Sonic Free Riders

Note: The review contains spoilers for Sonic Free Riders.

While the first two games in the Sonic Riders trilogy were both multiplatform releases, an Xbox port was noticeably absent from the second game, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (Zero Gravity). Perhaps to make up for this, the third game in the series, Sonic Free Riders (Free Riders), released in 2010 exclusively on the Xbox 360, as a launch title for the Kinect peripheral. While not having an Xbox or Kinect at the time had something to do with it, this was a game I had actively avoided for the longest time because I had only heard negative things about it at launch, especially the mandatory motion controls, with said reception being what killed any chances of a fourth game and made the Babylon Rogues dormant in most Sonic media for over a decade. I eventually went back on this decision when the 360 store was shutting down and bought a physical copy along with an old Kinect, deciding I may as well complete the experience while revisiting the games. Because I still had the negative perception in the back of my head, I wasn’t looking forward to this entry when I got around to it, but persisted anyway.

As it turns out, it’s actually not nearly as bad as everyone had made it out to be, but much like the original Sonic Riders, I ended up having to cut my experience with Free Riders short.

Perhaps the most notable thing about Free Riders is its control scheme, which is based entirely around the 360 Kinect and thus relies on motion controls. The lack of a standard control option like the Wii version of Zero Gravity can be excused by it being a launch title, but is notable nonetheless. Despite some inconsistencies with the Kinect sensor, I was actually able to get it to work with me for the most part, but it proved to be physically taxing to where I had to play it in short bursts with water nearby. By the time I was able to finish one the game’s campaigns, however, I had inflicted some pain to my ankle and decided not to proceed any further out of fear of hurting myself more; if I was younger, I may have been able to persist more. I would also recommend wearing comfortable shoes while playing due to how much you may have to use your legs. Lighting conditions may also play a factor in how well the camera registers you, as I had it where, based on the layout of the one room in my house with enough space for the Kinect, an ill-placed light source was registered as a hand and halted progress until I was able to turn it off.

As for the actual mechanics, the Gravity system from Zero Gravity is dropped in favor of the Air system from the original Sonic Riders, with some key differences. The Turbulence system is gone and you no longer have to worry about refill stations, but you still have a limited amount of air, which can be refilled by performing Air Tricks (graded based on your jump timing and/or difficult-to-master mid-jump spinning) and other category-specific (Speed, Fly, Power) abilities such as grinding. Air can be used to move faster with a kicking motion, for which I recommend watching your intensity. Mid-race Ring upgrades return from Zero Gravity, but are applied automatically, and you constantly move forward during a race without any sections that require manual movement.

Since the game requires the Kinect, many actions are based on your body gestures, to mixed results. Turning requires leaning your body in the proper direction, which I found to be inconsistent outside the tutorials, though this can be made up for to some extent by using the arm gestures normally used for grabbing rings. To make turning easier, I will also recommend not moving as little as possible during the pre-race calibration, since you are actually calibrating the short turn (the game does not tell you this). There is also some clever use of the sensor for increased immersion by waving your arms to clear steam from the screen, which felt reminiscent of the EyeToy, as well as arm gestures for using power-ups, punching objects and flying through rings.

There is no other control option besides the Kinect.

Despite what some may tell you, it is also entirely possible to skip cutscenes, including the opening bootup cinematic, by simply raising your arm in front of you to the center of the screen.

Compared to the first two games, Free Riders takes advantage of the Xbox 360 specs to deliver the best graphics in the Riders series, including more detailed environments and character models. However, whereas the previous games had fully-animated cutscenes, here they are presented in more of a visual novel style, which can feel cheap by comparison. Notably, this is also the first Sonic game to feature the post-4Kids video game voice cast, most of whom remain with the franchise to this day. Among them, I think Roger Craig Smith was a good fit for Sonic out the gate, I felt mixed about Michael Yurchak’s first outing as Jet since his take was a bit of a whiplash after coming off of Jason Griffith in Zero Gravity; he got better in the role as of The Chaotix Casefiles audio drama, but even then, his performance can still prove divisive.

