Sonic Free Riders

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Sonic Free Riders

System(s): Xbox 360

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sonic Team

Genre: Racing

Release	Date	RRP	Code
US	2010-11-04	$?	68049
US (Platinum)	201x	$?	?
EU (Promo)	2010	€?	INLREV-XT212501-EU
UK	2010-11-10	£?	INL-XT212501-UK
FR	2010	€?	INL-XT212501-FR
DE	2010	€?	INL-XT212501-GE
IT	2010	€?	INL-XT212501-IT
ES	2010	€?	?
NL	2010	€?	?
AT	2010	€?	?
JP	2010-10-20^[1]	¥5,800 (6,090)^[1]	JES1-00102
JP (Platinum)	2012-04-26^[1]	¥2,800 (2,940)^[1]	JES1-00226
AU	2010-11-18	$?	INL-XT212501-AU
AS	201x	?	?
KR	2012-12-03^[2]	₩42,000 ^[2]	?
TW	201x	NT$?	?
CA	2012	$?	68049
BR	201x	R$?	?
US ▼	2011-05-24^[3]	$49.99^[3]	?
US ▼ (Demo)	2010-11-22^[3]	FREE	?
UK ▼	2011-05-24^[4]	£29.99^[4]	?
UK ▼ (Demo)	2010-11-29^[4]	FREE	?
EU ▼	2011-05-24^[5]	€39.99^[5]	?
EU ▼ (Demo)	2010-11-22^[5]	FREE	?
DE ▼	2011-05-24^[6]	€39.99^[6]	?
DE ▼ (Demo)	2010-11-22^[6]	FREE	?
AU ▼	2011-05-24^[7]	$69.95^[7]	?
AU ▼ (Demo)	2010-11-29^[7]	FREE	?
JP ▼	2012-06-19^[8]	¥?	?
JP ▼ (Taikenban)	2010-11-29^[8]	FREE	?
KR ▼	2011-05-24^[9]	₩?	?
KR ▼ (Demo)	2010-11-29^[9]	FREE	?

ESRA

Sonic Free Riders (ソニックフリーライダーズ) is a Sonic game from the Sonic Riders franchise that was released exclusively for the Xbox 360 at the Kinect's launch in November 2010. It uses the Xbox 360's Kinect camera to track your movement, obviously like an air-boarder.

Sega of America and Sega Europe described it as "an extreme fast-paced boarding game" designed specifically for Kinect's full-body controls. Race courses feature pick-ups and usable items on the course; players can use them and launch them at one another by "throwing, shaking or swinging" with their arms.

Story

Dr. Eggman with Omochao hosts another EX World Grand Prix, this time the doctor is disguised as a king. Sonic and Jet’s teams are ready to race, knowing this is most likely another Eggman plot. Team Rose and Team Dark have also joined the competition this time. Instead of Omega though, Shadow and Rouge are joined with a different robot companion they found on the street. The E-10000B is a recording robot Eggman is using to collect everyone’s racing data so he can make the fastest rig in history. Unknown to Eggman however, the E-10000 is actually Metal Sonic in disguise, who is using the collected data to finally defeat Sonic the Hedgehog in a race. Sonic ultimately defeats him through despite this advantage. After the race, Metal Sonic gets away with Dr. Eggman furious at him for ruining his grand prix.

Gameplay

The gameplay relies on motion controls and voice commands. Like previous games in the Riders series, there are three types of Extreme Gear each character can use, power, speed, and flight. These can each be used to access different shortcuts on the tracks. Unlike previous games, you can equip different Gear Parts to change your Gear type at anytime while racing. This means that any character can now use any type of Gear, not limited to what type of character they are (the only exceptions are Dr. Eggman and Vector who can only use bikes.)

Board Gear

The basic controls are performed through motions the player makes in front of the Kinect's camera. The motion required to gain speed is called the Kick Dash, which is triggered by moving a leg away from the camera. Cornering requires bending forwards and backwards. Jumping and the Power Jump can be performed by crouching down and jumping into the air. To catch rings or use a poll, simply stretch an arm out. To break just simply face the camera directly.

There are two different stances a player can take when playing the game. These are called "Regular" and "Goofy", which the player can switch between by turning their body around. These stances are used to select which Gear Part is being used in the moment. This only effects Board Gear as Bike Gear only have one slot to install Gear Parts in.

Bike Gear

Unlike Board Gear, Bike Gear requires players to face the camera and hold their arms out. To turn left or right the player must move their arms up and down. The Kick Dash is performed the same way as on Board Gear. To break on Bike Gear, the player must turn their body sideways, facing away from the camera. To Power Jump on Bike Gear, the player must move their arms down, then jump moving their arms back up.

Action items

	Target Torpedo

	Bowling Strike

	Tee-Shot

	Octo-Ink

	Soda Rocket

	Free Throw

Playable characters

Character	Type	Availability	VA (English)	VA (Japanese)
Sonic the Hedgehog	Speed	Default	Roger Craig Smith	Jun'ichi Kanemaru
Jet the Hawk	Speed	Default	Michael Yurchak	Daisuke Kishio
Amy Rose	Speed	Unlockable	Cindy Robinson	Taeko Kawata
Shadow the Hedgehog	Speed	Unlockable	Kirk Thornton	Koji Yusa
Blaze the Cat	Speed	Unlockable	Laura Bailey	Nao Takamori
Metal Sonic	Speed	Unlockable
Miles "Tails" Prower	Flight	Default	Kate Higgins	Ryo Hirohashi
Wave the Swallow	Flight	Default	Kate Higgins	Chie Nakamura
Cream the Rabbit	Flight	Unlockable	Michelle Ruff	Sayaka Aoki
Rouge the Bat	Flight	Unlockable	Karen Strassman	Rumi Ochiai
Silver the Hedgehog	Flight	Unlockable	Quinton Flynn	Daisuke Ono
Knuckles the Echidna	Power	Default	Travis Willingham	Nobutoshi Kanna
Storm the Albatross	Power	Default	Travis Willingham	Kenji Nomura
E-10000G	Power	Unlockable	Wally Wingert
Vector the Crocodile	Power	Unlockable	Keith Silverstein	Kenta Miyake
Dr. Eggman	Power	Unlockable	Mike Pollock	Chikao Otsuka
Xbox Live Avatar	None	Default
Super Sonic	None	Unlockable	Roger Craig Smith	Jun'ichi Kanemaru

As with both of the previous Riders Titles, Super Sonic is unlocked by earning top rank on every mission and then using the Chaos Emeralds gear as Sonic. Super Sonic generally has no type (the Chaos Emeralds cannot equip Gear Parts), but he becomes a Power type upon Kick Dashing. Eggman retains his previous handicap of only using Bike gear, and now shares it with Vector. E-10000G also retains the handicap of only being able to use board gear. Additionally, E-10000G is not actually playable in the story mode. Instead an E-10000B is used in its place. The Avatar, Silver, and Blaze are entirely extra, and the latter two are unlocked by clearing the first four stories.

Although both voice language tracks are included in the game disc, there is not a proper option to switch them in any regional version, and the game sets both the text and voice language by default according to the console settings language, with the Japanese voices defaulted to Japanese console language and the English voices to the rest of languages. Therefore, the only way to have the Japanese voices is by changing the Xbox Dashboard language to Japanese in order to set the game entirely in Japanese.