Sonic Riders

Sonic Riders (ソニックライダーズ Sonikku Raidāzu?) is a hoverboard-racing video game spin-off produced by Sega and developed by their second-party, United Game Artists for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. It is the fourth racing game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, preceded by Sonic Drift, Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic R, and the first entry in the Sonic Riders series. This time, the characters ride on hoverboards called "Extreme Gear".

Sonic Riders was revealed by Famitsu on 7 September 2005 prior to 2005's Tokyo Game Show. The game was released to start off the 15th anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. This game introduces five new playable characters, the Babylon Rogues and the E-10000 series. A sequel to Sonic Riders, entitled as Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, has been released on the Wii and PlayStation 2 systems. A second sequel, entitled Sonic Free Riders, was released on 4 November 2010 for the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral.

Story

One night, Jet, who was observing a special cube in his airship, is suddenly interrupted by Storm who bursts into Jet's office. As Wave follows in, the three Rogues gaze upon the cube hoping to discover a hidden treasure in their ancestral home: Babylon Garden. Wave then informs Jet that a person named Dr. Eggman has arrived on their ship and would like to meet with him. Eggman appears and notices that Jet is holding the key he was looking for. Eggman whispers to Jet about the fact that he needs the seven Chaos Emeralds in order to utilize the cube to summon Babylon Garden and also mentions about Sonic the Hedgehog, a comparable speedy opponent to Jet, who might have the emeralds. Jet replies that in air with his Extreme Gear, Sonic is no match.

In Future City, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are searching for a lost Chaos Emerald. As Tails finally detects it on his radar, the Babylon Rogues suddenly crash from a glass window with the Chaos Emerald they were looking for. Tails then exclaims that the signal was coming from them. Sonic attempts to pursue them, but is outmatched on this new technology. The three mysterious characters fly away with the Chaos Emerald in town.

The next day, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles see a familiar face on the monitors; Dr. Eggman announces that he has created a race called the EX World Grand Prix, a competition to see who is the best on Extreme Gear. When Eggman announces that the prize is all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, and that the current racers are the same thieves that Sonic and his company met up with yesterday, the three then enroll themselves in the tournament. As the EX Grand Prix goes on, rivalries are made between the heroes and the Babylon Rogues. Amy Rose also joins the EX World Grand Prix with the heroes in order to be with Sonic, much to Sonic's disgrace and then Wave appears and observes Tails' Extreme Gear, sneakily placing a bomb unbeknownst to the heroes . Although she admitted in her mind that his job isn't half-bad, Wave mocks at Tails at his Extreme Gear, calling it a "piece of junk" before leaving, as Tails feels insulted by this. Tails' friends get angry at Wave at this.

Inside a factory, Knuckles and Storm bump into each other and starts to fight each other, smashing one of Eggman's robots in the process. They decide to settle their dispute in a race. When Knuckles beats Storm, he returns to the airship telling Jet of his loss, claiming that Knuckles cheated with some sort of special type of Extreme Gear. Wave hears this news and scowls at Storm for losing on her Gear and that his skills just "suck" before Jet tells them to stop arguing. Jet suspects that Eggman is hiding and assigns Storm to look for any suspicious clues in Eggman's base. While waiting for Storm, Jet relaxes only for Wave to lecture him of his responsibilities. Not interested in Wave's lecture, Jet sees Sonic and decides to sneak away from Wave and meet up with the hedgehog. Jet still boasts his superiority on Extreme Gear compared to Sonic.

Storm finally meets up with Jet and Wave with an entry of Eggman's diary which explained about the hidden treasure of Babylon Garden and it was partially revealed that the treasure was some sort of advanced technology which Jet lost his interest into discovering the treasure, not having any interest in advanced technology but Wave convinced him that the doctor's interest in the technology could hold some potential value. Jet was then determined to resume on their journey to find the treasure and returned to the tournament just in time for his finals race against Sonic. Jet taunted that Sonic made to the finals via sheer luck and not his "skills" but Sonic was determined not to lose. Near the end of the race, Jet was mad and surprised that he was falling behind Sonic but Wave detonated the bomb she implanted on the Gear earlier, allowing Jet to win.

Using the Chaos Emeralds to empower the cube, he reveals Babylon Garden, the ancient ruins of his ancestors' settlement. Eggman quickly steals the key in order to obtain the treasure for himself and flies off with the Rogues, Sonic and his friends in pursuit. Although Sonic is able to stop Eggman and settle his score with Jet, the adventure continues when the Babylon Rogues unleash an ancient spirit from Babylon Garden, the Babylon Guardian. Once the Guardian is defeated, the true treasure of Babylon is revealed, surprising everyone, especially Eggman. The Babylon Rouges and Sonic's group part ways, but not before Jet vows to return and face Sonic again.

Gameplay

The game is played in its entirety using hover boards, which function largely like skateboards. Players must race seven other competitors on a total of 16 tracks, 9 of which must be unlocked through progress in the story mode, and two of which must be unlocked by winning Gold in each World Grand Prix (5 tracks per Grand Prix). Each individual character has different statistics, altering their performance slightly in races.

A key component of the game is the Air Tank, displayed in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Air serves as fuel for Extreme Gear and is depleted gradually as the race goes on and by certain maneuvers. These include cornering, allowing the player to round sharp turns with ease and building tension before a jump, which involves using Air to propel the player higher off of ramps. If a player runs out of Air, their character will start running, putting them at several disadvantages; they can't boost, attack, corner easily or use charged jumps. There's also the option to retire from the race if the player runs out of Air. After going off ramps, players can perform various Air Tricks, which refill the Air gauge according to their rating.

In the Story Mode, players take part in consecutive races, one after the other, based on the storyline, in order to defeat the Babylon Rogues or the Heroes and win the Grand Prix.