Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a joyous, colorful and pretty unique kart racing game that features a large number of characters and tracks mostly from various Sega games. Naturally, Sonic is the star here, but there are other characters here as well some of which you wouldn’t expect in this kind of game. The Steam version features additional characters from Team Fortress 2, Football Manager, Company of Heroes 2, Shogun: Total War and Total War: Rome II.
The most unique concept that the game offers is right there in the title. Every car automatically transforms into a boat or a plane at different parts of the track. Not only that, but most tracks change from lap to lap as well. This makes the racing very dynamic, unpredictable and varied. The controls feels good, but they get more and more demanding as you change difficulty levels as the game automatically disables certain assists. Both casual and hardcore players can get the most out Transformed as you can change the difficulty at any time and enjoy the game at your own pace.
Transformed doesn’t have a classic campaign, but it rather offers a World Tour consisting of a slightly non-linear series of a wide variety of events including classic races, battle races, versus, boost/drift/checkpoint challenges, and so on. This mode will unlock characters, tracks and mods. Mods let you slightly customize your vehicle in a very limited way. Each mod has a series of predetermined parameters which change up the ratios between speed, acceleration, boost, handling, etc. Apart from World Tour, there’s also Grand Prix which lets players compete in five tournament cups and time trial, single race and multiplayer.
The graphics are great, the game is colorful and bright, each track is completely different both in its look and design. Unfortunately, the soundtrack is pretty much what you would expect from a game like this (or any Sega game, to be honest) – horribly cheerful retro synth and guitar melodies. Thankfully, it blends in well and you won’t notice it much at all.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed does what it sets out to do very well. It’s simple and joyous yet challenging and skillful. The gameplay is fast and fun, the track design is varied and imaginative and there are plenty of modes that will keep you entertained for a long time.