Sonic Free Riders

is a motion controlled racing video game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game requires the use of Microsoft's Kinect peripheral and was a Kinect launch title in November 2010.

''Sonic Free Riders'' is the seventh racing game in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series, and the third entry in the ''Sonic Riders'' trilogy. It is a direct sequel to '' Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity''. The game's story centers on the series' main antagonist Doctor Eggman announcing a second World Grand Prix, secretly planning to gather data from the riders to program into his robots.

The game received generally unfavorable reviews from critics; though praise was given for the game's graphics, music, multiplayer, story, and amount of content, heavy criticism was given for the game's motion controls, which many found unresponsive and inaccurate.

It is also the first game in the series to be released following a major recasting of the series' voice actors in 2010, except Mike Pollock.

Gameplay

''Sonic Free Riders'' is a hoverboard racing game featuring characters from the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' franchise. The game is controlled by using the player's body to navigate their chosen character through the course. Actions include bending their body to steer, performing kicking motions to increase speed, and jumping to perform tricks which earn more boost. The player alternatively has the ability to ride bikes, controlled by steering motions. By collecting enough rings, players can increase their level during each race, which enhances their attributes. There are several power-ups and weapons which each require specific motion actions to activate, such as a missile which is thrown like a football or a boost that is activated by shaking a soda can. As before, characters are divided into Speed, Flight, and Power classes, each of which can access specific shortcuts. Players can equip special attributes to their Gear, such as improved cornering or the ability to break through barriers, which can be changed by switching the riding stance. Players can also perform special moves if they are falling behind in races.

The game's main single-player campaign is the Grand Prix mode, where players select from one of four teams of characters to play through the story. Along with Time Attack and Free Race modes, ''Sonic Free Riders'' also features a few multiplayer modes that can be played cooperatively. Tag Mode allows two players to race together, requiring synchronized coordination to perform combined tricks, while Relay mode, playable with up to 4 players, requires teammates to swap places after each lap. The local multiplayer supports up to two active players, while online player multiplayer features one active player per console for up to 8 players. The game also supports voice recognition, allowing players to navigate menus using their voices.

Plot

The story takes place after the events of '' Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity''. Unlike past ''Sonic Riders'' titles, ''Free Riders'' takes a more arcade-style approach to its storytelling, omitting full CGI and in-game cutscenes in favor of static character images and short dialogue exchanges between races.

Doctor Eggman, disguising himself as "King Doc of Toreggmania", announces another World Grand Prix and promises vast riches to the winners. Though everyone sees through the disguise, four teams enter the competition, each seeking to prove themselves the best or win the prize money. However, at the award ceremony, Eggman reveals himself and his true motive: to gather data from all the racers to program into the ultimate Extreme Gear. The other racers defeat Eggman, but his E-10000B robot reveals itself to be a disguised Metal Sonic, who deceived Eggman and stole the data for himself. Metal Sonic challenges Sonic to a final race, but loses and is forced to flee. Though many of the competitors are disappointed that the promised treasure was fake, they are happy to have enjoyed their time racing.

Music

The game's soundtrack was written by Tomonori Sawada and Koji Sakurai. The game's theme song, "Free", was written by Jun Senoue, with lyrics written by Johnny Gioeli and performed by Chris Madin. An additional cover of the song performed by Senoue's and Gioeli's band, Crush 40, was included on the game's official soundtrack.

''Sonic Free Riders'', alongside ''Sonic Colors'', marks the first title to be released following a major recasting of the series' voice actors in 2010. ''Sonic'' titles released between 2005 and mid-2010 featured voice actors from the cast of the ''Sonic X'' anime, recorded at 4Kids Productions in New York City. However, ''Free Riders'' features an entirely new cast of actors under the direction of Jack Fletcher, recorded at Studiopolis in Los Angeles, with only Mike Pollock reprising his role as Doctor Eggman. Although both voice language tracks are included in the game disc, the text and voice language is determined by the console's region settings, with no in-game option to change them, with English voices being used in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, and Japanese voices being used in Japanese. The voice changes resulted in mixed reactions from critics and fans of the series.

Reception

The game received “generally unfavorable reviews” according to review aggregator Metacritic. Many reviewers panned its motion controls, which they felt ruined the game and made it a bad launch title for the Kinect. IGN was one of few publishers to give a positive review, calling it a strong launch title for Kinect, although criticizing the motion controls stating that they "make it hard to just jump into the game". Some commended its amount of content, number of multiplayer options, graphics and storyline. Official Xbox Magazine also gave it 7.5, praising the wealth of content and multiplayer options while criticizing occasional unresponsiveness in the controls. GameTrailers gave the game a score of 4.5, panning cumbersome controls that tax the body. Joystiq gave the game 1/5 stars, calling it "the equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your stomach while riding a unicycle." Brian Crecente of Kotaku also reviewed it negatively, calling it "the most broken of the Kinect titles I've played." Kotaku's Crecente later reported that the responsiveness of the controls seemed to differ between persons, with fellow reviewer Stephen Totilo saying the controls worked fine for him.

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2010 video games
Kinect games
Racing video games
Xbox 360 games
Xbox 360-only games
Video games developed in Japan
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Sonic the Hedgehog spin-off games