Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity

Plot

The Story is split into two halves, the Heroes Story (Team Sonic), and Babylon Story (Babylon Rogues). Although the stories start separately, they overlap each other, telling the story as the main characters within that story see it. Following the format of Sonic Riders, Babylon Story also includes an epilogue that expands past the Heroes Story leading to the last course.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are alerted to robots that are attacking a famous city of the future. They set out to retrieve a legendary artifact that has the ability to control gravity. Along the way they discover surprises, including the return of the Babylon Rogues, a group of avian thieves who are also after the artifacts. This sets off a war to decide who gets the artifact, leading them to settle their dispute by having an Extreme Gear competition.

Toward the end of the Heroes story, Sonic and friends discover that Eggman had created the robots, but they had gone berserk due to a malfunction. Helping Eggman regain control of his robots he attempts to use the power of the artifacts to control his machines at will from his secret base. Sonic and friends along with the Babylon Rogues destroy it.

During the Babyon Rogues story, Jet, Wave, and Storm discover that the artifacts are attracted by each other and have the power to raise an ancient Babylon city. During the game, Jet and Sonic both stop Eggman from using the artifacts to control his robots. However, due to a distortion, as the Babylon city begins to float into the sky, the artifacts power becomes corrupted and opens up a black hole which could vacuum in the whole world. Jet, Sonic, and the rest of the gang fly to the Babylon city to fight the Boss of the game.

When the boss was defeated, the Babylon Garden ascended into space, with all of the damage averted. Jet, Wave, and Storm look at the sunrise and Jet says that he feels content with Earth. As Sonic and the gang travel back to the city, they marvel over the artifacts and Babylon Garden's true origins: they originated from another planet unlike Earth. The Babylonians' home, Babylon Garden, malfunctioned during its space traveling and ended up in Earth's orbit. They decided to shut down their home by removing its power, the Arks of the Cosmos, and letting them scatter across space until they land back on Earth, wishing to return home. Amy, especially, was amazed, believing it to be the origin of wishing on shooting stars. Later, Jet comes back, and challenges Sonic to another race

Gameplay

This game introduces many new abilities in addition to ones from the first game. By gaining gravity points through tricks and technical challenges, players will enter a zero-gravity zone and be able to perform new moves.

The first is the Gravity Dive, which sucks the player towards a black hole further down the track, giving them a speed boost which tosses cars and other objects off the track and into the air which characters are able to smash into to gain more speed, and Gravity Control, which changes the gravity of the course, allowing the player to use a different track, such as one of the walls.

Also in the game is a move called Gravity Drift. This move is similar to the Grip move in Sonic Riders in which it can help characters turn on tight corners.

Items can offer help the player, such as an attack boost, or cause hardships, such as a ball-and-chain that hooks on your gear and slows your speed down.

Upgrade system

There is a new method in the game called "Gear Change". Once you gain a certain amount of rings, your gear will gain an upgrade. Each gear has from zero to three upgrades and can be upgraded during a race. Some upgrades include modifying your Extreme Gear's look or top speed. There are many board types to use as well, adding for many options for customization.

Survival modes

In Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, there are three new modes added to the game: Survival Mode, Survival Relay, and Survival Ball. Survival Mode entails each player to pick up missiles, then lock on and launch them at foes with Gravity Control, the winner being the last person standing. Survival Ball mode is, simply put, a soccer game on Extreme Gear. In Survival Relay, 2-4 players make a team of two and do a relay, with Extreme Gear as the baton.

Courses

There are a total of 16 courses in the game, eight worlds with two tracks in each. The tracks appear in the order they appear in the story mode.

Gear

Each different type of gear has their own special advantages.

Boards with the Grind upgrade and Skates are able to use the Grind Rails as a shortcut. Although boards must install the Grind upgrade themselves, Skates can already Grind from the start. Besides this, they are predominant in speed, and usually have no other functions.

Air Riders and Yachts are able to use the Launch Ramps as a shortcut. Although Air Rider Gears usually come with no special advantages, the Yacht Type Gears can ride on drafts, which is completely different from Turbulance. By tailgating an opponent, a Yacht will gradually speed up to the point where they pass the opponent. However, their major drawback is that without a draft, Yachts are very slow, generally below 130 MPH.

Bikes and Wheels are able to smash obstacles to create new pathways. Although most Bikes don't come with any additional advantages, Wheels come with a major advantage of the ability to drift.

Some Gears have no Gear Parts, but usually come in the form in the other Gears listed above. However, sometimes, they have extra abilities that help you proceed in the race. For instance, the Money Crisis Gear is a Wheel Type that has no extra upgrades, but increases speed for the more rings you collect.

The Chaos Emerald Gear is a unique gear that can only be used by Sonic. It can only be obtained after you complete all the missions with an Extreme rank. The Chaos Emerald has no initial Skill and uses rings instead of GP. However, using Gravity Moves consumes rings during at an extremely high rate. When Sonic's rings run out, he reverts to regular Sonic, and is forced to run the track on foot until he obtains some rings. Before obtaining 60 Rings, the Chaos Emerald Gear is just basically Super Sonic on the Blue Star. When Sonic obtains 60 or more rings, he activates his "Super Sonic Boost". In this state, Sonic gets off his board and flies around the track in a comet form. At this time, ring consumption is increased, but Super Sonic flies at 180 MPH and he is practically invincible to all attacks.

Characters

There are a total of eighteen characters in the game. Each character has their own personalized gear, which is stated after their name. Characters of each type can take advantage of certain shortcuts depending on the type of Extreme Gear they ride in the race.

Reception

Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity received mixed to average reviews from critics. It has been praised for its improved graphics, larger level designs, music and easier gameplay concepts, but has also been criticized for its loose controls, lack of online play, story material and removal of certain gameplay elements from its predecessor. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic assigned the PlayStation 2 version 59.31% and 56/100 and the Wii version 57.04% and 56/100. GameSpot gave the PS2 version 5.0/10 and the Wii version 4.5/10. IGN rated both the PS2 and the Wii versions a 5.8/10. The Official Nintendo Magazine gave the game a score of 72%, praising its solid multiplayer action and the amount of bonus features but criticized it for its rough controls. GameTrailers praised the game for its graphics, but lambasted the control schemes, especially the fact the Wii version was compatible with the GameCube controller but not the Classic Controller, thus if played on a Wii U or a later Wii model which lack the Gamecube ports (not the case anymore), the player would only be able to use the motion controls, and saying that all options were confusing and rendered the game "almost unplayable".