The actual racing in Sonic Riders is kind of an odd mishmash between F-Zero GX-style futuristic racing and something like SSX. Still, this game probably would have been much better off just going the minimalist story route, a la something like the Mario Kart games. Then again, this is a racing game, so the plot is really incidental to the whole package. Evil plots are hatched, Sonic and Knuckles get into it with the bad guys, Tails says a few overly precocious things, and so on and so forth. It's a completely incoherent storyline, not to mention one that rehashes a lot of stuff that's been done 20 times better in pretty much every other Sonic game every made. Turns out the thieves are part of a crew of legendary thieves known as the Babylon Rogues, and there's a whole thing about trying to rediscover the long-hidden island of Babylon, which harbors some kind of treasure.or something like that. Eggman shows up and starts rambling about wanting to hold an extreme-gear racing tournament for some reason or another. Suddenly, the team witnesses a theft of an emerald by some very edgy-cute-looking thieves riding hoverboards (or, 'extreme gear,' as they're known in the game). Along with his pals Knuckles and Tails, Sonic is, once again, on the hunt for chaos emeralds.

The premise behind Sonic Riders is the kind of thing that's going to be utterly impenetrable to anyone but the most vehement Sonic fans. Something about the term 'extreme gear' is just offensive on so many levels. There are times where you'll find yourself enjoying how blazingly fast the game can go, and others where you'll be frustrated beyond belief by the very same thing. Unfortunately, Sonic Riders isn't really all that much better than any of Sega's previous attempts to make Sonic a racing hero, simply because it can't quite manage to keep its diverse and chaotic racing mechanics together into one cohesive package. Instead, Riders gives Sonic and pals their very own Back to the Future II-style hoverboards, which they can use to dart and dash around wacky tracks of varying levels of difficulty. Sonic Riders is the latest attempt to get Sonic back on the race track, though this one eschews the typical kart- and foot-racing brands of racing one would usually find in a racer starring popular platformer heroes.

Despite the fact that Sonic's already-speedy nature might seem like a perfect fit for a racing title of some sort, the results of these attempts have been disappointing thus far.

Like most popular platformer franchises, the Sonic series has dabbled in the racing genre in the past with games like Sonic R for the Saturn.

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