Sonic R

Everybody�s Super Sonic Racing........ I can�t get the Sonic R theme song out of my head. It�s going �round and �round in there. Someone once told me that if you sing the Flintstones theme song it will get rid of the song that�s stuck in your head without replacing it. Nice theory, but it doesn�t work.

Donovan Bailey Eat Your Heart Out

The premise of the game is this: the evil Dr. Robotnik has set up a race to lure Sonic (fastest hedgehog in the west) to him. Robotnik is convinced he can defeat Sonic for good this time because he has discovered the location of the Chaos Emeralds. The race draws not only Sonic but the rest of the Sega gang as well; Tails, Knuckles and Amy. They�re all on foot except Amy, she has a car, and Dr. Robotnik who has his mean machine, kind of like a hovercraft, that shoots homing missiles. Sonic is the speediest, naturally, but he�s also more difficult to control. Tails is not quite as fast, but he corners well, accelerates quickly and can fly. Knuckles is the most well balanced racer, I had good results with him. Amy is painfully slow as she chugs along in her little car, but because of her slower speed you can at least keep her on the road. The car does act as a hovercraft on water and it does have a turbo burst. Keep in mind there are also some hidden characters to uncover and you can earn the right to race as Dr. Robotnik as well.

Too Many Fender Benders

This is Sonic�s big Christmas title, but as much as I like the little blue guy, his latest game isn�t a race winner. Control is what keeps this 3D racer from reaching the front of the pack. The control is sloppy. It�s so loosy goosey that as soon as I get any speed up at all I start to feel nauseous from the roller-coaster ride. Really, the movement is excessive, it�s like trying to control a marble on ice. This should be a game you can just pick up and play, but you�ll need some serious practice to get a handle on these pinball characters. Analog control makes things even worse, you�ll be over steering, and then over correcting, more than ever. I was stamping my feet in frustration.

Despite this bone of contention, Sonic R has a lot of things going for it. The tracks are well designed, with lots of secret areas and shortcuts. I managed to get lost a few times on some of them. There are four tracks to play from the start and a fifth that opens up later, if you race well. The Radical City track is the easiest, I think, but my favorite has to be Regal Ruin. It has tons of secret nooks and crannies and maze-like paths. All tracks have loop-de-loops, accelerators to speed you up, springs to bounce you through short cuts, and lots of water. There are rings, Sonic tokens, and other power ups to collect. There�s a Water shield that will let you run on water, a Lightening shield that will attract rings, and it wouldn�t be a Sonic game without the Chaos Emeralds. If you collect enough rings, shortcut doors will open up to you, it�s �kinda like saying "Open Sesame".

Somebody Choke That Camera Guy

The graphic design of the game is swell. The characters look great and move smoothly. The environments are a pleasure to look at and the water in particular looks neat. There is very minimal polygon draw in (made less noticeable with a fade in technique) in the one player game, but unfortunately there is some rather unintelligent camera work that spoils the 3D environment illusion again and again. The camera crashes through walls, acting as though solid objects don�t really exist. If your character is standing still and you push left or right, the camera rotates around you and can end up showing you a mash of polygon edges, missing polygons, and polygons layered incorrectly. Typically, the two player game suffers from increased draw in.

All The Different Ways To Play

You can race Grand Prix or Time Attack. Grand Prix is your straight ahead type single player race. You must beat the other characters and find the Chaos Emeralds on all the courses. Within Time Attack there are a variety of modes to play. There is Normal, which is just you racing against the clock. It�s the best way to get to know the courses. Then there�s Reverse, which is pretty self explanatory. Balloon mode has you finding five balloons as quickly as possible and is a good way to explore the secret areas and shortcuts of a track. I really liked Tag Battle where you must tag the other four characters as quickly as possible. In 1P Vs. 2P mode you can choose a regular Normal race or the Balloon challenge. I would have liked to see a two player version of the Tag Battle, but no such luck.

In the options menu there is a difficulty setting where you can choose Easy, Normal, or Difficult. You can turn ghost characters on or off, play around with the sound and get rid of the vocals in the music if you want. There is no option to change the race length though, it�s permanently set at three laps.

Sega�s Chesseapalooza

Sega has a history of cheesy music and these tunes are true to form. They are super happy and poppy, and each track has it�s own version. It�s like a cross between �80s AM radio and a CD full of show tunes. They are insidious, but innocuous all the same. As I mentioned they do give you the option to turn the vocals off which may save some people�s sanity. The other sounds in the game are fine. I love the sound of the little feet pattering away down the course. The water splashes appropriately, the springs sound like they have good bounce and when you go through an accelerator the resulting noise sounds very fast indeed.

What Does The R Stand For?

Maybe it stands for Really hard to control because that�s this game�s big downfall. The control makes the game much more difficult that it needs to be. It could stand for Repetitive, which I think you will feel this game to be after an initial enjoyable run through. Even if the control was perfect, this game would still be lacking in some way. We�ve done all this before, racing around collecting things, and we�ve done it better. The gameplay doesn�t provide that spark that makes you want to play it through to the end. Maybe it stands for Rent, which is what I think you should do with this game before you insist on buying it. There are some strong elements here, like the track design and a real sense of speed, but not enough for this title to get out of the blocks quickly enough.

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