Sonic Free Riders

Another motion control game review?! Already?! Okay, if that’s the way the wind is blowing these days, fine. Sonic Free Riders is a launch game for Kinect, it’s a hoverboard racing game, and it’s probably the best reason to own a Kinect device at this moment in time. The main reason being that I think it’s the only game out there using Kinect for the reason that it should be used – to use the experience to enhance a genre.

Kinectimals is essentially a tech demo, Kinect Adventures is a non-lasting party game consisting of a selection of tech demos, Dance Central is for Lady Gaga fans who drink too much Red Bull; Sonic Free Riders, on the other hand, is a full body motion racing game that actually made my acquirement of a Kinect device feel ever so slightly validated. It’s got some fun power-ups which you get to activate through the full body motion sensor, my personal favourite being the giant bowling ball, and there are a wide selection of fun and colourful tracks to hammer around. It’s a simple formula, but the new control system is really what Free Riders is all about. Before I sing its praises too highly, though, I do wish to address the two largest, most glaring faults with the game, each getting its own dedicated paragraph:

1) MOVE THE DAMN PAUSE BUTTON! For those of you who haven’t used Kinect yet, you pause the game by holding your left hand toward the bottom left of the screen. In other ‘games’ like Kinectimals this is just fine, because you don’t tend to be in that area anyway, but with Free Riders while you stand sideways you almost HAVE to hold your hands out to balance while leaning backwards to turn a corner. I can’t tell you the number of times I accidentally paused the game mid race/jump/power-up and had to tediously point my arm at the continue option and re-assume the hoverboard position. It should have been at the top of the screen, simply put, and quite honestly that should probably go for all Kinect games.

2) CALIBRATE THE TURNING CORRECTLY! Here’s what I want you to do, right now: stand up, stand sideways as if you were standing on a surf board, and then lean forward and backwards. You can lean further forward than you can backwards, right? Unless you’re a super flexible female gymnast gamer (feel free to drop an e-mail to: [email protected] if you are… just to say hello.) then you’ll notice you can’t lean backwards as easily – so turning right (or left, depending on your stance) is the biggest pain in the arse in the whole game. While you’re busy taking two train changes and a replacement bus service sized turn around the corner, any and all AI will be busy hugging the inside lane flipping you the bird and knocking you down four positions just because you can’t do the reserve crab position.

Apart from this, though, Sonic Free Riders is a good game. It’s far from great, we’re not talking Colin McRae: DiRT competition or anything, but for a launch Kinect title it does show that the technology does have the potential to add something new to the experience of gaming rather than just substituting a controller for a dumb arm waggle. Would I recommend buying Kinect just for Sonic Free Riders? Honestly, no. It’s not worth the £170 off you’d have to drop for it. If, however, you have a Kinect or are thinking of asking Santa to bring it to you instead of a remote control car – then I’d say it should definitely make it into your collection. I still think that the whole motion control fad will blow over pretty soon anyway to make room for: Sonic Mind Riders. Control Tails… with your thoughts!