‘NFL Tour’ needs more work

‘NFL TOUR’

(EA Big) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Genre: Sports; Rating: E

Grade: D

When a game company has one game that fills a niche, why would it make a similar game that is worse than the one it already has?

If you buy “NFL Tour,” you’ll be scratching your head thinking about this while you curse yourself for not keeping your money and just playing that “NFL Street” game you already own.

“NFL Tour” is a cheap way for EA Big to make money, because all it did was take its “NFL Street” title and move it into more arenalike settings. Beyond that, there’s so little difference that you wonder how the developers pitched this without being laughed out of the room.

But then again, some people who like Midway’s “Blitz” franchise might like to buy a new NFL arcade game, where defense is pointless and being the last player with the ball means you’ll most likely get to score and win the game. The game play is fun and the controls are good, but there’s little else to warm you to this.

Player models are not impressive at all. And if you can make it through three games of Trey Wingo’s gawd-awful announcing, then you should get a gift from EA (like a refund).

It’s one thing to crib ideas off a rival’s game, but for EA to steal from itself to make a competing game just smacks of taking advantage of the consumer.

‘SONIC RIDERS: ZERO GRAVITY’

(Sega) for Wii, PlayStation 2

Genre: Racing; Rating: E

Grade: F

Maybe it’s time for a radical change. Like “Sonic: The Death Fight.” Or “Sonic: The RPG.” Wait, maybe “Sonic: The First-Person Shooter.”

I make these suggestions because “Sonic: The Race That Never Ends” is getting old and tired. Fast.

In “Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity,” there’s a plot that’s not worth explaining, and some characters that are not worth discussing. Basically, you have to solve a mystery, and somehow racing on a hover board will make everything OK. Trust me, it doesn’t.

I didn’t always dislike “Sonic” games, but the franchise has not made any attempts to stay fresh — as evidenced by the lack of ingenuity in “Zero Gravity.”

There is a pretty cool slingshot gimmick that makes the races fun for a brief moment, but beyond that it’s “been there, done that.”

The levels are all glitzy and lovely, as one can expect from a “Sonic” game, but that doesn’t offset the fact that after you beat this game in about three hours, you’ll wonder why you dropped full price on a game this thin.

—Chris Campbell, Scripps Howard