It’s rare that we ever get to see Sonic joining the rest of his Sega Friends for a friendly game of anything. The last Sega Group meeting was back in 2008 when Sega and SUMO Entertainment decided to place their top characters on the Tennis Courts for some competitive fun. The game was mildly entertaining and felt repetitive at most. The game didn’t featuring anything ground breaking that we haven’t seen before, which is why I didn’t feel it as much as others did.
SUMO Entertainment went back to the drawing board, asked the fans what they wanted and they also had to go about each development team to place their characters in a new game. End result? A racing game titled, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing.
Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing has a collection of the most memorable Sega Character featuring True Blue himself. Many of the characters can be remembered from the good ol’ Sega days: Beat, Alex Kidd, AiAi, Amigo, Billy Hatcher, Ulala, and many others also made the cut.
How can I put this in a basic way for you to understand?
I LOVE THIS GAME!
Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is everything you need in a cartoon racer! I have no clue where to begin this review! First off, the competitive racing is intense! The game drops 8 players to a track to battle it out for first place. Yeah, the typical racing idea, however, the game features some intense ways of winning with special power ups, rockets, Speed-boost and, my favorite, the All-Star Move. The All-Star Move unleashes each player individual power. For example: If I were playing as Sonic, he would transform into Super Sonic with the power of the Chaos Emerald. Or if the player controls AiAi, he will dominate the track with his Monkey Ball ramming players off to the curb. Each character has a unique All-Star move at their disposal each with a different feel. I highly suggest that everyone test each character out to suite their style. Also, the 360 version has an added character, Banjo Kazooie. The 360 version, as well as the Wii version, allow Mii and Avatar support.
If I have to compliment SASASR on one thing, it would have to be the fast paced action! This game doesn’t slow down unless the player wants it to, yet even that is difficult. The player will be able to execute drifts that will enhance the speed of the player’s car and it will also give each character a certain kind of speed boost depending on how long the drift is held. When racing, the player will come across many jumps that can be used to keep the action alive. Jumping off ramps will allow the ability to perform tricks with the left triggers. Much like drifting, if a certain amount of tricks are performed correctly without problems the player will be rewarded with a boost. On each track, there are boost pads to help the player gain the lead. Boost pads can also help by knocking players off of the road in a bumper car-like fashion. Knocking into cars will slow down enemy drives and it may also cause them to spin out if done right. I found this to be extremely satisfying in many ways because of how competitive it can get when one is battling it out with someone for the next place in the race.
Another thing about Sonic and Sega All Stars is how uncomplicated it is. Unlike other racing games, if you find yourself in last place for a minor mistake you may have done, it is very easy to redeem oneself and find a way for the player to be placed back into the race using power-ups. This can be both a good or bad thing, depending on how one looks at it. I see it as a great thing, not that I always end up in last place, but it increases the competitive feel. Thankfully, the power-ups used to help the player back into the race are balanced well enough, so the track won’t be filled with someone constantly using an All Star Move.
Undoubtedly, the most refreshing thing about Sonic and Sega All Stars is the speed! I absolutely love it with the mixture of competitive gaming and power ups to help one boost up in a race! I know it doesn’t sound like anything new, but it was executed so properly.
Modes
Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing features a wide set of modes. One of which is the mission mode. Mission mode places the players in a set of small missions on each track for certain characters. Usually these missions relate the each character in some way, but the backstory behind each mission will be ignored in some way. The style of each mission is mixed resulting in variety and less repetition. Missions have the player collecting rings as Sonic, racing through the tracks before time runs out, shooting targets, or holding out boost for long as possible. There are many other missions to choose from with each giving the player some form of fun, depending on ones style.
Grand Prix is the games key mode. The player will be put to the challenge by completing a series of races to earn the gold cup. What I liked is how you’re able to choose a difficulty setting before you start Grand Prix mode. This will either help you or destroy you on the track, but it helps along the way to improve your skills.
Online Multiplayer
For most of the time I owned this game, I played the Online Multiplayer a lot. I’m surprised at how well the online works and functions with SASASR! There is absolutely no lag and the game is taken to a deeper level of competitive intensity. If anything, the game is more destructive and feels quicker online than you would offline. The biggest drag about the online, however, is how players can only choose one character. For example, if someone chose Sonic, I wouldn’t be able to select him because he’s taken by this other jackass. See how much of a drag that is? That’s as worst as it gets for me. If you enjoy the offline multiplayer as much as I did, you will love the online even more. I only wish they added their battle modes to the online multiplayer. My cousin and I had much fun with the offline multiplayer as well.
Visuals
Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing has some nicely built tracks each with their own loops, jumps and cork screws. The tracks contain nice, vibrant, colors that keep the game looking crisp at all times. Surely, the details in the game may look somewhat out of tune, but it doesn’t mater in a racing title like this one. The game is so fast paced, it’s unnoticeable. The graphics don’t offer anything mind blowing compared to many of the games we see today, however, it does have some of the best visuals I’ve seen compared to cartoon racer like it. I especially love how the entire track is visible while racing. It doesn’t matter when the location the player is in, the landscape of the track is visible from any side of the track. This makes it look unique because usually in other Racing titles, the landscape will go away after a certain distance. SUMO made it so its more realistic in a sense that you can see the giant loop from one side of a track.
My only complaints about the tracks for Sonic the Hedgehog were the fact that many of them were based off of the video game, Sonic Heroes. I want some older theme tracks from some of the better Sonic titles. Major disappointment here if you’re a mega Sonic fan like me.
I’m not sure how to explain this game graphically, but it looks good nonetheless. The colors are what make this game look amazing. But of course, it’s a Sonic Game and that’s what they usually consist of- a crap full of colors. One will not be disappointed with what this game has to give.
Sounds
If you’re a Sega fan such as myself, you will be either disappointed, happy, or both. I’m in the ‘both’ section. Sonic:ASASR has tunes from previous Sega games. Each character has a track/set of 7 songs each from their games. This can be A) Great because I love many of the songs from old Sega games such as one’s form Billy Hatcher, Jet Set Radio, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc or B) The songs are good, but they don’t spread throughout an IP’s universe. For instance, I am a MEGA Sonic fan but I thought they could have added some of the older tunes into this game. The Sonic Setlist consist of the more recent Sonic games and I found this to be alright, but I wanted more.
The voice-overs in the game are also as disappointing as Sega SuperStars Tennis’. They are all ripped samples from old games that don’t fit in to well when they talk. If they had recorded some new material it would have been far better.
Judgment:
Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is a racing title done right! It’s fun, fast paced, and extremely intense online multiplayer. It may not be the most polished game in the world, but it’s most certainly worth the price. Veteran SEGA fans will love it and incoming fans will cherish is. Despite it’s minor flaws regarding the music and poorly ripped voice samples, it can all be ignored. Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing beats out the “best” kart racer in my opinion, and you can all assume what the “best” kart racer is.
Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing Scores a well deserved 8 out of 10
