"If I win this race, they'll make Shenmue 3!"

“Kart Racers” as a genre have a bad rap. Back when Nintendo had success with the original Mario Kart, everyone wanted a piece of that hot, mascot racing action. The sad thing is that nearly every one of these attempts have failed. From Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing to M&M’s Kart Racing, most entries in the genre have been groan inducing.

Because of this, my hopes were pretty low for Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing, but the addition of some very nostalgic Dreamcast characters drew me in. The first time I saw a screen-shot of Ryo Hazuki on his motorcycle, I knew I’d be playing this game one way or the other.

Character balance is a big factor in a Kart Racers. It’s not just about being able to pit Big the Cat against Alex Kidd, they have to bring variety to the table without making any one character over-powered. All-Stars Racing has a pretty decent balance of characters ranging from the low top speed but awesome handling to the high top speed with no handling.

Another important factor is each character’s turbo attribute. Turbo is triggered after you let off the drift button when taking corners. If your character has a low turbo, it will charge quickly, but not give that much of a boost, while a high turbo takes longer to charge, but is a much more substantial boost. The drifting is one of the best I’ve seen in a Kart Racer, since they simplified it to holding down one button while you take a turn. This will lock you into turning sharply in that direction, but it still allows you a little bit of control over your kart.

Core to any racing experience is the track selection. While not every character has a level themed after them, and some of the themes repeat on a couple tracks, each one manages to feel unique and fun. I was very impressed with the variety they managed to put into each level. If they are able to keep up this level of quality, DLC tracks would be highly welcome.

As you race, you collect “Sega Miles” which can be spent at the in-game store to unlock more characters, tracks for multiplayer and music. The music is a fun assortment of songs from the various games that the race tracks are themed after. Once you have unlocked more songs under a theme, you can select which one will play during the race.

Any racing game that includes weapons runs the risk of having the weapons diminish the fun of the actual races. While they can make it more frenzied and add to the fun-factor, it is easy for them to overshadow the rest of the game. When an “I Win” item is included, it ruins the game for everybody. Fortunately, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing did a good job of keeping the weapons subtle. They are there, and they add that element of needed danger from the other racers, but there is no magic “win” button included.

Multiplayer is very easy to pick up and play. When playing this for review, I had a few different groups of people over that were able to pick up a controller and instantly be having fun.

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing does a lot of things right. They took a fun mix of characters, and while the aesthetics of each don’t always mix, it still brings a smile to my face to see characters like Ulala, B. D. Joe and Amigo back on my TV Screen.

This review is based on a copy of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing for the Xbox 360 provided to us by SEGA.

Tags: Banjo & Kazooie, Dreamcast, DS, family, Kart Racers, PC, ps3, racing, Ryo Hazuki, Sega, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing, Wii, Xbox 360

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.