Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Genre: Kart Racing

Players: 1-5 Competitive (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a Kart Racing game released in 2012 on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U, with a version of the game coming to PC and Nintendo 3DS in 2013, and then to mobile devices in 2014. This is the second game in this franchise, after the release of Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing in 2010, with this game once again bringing together characters from various Sega franchises… along with Wreck-It Ralph, apparently.

The presentation here is very good, with excellent, colorful 3D graphics featuring solid framerates, and some nice details within the game’s levels. The game’s energetic synthesized music works well enough, but it seems like a missed opportunity that this game doesn’t make better use of Sega’s memorable musical themes. For that matter, even the game’s levels seem to only vaguely represent the franchises in question, rather than clearly being directly based on any specific game or locale.

As a Kart Racer, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a solid entry in the genre whose main contribution to that genre is vehicles that transform during races, changing between car, boat, and aircraft based on what part of a track you’re racing on. Some tracks have you going back and forth between these different kinds of vehicles repeatedly, while others change things up in the final lap, shifting you onto a different section using a different vehicle. These vehicles all feel very different, and the change in variety definitely helps to keep things interesting, though it can also be disorienting at times.

There is one other major flaw I can point to here – the rubber-banding in this game is pretty bad. I suppose I should also mention the lack of online play, though at this point I suspect you wouldn’t be likely to find others to play with online even if this feature was in the game.

In the end, while Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed has a few flaws, this is overall a very good entry in the Kart Racing genre, and one that even does a few interesting things thanks to its different transforming vehicle types. It may not be quite the huge celebration of Sega franchises that you might hope for, but it’s still a solid Kart Racer that’s well worth getting if you have a Wii U.

tl;dr – Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a Kart Racer that has players taking the role of one of various Sega characters and racing on tracks inspired by Sega games, using vehicles that transform from cars to boats to aircraft. This game does have some rubber-banding issues and the transition from one vehicle type to another can be disorienting, but overall this is a solid Racing game that Wii U owners should definitely want in their collection.

Grade: B+

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