Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Surprisingly good"

There are quite a few games that try to copy Mario Kart, but few games come so close as Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing. It's a kart racing game with the crazy nature of the Mario Kart series, with it's exhilarating tracks and crazy items. But this time it's Sonic and friends, along with other Sega stars participating in these chaotic races, and the final product is more than just a cheap rip-off.

Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing introduces very little new to the kart racing genre, but most of what it copies from Mario Kart is presented solid in this game. Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing has a solid presentation. With it's character roster of about 20 drivers and 6 cups each filled with 4 tracks, that means a total of 24 tracks, there's enough to do here at first. Of course, not everything here is unlocked from the beginning. In Grand Prix, only the first cup is open. You'll then unlock the rest cups by winning the previous one. However, after every race you earn Sega Miles, with which you have to pay in order to unlock drivers, music and the tracks for single races.
The games value is decent, though stuff like only 1 kart per driver or less items do bring down the value a bit.

The Single Player mode contains a Grand Prix Mode, Single Races, Time Trials and Missions, nothing new in that area. You do notice that Sega wanted to add a few tweaks to the game here and there, but those are nothing significant neither are they necessary.
The Single Player is pretty robust, though. There aren't quite as much tracks like in Mario Kart Wii, but 24 is still a good amount. There are 3 difficulty sections, easy, medium and hard, and since you unlock the unlockables by buying those with Sega miles, you're not forced to play every difficulty section in order to unlock everything, which is a definite plus. Also, The AI is a lot better in this game than in Mario Kart Wii: It's more challenging in easy and medium and it doesn't challenge you because of unfair high speed or other advantages that aren't available for you, but because of good driving skills. The main thing what lets Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing stand out a bit is it's speed, the vehicles have a much higher speed here than those in Mario Kart Wii have. The tracks are exhilarating and exciting and fit with the fast paced, high speed perfectly.

The soundtrack of the game contains mostly catchy music, which really fits to the mood of every track. The visuals are also great, with an outstanding amount of detail in the environments and tracks. However, the fact that if you accidentally fly out of the track and just fly through all the environments as if they were illusions does bring the glory of the environments down a tiny little bit.

It's also quite important to note that Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing didn't see as much polish as Mario Kart Wii did. During my play time, I did encounter a few bugs and glitches, like getting stuck in environments. Also, though the game does look great, the framerate often drastically gets choppy, which comes of the cost of the sense of speed, which might be overall good, but is brought down a bit because of the problematic framerate.
Outside the races problems exist as well, mainly the long load times that appear way to often, almost every time you start a new race or another mode.

Now, coming back to the actual enjoyment of the game, Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing's Grand Prix will last for a little while, but not long enough for it's full price. Luckily, for Single Player there are missions. Well, if that's really luckily is your decision, because these missions are more a mixed bag, with little variety between the objectives of each mission.

Of course, and for the good so, the Single Player isn't the only thing in the game. Like it's paragon, it relies a lot on its Multiplayer. The Multiplayer is entertaining both locally and online.
Locally you have more modes to choose from, though it's clear that Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing was created mostly for the racing gameplay, since the other modes, including in particular battle mode, aren't that appealing. But Single Races are very fun with a friend. What is disappointing though is that there is no Grand Prix for Multiplayer.
Online Multiplayer is also great, you're able to play with up to 7 other players over the world. One will be the host of the lobby (if you're lucky it's you), he is the one who can decide about the settings and can pick the track. As long as the host isn't any guy who always picks the same track over and over again or who doesn't even continue with the game, the online Multiplayer can be real fun.

Even though the Multiplayer is solid in Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing, it's not nearly as solid as in Mario Kart Wii.That alone does make it clear that Mario Kart Wii should be the first choice for any Wii owner. However Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is a great alternative, especially for those who don't like the Mario franchise all to much. And despite rare glitches and a sometimes problematic framerate, Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing delivers an chaotic and exciting racing game. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is a complete copy of Mario Kart, and though it has a weaker value, it's still one of the few good copies and a great second Kart racing game for the Wii.

THE GOOD
+ 24 exhilarating and creative tracks
+ a decent character roster
+ speedy, fast paced racing
+ outstanding visuals
+ cool, catchy soundtrack
+ good multiplayer both locally and online

THE BAD
- long load times that appear way to often
- problematic framerate
- no grand prix mode for Multiplayer
- a few bugs and glitches that appear luckily more rarely


Review Score: 7.5/10