Sonic's in a car....AGAIN? And it's good? Yep, it is.
So basically this is a racing game featuring all of Sega's popular franchises, which is only one I can think of....which is Sonic, who is the big star in this game. Representing the Sonic franchise is, well, Sonic himself, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Amy Rose, Dr. Egg-robotnik or whatever you wanna call him, and Big The Cat(ugh, I hate Big the Cat, like everyone else in the world.) Sonic's not the only star of the show. Other characters include AiAi from Super Monkey Ball, Amigo from Samba de Amigo, Billy Hatcher from Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg(who played that game?), Alex Kidd The Forgotten, and more you'll probably know if you are a big fan of Sega. Each character has one veichle that relates to them, like AiAi has a bananamobile, and BD Joe rides a taxi from CRAAZY TAXI!, and Ryo Hazuki has a forklift....hmm...sorry guys, never played Shenmue.
There are other version exclusive characters. If you have the Wii version, you can play as your Mii. If you have the Xbox 360 version, you can play as Banjo-Kazooie or your Avatar. The PS3 didn't get any characters.
When you start up, you can choose from single player, split screen, or online multiplayer. In singleplayer, you can play grand prix, a single race, missions, or time trials. In the grand prix, you play through some of the tracks. It's your typical grand prix really. The single race is basically one race. The missions, however, were great. There were a lot of them and there was a lot of variety. The time trials were pretty interesting though. The first lap was just you racing it. The second lap was you racing your best time. Then the third lap added another ghost racer, of one of the testers of the game.
The graphics look beautiful. Sega really knows how to make visuals for Wii games. My only complaint is that there is just so much detail in the graphics that it's quite difficult to tell where the track leads, and it doesn't help that there is no on-screen map.
The music was mixed. Almost all of the sounds, music, and voices have been ripped from other games. Not remixed or remade, just ripped. Some of the voice clips worked fine for this game, others sounded odd. The songs have been ripped from other games. Some songs even come back from Sonic R! Okay, it's really not that bad, the songs aren't terrible.
There are three different ways to control, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, the Wii Wheel(or the Wii Remote alone), or the Classic Controller. My favorite way of controlling was the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. You use the A button to accelerate, B to brake or drift, and Z to use an item. The controls worked perfectly.
The track designs were great. They were very over the top and there was a lot of variety. The tracks are actually levels of past Sega games warped into racetracks. I thought that was a cool idea.
There are also items in the game. And they are very balanced, unlike Mario Kart. The items include boxing gloves, which you can shoot, rockets which home in on your opponents, speed boosts, and a few more. There is also a cheat item called the all star item. You will get this item if you are really behind in the race, and it will do something different for each character, like Billy Hatcher will get a giant egg and squish everyone in his way, or how Sonic will get all the Chaos Emeralds and turn into Super Sonic, and charge his way through. It was fun to see how each of the characters pull off their all star moves.
Whenever you race you will earn Sega Miles. You can use these at the shop to buy soundtracks, courses, and characters. I liked this system better than Mario Kart's, since there is less grinding involved.
One of the things that I liked in this game, that other people may not, was the announcer. Many people don't like him because he's a bit annoying, but I found him amusing since he has an attitude!
Now let's go over the splitscreen multiplayer. It worked well. There are plenty of modes like plain racing, Capture the Chao, Capture the Chaos Emeralds, King of the Hill, and more. I liked the variety of modes to play with friends.
The online multiplayer, though, is fun. When I found a game, there was no lag, and it was fun! Unfortunatly not a lot of people were playing when I was on. Also, you could only race online, you could not play any of the battle modes.
THE VERDICT!
Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is a fantastic game. I was very surprised at how much fun I had with it. The tracks are great, the controls are smooth, and the game is just overall fun. If you are looking for Mario Kart with Sega characters, pick this up. You will love it.
Final Score:
8.5- Great