![]() Why can't we all just be friends? And why, when your opponent defeats the boss, does he magically come back to life so you're forced to do it again? This means you have three things to worry about - being attacked by your rival, preventing them from attacking the boss, and attacking the boss yourself. You and the rival you've just raced compete to see who can kill the boss, the winner being whoever can score six hits first. The Boss battles are also poorly designed. It's best-of-three and opponents tend to be quite skilled, so this can take ages. If you score a smash while they're completely ringless you knock them out and win one round. The objective is to bounce around smashing into your opponent so they lose their rings. Here you face an opponent in an arena full of platforms. The zones have names like Blue Coast and Sunset Forest. After every few races you have to compete in battles, which are tedious without exception. Unfortunately unlocking them for Free Play (where you can explore levels at will, winning rewards for finding hidden Chao) and Circuit Cups (Mario Kart-style series of races) involves playing through Story mode. The races are undoubtedly the highlight of Sonic Rivals 2. Sonic's speed burst comes in extremely handy and is great fun to use, while Tails just does his stupid flying thing at a painfully slow pace. In addition, each character has their own special ability which you can use once you've collected enough rings to fill up the meter. But these are generally a distraction as your attention is focused on taking the best route through the level. ![]() There are power-ups to collect, like the magnets which attract rings to you, and weapons such as blocks of ice. There are plenty of gamers who will enjoy this sort of challenge, but it's likely to leave younger players frustrated. Of course many great racing games are based around this principle, but the races in Sonic Rivals 2 run at a terrifically blistering pace on a small screen, so you must react to certain elements well before they're even in sight. This means you have to play through tracks again and again until you've learned where everything is. Particularly in the Act 3 race of each zone, you must not only avoid mistakes but take advantage of every single shortcut and boost zone to have any chance of winning. Your opponents almost never make mistakes and it can be impossibly hard to catch them up. It often feels like a tiny error, such as taking a single enemy hit, will cost you the entire race. The camera does a superb job of capturing this, always tracking the action but occasionally zooming out or twisting to the front so you can see exactly how far away your opponent is. And although the gameplay feels 2D, the environments look 3D. The objective is not to survive the run through these environments but to do it faster than your opponent. Hold on to your hats, folks! And your eyes!īut this is a racing game, not a platformer. There are corkscrews and loop-the-loops, jump pads and cannons, vines to climb and gliders to fly. There are rings to collect, spikes to avoid and enemies to bop. Like the first Sonic Rivals, the game focuses on what made the original Sonic games so much fun - the thrill of zooming round pretty environments, defying the laws of gravity and physics. Because, hateful theme tune and a few other issues aside, Sonic Rivals 2 has more in common with olden days Sonic games than their rubbishy modern counterparts. But today is certainly a brighter day, although you can except some cloud and scattered showers as we head into the evening. We've been thinking about the good times for years now when, oh when will they come back again? From life-affirming plinky music to men shouting over guitars, from whizzy 2D environments to tortuous 3D messes, from silly old Dr Robotnik to a hedgehog who must be bad because he's black. These pieces of music exemplify what Sonic games once were and what they have become. ![]() Not going to look back cos I don't want to see. Sit back and watch me go, the only way I know, cos nothing's going to slow me down. I'm going to move it, stay one step ahead. "I always race to win, keep running to the end. To the sound of horrible screeching guitar music made out of Blink-182 B-sides: Can you feel the sunshine? Does it brighten up your day? Reach out for the sunshine, forget about the rain! Just think about the good times, and they will come back again." And the sky - it makes me feel so high! The bad times pass me by, cos today, is going to be a brighter day. It makes me feel so free! So alive! It makes me want to survive. ![]() To the sound of happy tinkly electronica made out of Yamaha DX7s and rainbows:
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