Sonic games are a bit of a mixed bag these days seeing as Sega has been pushing development of most titles to outside and non Sonic Team developers. With that in mind, the good thing about Sonic Rivals is that it was placed in capable hands, those of the developers of the Death Jr. series. And while Backbone Entertainment hasn’t exactly raised the bar lately, their efforts have been mildly entertaining. Enter Sonic Rivals stage right, a mildly entertaining Sonic game.


It's a racing game.
Essentially, Sonic Rivals is a sonic racing game on rails. You race through stages against some other character on a 2D path with great looking 3D backgrounds. You of course have to dodge all kinds of traps and enemies along the way and that mixes the whole racing idea up a bit. The only problem with this is that it leads to a ridiculous amount of cheap deaths. In what has become a sort of standard screw up in Sonic games lately, you travel at Mach speed 99% of the time only to get destroyed by messing up a split second decision. A decision that would only be possible to navigate if you had run the same track maybe 3 or 4 previous times. So with that being said, if you like Mach speed racing with Sonic and friends and don’t mind memorizing tracks then you may find something redeemable in Sonic Rival’s gameplay.


It's crazy fast as usual.
The graphics are probably the best part of the game seeing as they all look great and sport pretty high poly counts for the PSP. All the areas flow together nicely and really make you feel like you’re in the Sonic Universe. Add in the amazing particle effects that are the real star of the show and you’ve got a decent looking Sonic game. Sticking 3D graphics in with 2D gameplay is a great idea I hope developers continue to refine and use in the future as it has the potential to bring out the best in titles like Sonic.