Well this is not my review. It's Adam Laws review, a devoted sonic fan who sometimes calls himself Shadow but he is not that obsessed!He doesn't go round the streets saying, "heh, my names Shadow and im the worlds ultimate lifeform" well it doesn't matter anyway just forget what I said. Anyway he thinks sonic R is a fantastic game and should have a mention in the site. He didn't give it a mark but I put a suitable one at the bottom. Perhaps this is the only reason to buy a Saturn! Anyway on to the review . . .

Once in a while, there comes a game which redefines the standards, pushes
back the boundaries and says "look at me! I'm beautiful!". Such games
include Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter 2, NiGHTS, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining
Force 3 and Sonic R. Sonic Team did not have the time to spend on the
development and so they licensed the game out to Travellers' Tales, the
British development team responsible for Sonic 3D (oops).

The aim of the game is to steer one of five characters through the four
races to glory, by finishing in third place or higher. There is a fifth
level which can only be accessed by winning the fourth race. Naturally, you
can play Sonic, but other characters to have a dabble with are Knuckles,
Tails, Amy (in her odd car-thing) and Dr. Robotnik, with the opportunity to
play as any of the bosses should you locate them (by getting all 5 Sonic
coins and finishing 3rd in a race) and beat them in a straight race. The
bosses are Mecha-Sonic, Mecha-Tails, Mecha-Robotnik and Mecha-Knuckles. Each
character has his or her own strengths, notably Sonic's speed and jumping
height, Tails' flying abilities and manouvrability, Knuckles strength and
gliding abilities, Amy's ability to go over water and Robotnik's missile
launcher and flight capability.

The game is pretty large. Not only do you have to complete the races but
there are plenty of secrets. You need to collect all the Emeralds in order
to access the final race, and you must collect all of the gold coins in
order to set up an encounter with a boss. There are short-cuts galore and if
you use the characters to their best abilities there is no reason why you
shouldn't finish the game. That said, it is no pushover. If you do manage to
collect all of the Chaos Emeralds and finish in first place on the Radiant
Emerald course, you will get the chance to play as Super Sonic, just by
pressing up on Sonic when selecting character!

Graphics-wise, it is very smooth and certainly shows off the Saturn's power.
Just check out the transparent emeralds on the hidden level and the amazing
reflective Sonic head, title screen R and placing number. There is a great
effect where background objects are drawn and the textures spread themselves
on as you get closer, and the approaching polygons mist in to the playfield
(using the VDU 2 chip to produce 12 layers of transparencies!!!), which
kind-of makes pop-up seem not so bad after all. It slows down sometimes, but
only rarely. If anything, this looks superior to Mario Kart 64. Sound-wise,
the usual Sonic effects, but some great dance music. The game features 6
play modes in total, including the basic one-player game, a neat
split-screen mode too, a grand prix mode (so you can race your friends), a
time attack mode and a multi-player mode. In 1 or 2 player modes you can
race, collect balloons and so on. My favourite mode is the Tag mode, where
you have to catch four other characters as quick as you can. They get a head
start of about two seconds and weave all over the place to avoid you. It can
be a real challenge, especially to catch them quickly.

The real bonus about the game is the freedom of movement. It offers full 360
degrees movement with no restrictions inside the game area whatsoever! It
does take a while to get used to the control method, but it is a rewarding
and fun experience. The game should not be marked down for something so
niggly (a view not shared by some people). When replaying the game with the
secret characters, the races become harder as you race the other secret
characters, and you'll probably find it more rewarding to play. One thing to
note about the 2-player split-screen modes are that the graphics, whilst
having a nearer draw-in distance, actually look better because of the closer
transparencies!
To finish, this is a fun 2-player racing-game with superb audio-visuals, a
nice challenge, and plenty of replay value. Even when you've completed it,
like Sega Rally, you'll certainly come back for more, and there is plenty of
hidden stuff to keep even the most fussy person happy. It really is the best
platform spin-off racer ever, and what's more, it's a great British game

10/10