Sonic Riders Zero Gravity

Putting all story aspects aside, Zero Gravity is basically the same design as the original Sonic Riders experience. You'll sprint through courses, grab rings, power up your air board – why the fastest animal alive doesn't just run is beyond us…- and attempt to take first place in some of the craziest track design since Extreme G on the N64. Where the original fell short, however, Zero Gravity again fails, as the air board mechanic is a bit too slow for our liking (nowhere near the intensity of something like F-Zero GX), and the control is very clunky, using Wii tilt or PS2 analog stick to control a very slippery, floaty character at high speeds. For whatever reason, the steering isn't tight enough overall, so characters like Knuckles will often run into walls simply because they can't turn fast enough, and Wii tilt users will find that movement with the remote needs to be far more exaggerated than most games, yielding less turnout as well for their efforts. Even Sonic and the Secret Rings had tighter controls than Zero Gravity's end design.

In addition to the new story and tilt control on Wii, Zero Gravity also makes use of some new gameplay mechanics, specifically those dealing with the "Gravity" part of the game's title. Sonic's new gravity-changing bracelet allows him and his team the ability to stop time, launching into a bullet time effect that lets you reposition yourself for a quick turn, or latch onto a wall track for alternate routes. Replacing the classic turbo boost from the first game, players can now rocket at full speed into a huge turn, flip into Zero Gravity mode, reposition themselves, and then boost out of free space again in a new direction. The idea works, but without an overall boost ability the entire experience feels a bit slower now, as you won't be cashing in trick points for turbo, but instead use it to actually slow the game down as you make more precise movements.