Launch titles are always a bit tough to evaluate — is it Sonic Free Riders itself that sucks, or is it the inherent limitations of Kinect that hamstring the title? Either way, this game is heavily “fun challenged,” and you should probably stay away.
The premise here is largely similar to previous Sonic Riders titles: characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog pantheon race hoverboards around a variety of tracks, collecting the series’ trademark gold rings for power-ups. Controls, however, are where Free Riders differs from its predecessors. Instead of thumbsticks and buttons, Free Riders taps into the motion-control capabilities of Microsoft’s new Kinect: It (in theory) tracks your body movements. Wanna go faster? Lean forward! Wanna turn left? Lean left! Wanna jump? Wait for it… jump! Well, crouch awkwardly for a really long time, then jump a little earlier than you would think you need to so as to compensate for the lag. But yeah, jumping is in there somewhere.
