Sonic Riders

SONIC Riders isn't an easy game. There's no tutorial and no hand-holding. You will undoubtedly fail to achieve anything meaningful in your first attempts at controlling the hover-boards the characters race on.

Sega has made available pretty much its entire roster of gaming icons, including Sonic and all his pals.

Given that all the Sonic games up until now have involved zooming around at ridiculous speeds, it would seem as though Sega couldn't miss with a full-on racing game.

But the races are hit and miss affairs that punish the unwary with relegation to the back of the chasing pack with little hope of catching up unless someone ahead also makes a mistake.

The trick moves are simple to pull off but there's little depth to the way your board handles and the whole game feels a bit clunky.

Sonic R on the Sega Saturn was a better stab at a Sonic racing game.