In a clinic for troubled videogame characters, hordes of stars from games past and present gather, hoping to find a solution to their various problems. Gex the Gecko leads the line of forgotten platform leads, wondering where it all went wrong. Slippy Toad is in the corner, wondering why everyone hates him so much (let me help you out here, Slippy - it's because you're an idiot). Voodoo Vince is busy stuffing sticks of dynamite into his ears, while Blinx is running around and around. Sometimes he moves very fast indeed, sometimes he slows right down, or even moves backwards. Then Mario and Sonic walk in, having recently put their rivalry aside. They're both suffering from an identity crisis, starring in platform games one minute then sports games the next, with the odd racing game thrown in here and there for good measure. Mario has less to worry about, however, because his games are generally very good - and soon enough, it becomes clear that Mario is here to lend his new chum Sonic a bit of much-needed moral support.

You see, Sonic's problem isn't that he's been forgotten, but rather just that he's a shadow of his former self (there's a pun in there somewhere...), being shoehorned into one cash-in piece of tat after the next - and Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity is the latest case in point. The introduction to the game, despite looking very nice, doesn't bode well, and it's pretty much downhill all the way from here. The story, if you can call it that, is laughable at times. The game opens with a meteorite crashing onto a planet and landing at the feet of a giant security robot. For reasons unknown, the robot comes to life, along with seemingly hundreds of its pals, and proceeds to go on a rampage. Yep, it all makes perfect sense so far. From then on in, a frankly bizarre course of events take place, with the story making less and less sense as it goes on, lending terrible excuses for Sonic and co. to race everywhere for no apparent reason.

Admittedly stories in racing games have never been great, but the question has to be asked as to why the game even needs a story. Why couldn't Sonic and his friends just decide to have some races one day? The annoying voice acting and cut scenes that go on for as long as some of the races don't help to warm you to the story and it's with mixed emotions - part relief and part disbelief - when the Story mode ends after little more than a half hour's play. There are two routes through the Story mode, looking at it from Sonic's perspective and then Jet's, but that still adds up to a terribly short main mode.

The actual races themselves are a mixed bag, with the negative slightly outweighing the positive. An original and interesting way of starting each race - whereby an electric beam moves towards the start line and players have to gauge how close to it they run in order to cross the line as soon as the countdown hits zero - rewards risk-taking and punishes over-eagerness. The feeling of speed can be immense at times and gliding around corners and hitting shortcuts successfully is fairly satisfying and enjoyable. The courses don't look bad either, although sometimes there can be a bit too much going on at once, and everything moves at a nice pace with no slowdown evident.

The problems come as soon as you attempt to take a corner, however; to describe the controls in Sonic Riders as 'rubbish' wouldn't be overly harsh, as they'll take a lot of getting used to before you can successfully navigate a track without running into every obstacle and bouncing off all the walls. Each racer uses a slightly odd hoverboard to cruise around on, and while you'd expect the handling to be somewhat 'floaty', the fact that sometimes your racer simply won't turn takes this concept to the extreme. Turning has to be initiated very early for even slight corners and if you want any hope of getting round a hairpin bend then you'll have to make use of the slowdown-time-and-turn-while-floating-in-mid-air function that the game gives you. Again, this takes some getting used to, but is essential for successfully finishing in first place.

Collecting rings throughout the race can morph your board into different vehicles, such as an air bike, and these offer you different abilities, like being able to smash through obstacles with no loss of speed. For characters that claim to be "the fastest creatures in the universe", the question of why they're bothering with these hoverboards and don't just race on-foot goes unanswered. Indistinct music and useless power-ups accompany each race, while the lack of any real difficulty or challenge outside of wrestling with the control system adds little to the game's appeal or challenge. There's a grand-prix mode in which you race through the disappointing number of tracks with any character and board, as well as some multiplayer elements and a shop to buy new gear. These try to extend the game's lifespan, but they can be done and dusted with little effort and no real desire to return to them again in a matter of minutes.

Dodgy controls aside, there's little inherently wrong with Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, yet it's painfully average and just lacks the amount of fun that would warrant a purchase. It's perhaps worth renting to see if you like setting yourself up to be disappointed, but it's not a game that comes recommended. Zero Gravity? Zero Fun more like...

Reviewed by Andy Keagle for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).