Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Review: Kart-tastic!

App Name:	Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
Platforms:	Universal (Optimized for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch)
Publisher(s):	Sega
Version Reviewed:	1.01
Genre(s):	Kart racing
Release Date:	June 28, 2011
Price:	$0.99
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Racing onto the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, it’s Sonic! And friends, of course — most of whom you’ve never met before — in the iOS port of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. Shrek Kart has often been cited as the best kart-racing game on iOS, but that was mostly due to lack of competition. S&SAS Racing easily displaces it with better graphics, better design, better controls, and better characters than the competition [sorry, I was never a big Shrek fan].

Not that you’ll recognize many of these folks, unless you’re a seasoned console gamer. Sonic, Tails, and Dr. Eggman are all from the Sonic series, of course; AiAi the monkey is from Super Monkey Ball, also on iOS; and some might even recognize Chuih, whose ChuChu Rocket hit the App Store last year. But I had to check Wikipedia to figure out who people like Billy Hatcher [last seen on GameCube], Beat [last seen on Dreamcast] and Ryo [also last seen on Dreamcst] were. Here’s hoping that more recognizable characters, like Knuckles the Echidna, arrive in future updates. You don’t need to know who Samba is, though — really, you don’t — in order to enjoy S&SAS Racing. It’s a fun, fast, and furious racer that features most of the things you’d expect from a kart game.

Goofy cars? Check. Each character has a vehicle that is themed to them, and each has slightly different properties — some are heavier, some are faster, some handle better, etc. I was a bit disappointed that there’s no swapping out vehicles, though. Why can’t I let Dr. Eggman drive in Billy Hatcher’s chickenmobile?

Simple controls? Check. This is a Kart game, not a racing sim. Acceleration is automatic, braking and reversing use the same button, steering is tilt, and the big yellow button is for drifting. Get used to drifting; you need it to win the game. In general, the controls work well … though I did find some of the physics a bit off at times. Cars are very bouncy in S&SAS Racing, yet they fall off of cliffs like they’re made of lead.

Lots of crazy power-ups? Check. All the things you’d expect to be here are here — homing rockets, bouncing projectiles, speed boosters, road obstacles, windshield splashers, etc. There’s even a special personalized power-up for each character.

Funky tracks? Check. The boards are all based on the different game worlds of the featured characters, which gives a fair amount of variety; I giggled when I got to race through Sonic’s Green hill Zone for the first time. By the time I got to the third GP, though, I wanted to pull some of my hair out. One level, in particular, is poorly designed, so dark that the only way to play it is in a dark room with the brightness cranked up and the window shades pulled to stop the glare on the screen. I have yet to finish top three on that level. There are 12 in the game, and 3 more to “buy” via in-game “miles” (read: points).

Multiple racing modes? Plenty of them. There’s a standard Grand Prix mode, of course, with three difficulty levels; the tracks don’t change, only the rubber-bandiness of the AI (plus, they begin to get wicked accurate with their weapons). There’s also a single-player Mission mode, with various objectives, and a Time Trial mode, where you race for the best time. The game also has a Multiplayer Mode that works great over both Bluetooth and WiFi, and that features both Racing mode and Battle mode. There’s lots of ways to enjoy this game.

High production values? Check. This is a port of a console game, after all, and it’s a darn fine one. The graphics are smooth, the colors clear, and — with the exception of that one level — the lighting effects solid. The sound ain’t bad, either.

Sega did a lot right with Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. Even though it’s not the best kart game ever made [a title currently held by Mario Kart Wii], it’s certainly the best kart game on iOS. Some players might not like the oddball parade of unknown characters, the occasional physics or lighting hiccup, and the typical cheating AI, but they’re forgivable … and even fixable in future updates. And I hope that they *do* continue to feed this game with content updates; the console version of the game had a lot more characters and tracks, an it would be great to see some of them appear in the future.

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5

About the Author

Writer@Large Brian P. Hudson is an educator and freelance writer currently living in Dearborn, MI.

 

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