|
Sonic Rivals is
coming for your PSP soon and what a beauty its turning-out to be.
Harking back to the good old days of its side-scrolling
predecessors, the game still has Sonic dashing for Rings, looping,
ricocheting and smashing into enemies; but now nicely updated for
the PSP with some added extras to keep the format alive.
The basic premise for Sonic Rivals
is that it pits you against another character in a simple race
to the finish, building-up points via Rings and destroying enemies.
The demo on display only had one available Level with the opponent
being Sonic’s old nemesis Shadow. Some of the new features on show
included an Attack Punch to disable your opponent if their
racing just ahead of you, an extra Boost when you approach a log which Sonic grabs and can dash a short distance or propel him
sky-wards towards higher ledges. Also included in Sonic’s new
arsenal is a power-up ability when certain items are picked-up
enabling a Fire Punch to help destroy any nasties in your way.
It plays fairly smoothly, having use
of either the PSP’s D-Pad or Analogue controls, although the D-Pad
feels more natural at the moment, easily enabling the hectic
movement across the screen with no apparent Slow-Down or jerkiness
which is crucial for Sonic games to keep their rhythm. Based on 3D
architecture, but plays as a 2D title, all the characters are nicely
rendered, and the Level design allows movement around cliffs,
 corners and to-and-away from the player, but with a good percentage
of the Level viewed straight-on whilst still containing plenty of
depth and detail retained throughout.
Sonic Rivals looks like its
going to contain all the elements needed to bring the franchise onto
the PSP and is going to be worth keeping an eye on for fans, along
with
Sonic Rush for the NintendoDS and versions for the
Xbox360 and upcoming
PlayStation3 and
Wii machines, its going to be
hard to keep away from the blue-spiky-one over the next year. |
