Written for another board, in the context of another post and censored because the board censors, but whatever:
After playing Riders for a few days now, I can heartily agree with 3/10.
First up the graphics:
This game is fugly. It kicks off with an anime intro using that god-awful 'style' that Riders has randomly adopted meaning that half of each character is shaded in with lines and looks... stupid.
Then, starting off story mode, you're treated to a fantastic piece of eye candy by the fantastic Blur before having the most fugly character model in the history of all hell lunge at you as Eggman makes his announcement.
When I saw the main character models for the first time, I swear I nearly vomited. The proportions are all wrong, the colours are off, the anti-aliasing is clearly turned OFF, the shading is non-existant, the lighting looks like something from the dark ages of the Saturn, there are barely any more polygons used than in Sonic the Fighters and the 'anime' expressions that they tried to cram in just come off looking utterly stupid.
Then look to the levels and be amazed at just how much Sonic Team manages to make them look even worse than efforts in Sonic Adventure. Take a second to look at the levels without the blatent "cover our asses" blur effects and the horrid textures may just have you scratching your eyeballs out in pain.
I find it hard to believe that 5 years on from Sonic Adventure and the Dreamcast that Sonic Team find it utterly impossible to move on graphically. The fact they have Blur studios doing the odd FMV for them and the cover art only shows them up even more. Look at all the small attention to detail that Blur adds in and then compare it (and you really don't get much of a choice to with the jarring change between FMV and cut-scene) to the in-game graphics and the in-game manages to look even worse...
Outside of graphics, this is also by far the most god-awful soundtrack a Sonic game has ever had. The intro theme sounds like something squatted out by one of those amateur 'DJs' that plague inner city nightclubs and play their own pathetic mixes over proffesional ones or proper songs.
I find it hard to believe Crush 40 could possibly be involved in this game at all. If so, all credibility they have earnt through fantastic tunes in the past has been thrown out the window in a fury by my poor abused ears.
And in gameplay?
Well, this game has it in ... well... quantities of none. Nay, I'd even say it has MINUS NUMBERS in it's quantity of gameplay.
You pick the game up for the first time and are confronted with a confusing HUD that makes no sense even after you get used to it and sit through the most pathetic 'tutorial' ever invented. Then you have to litterally fight with the controls to keep control of the board and actually compensate for the poor handling the game has over L&R air blasts to turn corners with any modicum of control.
Not only that but there are instances in every single track where the game quite simply takes control of the board away from you... NO racing game should EVER just randomly steal away your control in the middle of a race.
It takes so much effort to fight with the game to try and get some speed up to even try to finish in the top 3 that when the finish first missions come along you end up wondering "why the hell am I bothering?".
It more than likely isn't the storyline that's pushing you forward.
When Sega got 4kids in to do the voices for the games, it looked to be rosy enough with Shadow. It was clear that Sonic Team's scriptwriters were still in charge - which, while in no way perfect, at least kept it on level with Adventure 2 considering it was pretty much the sequel to that game. With Riders, however, it's blindingly obvious that Sonic Team handed them a premise, a bunch of characters and then said "write us a script".
What a bloody stupid idea.
While the Bablyon Rouges background seems plausable enough (Until you get to the whole "Masters of Extreme Gear" [censored]), the actual script is like Sonic X on crack. Only worse - this time 4Kids have been given a free lease to do what they want. Considering Pokemon Live or the Yu-Gi-Oh movie, that's NEVER a good thing.
Not to mention the fact that it becomes rather obvious that 4Kids have about 6 people working for them in total when both Jet and Sonic SOUND EXACTLY THE GOD-DAMN SAME.
In retrospect, 3/10 is generous for this game. It should consider itself lucky to get 1/10.
After playing Riders for a few days now, I can heartily agree with 3/10.
First up the graphics:
This game is fugly. It kicks off with an anime intro using that god-awful 'style' that Riders has randomly adopted meaning that half of each character is shaded in with lines and looks... stupid.
Then, starting off story mode, you're treated to a fantastic piece of eye candy by the fantastic Blur before having the most fugly character model in the history of all hell lunge at you as Eggman makes his announcement.
When I saw the main character models for the first time, I swear I nearly vomited. The proportions are all wrong, the colours are off, the anti-aliasing is clearly turned OFF, the shading is non-existant, the lighting looks like something from the dark ages of the Saturn, there are barely any more polygons used than in Sonic the Fighters and the 'anime' expressions that they tried to cram in just come off looking utterly stupid.
Then look to the levels and be amazed at just how much Sonic Team manages to make them look even worse than efforts in Sonic Adventure. Take a second to look at the levels without the blatent "cover our asses" blur effects and the horrid textures may just have you scratching your eyeballs out in pain.
I find it hard to believe that 5 years on from Sonic Adventure and the Dreamcast that Sonic Team find it utterly impossible to move on graphically. The fact they have Blur studios doing the odd FMV for them and the cover art only shows them up even more. Look at all the small attention to detail that Blur adds in and then compare it (and you really don't get much of a choice to with the jarring change between FMV and cut-scene) to the in-game graphics and the in-game manages to look even worse...
Outside of graphics, this is also by far the most god-awful soundtrack a Sonic game has ever had. The intro theme sounds like something squatted out by one of those amateur 'DJs' that plague inner city nightclubs and play their own pathetic mixes over proffesional ones or proper songs.
I find it hard to believe Crush 40 could possibly be involved in this game at all. If so, all credibility they have earnt through fantastic tunes in the past has been thrown out the window in a fury by my poor abused ears.
And in gameplay?
Well, this game has it in ... well... quantities of none. Nay, I'd even say it has MINUS NUMBERS in it's quantity of gameplay.
You pick the game up for the first time and are confronted with a confusing HUD that makes no sense even after you get used to it and sit through the most pathetic 'tutorial' ever invented. Then you have to litterally fight with the controls to keep control of the board and actually compensate for the poor handling the game has over L&R air blasts to turn corners with any modicum of control.
Not only that but there are instances in every single track where the game quite simply takes control of the board away from you... NO racing game should EVER just randomly steal away your control in the middle of a race.
It takes so much effort to fight with the game to try and get some speed up to even try to finish in the top 3 that when the finish first missions come along you end up wondering "why the hell am I bothering?".
It more than likely isn't the storyline that's pushing you forward.
When Sega got 4kids in to do the voices for the games, it looked to be rosy enough with Shadow. It was clear that Sonic Team's scriptwriters were still in charge - which, while in no way perfect, at least kept it on level with Adventure 2 considering it was pretty much the sequel to that game. With Riders, however, it's blindingly obvious that Sonic Team handed them a premise, a bunch of characters and then said "write us a script".
What a bloody stupid idea.
While the Bablyon Rouges background seems plausable enough (Until you get to the whole "Masters of Extreme Gear" [censored]), the actual script is like Sonic X on crack. Only worse - this time 4Kids have been given a free lease to do what they want. Considering Pokemon Live or the Yu-Gi-Oh movie, that's NEVER a good thing.
Not to mention the fact that it becomes rather obvious that 4Kids have about 6 people working for them in total when both Jet and Sonic SOUND EXACTLY THE GOD-DAMN SAME.
In retrospect, 3/10 is generous for this game. It should consider itself lucky to get 1/10.