Worth noting is that, compared with previous Riders games, Free Riders has a wide breadth of content, including an online multiplayer function as well as challenges and time trials. In part due to my own endurance, I didn’t end up playing most of said content, focusing mostly on the World Grand Prix (Story) mode, but this does still give the game plenty of replay value for those who can deal with the motion controls.

Like previous Riders games, the story is told across multiple campaigns, this time across four instead of two, under a mission-based structure that largely eschews full races. This time, Dr. Eggman, under the guise of King Doc of Torregmania, hosts another World Grand Prix with a large cash prize along with the promise of treasure. This attracts four teams to enter the race: Team Heroes, Team Babylon, Team Rose and Team Dark.

Team Heroes, consisting of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, go through the Grand Prix with the goal of beating the Babylon Rogues. During the event, Knuckles becomes suspicious of Team Dark’s newest member, E-10000B.

Team Baylon, consisting of Jet, Wave and Storm, have a similar goal of defeating Team Heroes. Between both stories, Sonic and Jet have a more sportsmanlike dynamic where a mechanical failure in the last race prompts the leader to issue a rematch, on the grounds that it doesn’t feel like a true victory otherwise. 

Team Heroes and Team Babylon are available at the start. Completing these two unlocks Team Rose and Team Dark.

Team Rose, consisting of Amy, Cream and Vector, are more loosely coordinated and implied to have been hastily thrown together. While Cream tries her hardest, Amy is more focused on trying to go on a date with Sonic and Vector is more concerned with getting paid by Amy and was promised half the prizing.

Team Dark, consisting of Shadow, Rouge and E-10000B, is similarly thrown together, as Shadow and Rouge try to enter on their own and grab E-10000B when they learn they have to have a third member. Shadow and Rouge are racing for the prizing, not caring if they work E-10000B to the point of breakdown in the process.

Completing the campaigns of all 4 teams unlocks the Final Race, in which the racers figure out King Doc is Eggman, who reveals he had been using E-10000B to record everyone’s racing data. Eggman challenges the other competitors to a final race and loses, after which it’s revealed that Metal Sonic stole the data from E-10000B and gave Eggman false data. Metal Sonic then challenges Sonic to another race to see who is the true winner.

I only got through Team Heroes before stopping out of fear of injury, but for the purposes of this review, I did my due diligence and looked up the remaining cutscenes to get the full story. Compared to the preceding games, Free Riders’ campaign, despite being longer, is a bit on the short end in terms of actual content. The twist with E-10000B also feels iffy since it’s presented as having only joined Team Dark out of random happenstance and Amy’s cruelty towards Vector feels unwarranted, not to mention Metal Sonic’s appearance had no foreshadowing.

Each of the four teams’ stories also ends with them winning the World Grand Prix, which makes sense from a gameplay standpoint and would make sense from a storytelling standpoint if all of them were presented at once, but you have to unlock half of them as you go and have play through all of them to unlock the true ending. The first two games had shades of this as well, except those only had two campaigns, with one of them unlockable, and they were written to feed into each other, whereas applying this technique to four campaigns makes it feel less cohesive.

Compared to its predecessors, Sonic Free Riders is mixed. The story is not as well-written as the first two games, but this is made up for with a larger swathe of content that gives it a lot of replay value. Perhaps the biggest hurdle, however, is the forced motion controls that can be very hit and miss depending on the player, not to mention needing to have an extra peripheral unlike most Sonic games. Overall though, I would say it’s not as bad as the initial reception made it out to be since I was (mostly) able to get the Kinect to work with me, but it can still be physically taxing to play even in short bursts. It may still be chained to the Xbox 360, but it’s still worth playing to see how well it works for you, and also for marking the first change in voice actors since the 4Kids era and to round out the Sonic Riders trilogy.