Mario Kart faces its toughest competitor in many years.
Over the years, though, a few rare gems managed to emulate or even overclass the quality of the Mario Kart series. Diddy Kong Racing was the first to beat Mario Kart at its own game. With an adventure mode, vastly superior controls, and the possibility to race in planes and hovercraft, Diddy Kong Racing managed to outrun Mario Kart 64 rather convincingly. A year later, the Playstation-exclusive Crash Team Racing was the second kart racing game to give Mario Kart a run for its money, although it was a shameless copy of its 2 aforementioned competitors. In the next generation, Mario Kart: Double Dash had to face some stiff competition from Crash Nitro Kart. The multiplatform sequel to Crash Team Racing was a surprisingly solid title that proved to be more durable than its competitor. When Nintendo offered the most broad and complete version of the series with Mario Kart Wii, it seemed unlikely that any competitor would outdo the kart racer. The brand new game Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, however, does a very respectable attempt, offering Mario Kart the fiercest competition it has had in years.
In Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic and his colleagues jump behind the steering wheel and compete eachother in 24 different tracks carrying themes from various Sega franchises, such as Sonic, Monkeyball, and Billy Hatcher. However, one can't help but notice the dominant presence of Sonic characters: 7 out of the 19 playable characters originate from the Sonic series. You'll also notice that this game is called 'Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing', like they wanted to go for a Sega racing game, but realised along the way that they didn't have enough recognisable characters to fill the roster with, put some more Sonic characters in karts and put said hedgehog's name in the title. Of course there's Billy Hatcher, AiAi, and Amigo, but all of them are still relatively obscure compared to Sonic. Moreover, the vastly differing nature of the characters (just compare Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki to the cartoony Amy Rose) makes the roster feel a bit unbalanced from a cosmetic point of view. Luckily, this doesn't influence the gameplay as such, because the racing itself is still solid.
The amount of detail that went into the design of the characters and their vehicles, can be noticed in the rest of the game as well, from the slick menus down to the gameplay itself. The racing itself is as fast-paced as you would expect from a game featuring Sonic. Snaking is relatively easy, and works in roughly the same way as the Crash kart games. The controls themselves are responsive and solid, with the some ambiguity between air tricks and sliding (both of which are triggered by the B button) being the only occasional problem. The Wii version comes with a free wheel, but it's also possible to control your kart with the nunchuck or the classic controller. Each control method works as fine as the others. The wheel does take a bit longer to get used to, although in Sonic Racing this control method is still easier to master than in Mario Kart Wii, due to the more arcade-like and straightforward nature of the gameplay.
The slick and easy controls are very much suited for the tracks, which are all equally chaotic. The courses are based on familiar and less familiar places from the Sega universe, and are creatively designed even though the heavy influences from Mario Kart Wii tend to be rather obvious at times. Most of the roads are quite broad, leaving you with enough room to snake pretty much constantly. The fast-paced nature of the gameplay makes the entire affair exciting and addicting. Every race is different, and you'll spend a lot of time trying to perfectionise your lap times in the worthwhile time trials.
The best way to explore the tracks, though, is the grand prix mode, in which you compete against 7 computer-controlled contestants in a series of 4 races. It can be played in 3 different difficulty settings, but like with the rest of the game, they don't pose much of a challenge. When there aren't any friends around to play with, you can also resort to other modes, such as time trial, single race, and a challenge mode that consists of 64 different situational races.
Then there's the online feature, which is simple but effective. The friend code system is still there obviously, and of course you can also race against random players from all over the world. The options are rather limited (there's no possibility to race in teams, for example), but the online experience is solid enough to keep you busy for hours at a time, although it can be difficult to find a decent host room at times.
From a technical point of view, Sonic Racing is not as polished as the rest of the game. On the Wii version, the graphics are downright disappointing. Given, all of the tracks are incredibly detailed, but the blurred structures and sloppy backgrounds are just plain unnecessary. Even for Gamecube standards, the graphics would've been subpar. F-Zero GX, which had similarly detailed backgrounds (and was developed by Sega, by the bye), has much better graphics than Sonic Racing, and considering there's a 7-year gap between the 2 games, this is kind of embarassing.
Luckily, the music is mostly interesting, though not overly impressive. The same basically goes for the voice acting, which seems to be intentionally over-the-top and cheesy at times, as proven by the commentator that enthusiastically describes the action on screen, as if it were a television broadcast. The commentary can be turned off in the audio settings, so those of you who are annoyed by such things, won't have to avoid the game because of it.
With a variety of modes, options, and unlockable content, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a great alternative to Mario Kart Wii. Although the online mode is still a bit simple, and some areas could use a bit more polishing, Sega's new karting title is very solid, addicting, and just plain fun. You'll spend many hours on improving your times, unlocking new racers, tracks, and music, winning all cups, completing the challenges and achievements, and competing online. Both Sega fanatics and Mario Kart addicts will rejoice as the blue hedgehog regains some of his credibility in this smashing title.