will sometimes say things out of context. When you win, your character may be saying something that was meant to be said when you would lose. The main menus can also take a while to navigate and the flicking gesture that you must use sometimes does not do what you want it to do. Voice commands help but they don’t always work.

Multiplayer is also another whole mode. There are offline modes as well as online. Both are very fun and bring even more value to the game. Free Riders is definitely a fun game to play with friends and family.

Conclusion: Overall, Sonic Free Riders is a great racing game and a fun Kinect launch title. Its controls are easily the biggest letdown due to turning and jumping being unresponsive but this is definitely a full featured game. If you are looking for a fun Kinect title with a lot of value, this may be the one you are looking for.

Single Player: 8/10 | Multi-Player: 9/10

Second Opinion

By: Patrick Kortendick

With the release of Kinect, Microsoft has seemingly struggled to sell the device to core gamers due to the poor game selection. Being a core gamer, I still chose to pick up a Kinect (partially due my E3 experience) but struggled to pick out a few games from the launch list. Ultimately, one of the titles that I decided on was Sonic Free Riders, a racing game from SEGA that we first saw during E3.

Upon popping the game in, you’ll be prompted for a series of tutorials. By the time you’re done, you’ll have learned all of the necessary moves, but you’ve also lost 30+ minutes of playing time.  Yes, the tutorials will make you hate the game and not want to continue playing. However, once you get to play the title a bit, you’ll realize that there is some fun to be had.

Sonic Free Riders presents gamers with a variety of gaming modes and racing vehicles. In addition to racing on boards, there’s also a variety of bikes in the game, and they are controlled in the ‘traditional manner’ (hands in front of your body to steer). For those sticking to the boards, there’s also a variety of add-ons, allowing you to improve skills such as top speed, grinding, or acceleration. As you collect coins through the game, you will be able to purchase better boards and bikes, and improve your statistics.

One of the major caveats to the game was the occasional unresponsiveness. While this was present across the game as a whole, it was rather prevalent when racing on a bike. By sticking your hands in front of your body, you steer the bike, and turning your body to the side stops the bike. I found this to be a real problem when making turns with the bike, as it would recognize my torso while I was turning the bike, and cause me to stop in the middle of a race.

Another area of the game that needed improvement was the menu navigation system. While the menus are innovative, (I certainly applaud SEGA for their efforts) they’re just difficult and tedious to use. Support for voice navigation is also present in the menus, which can significantly speed up the process, assuming you know how to use it.

As for the game graphics, Sonic takes a card from the Dreamcast era by sticking with graphics of those caliber. While this was understandable in a game like Sonic Adventure, it’s interesting that the graphics in Sonic Free Riders are still lacking.

Overall, Sonic Free Riders isn’t a bad game. However, it’s not a good game either. While part of this can be attributed to Kinect being in the early 1.0 stages, it seems that SEGA rushed the product in order to make the Kinect’s hardware launch date.  If you’re looking for a racing game, feel free to give Sonic Free Riders a try. However, you might be happier putting your $50 elsewhere.

Single Player: 6/10 | Multi-Player: 6/10

Special thanks to SEGA for providing a copy of this game for review.