Dissection: Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

In one of the most surprising releases as of late, SEGA teams up with Sumo Digital to set the Sonic franchise right with a nod to Super Mario Kart. Along with Sonic and his pals, other SEGA characters have also rocked up to the starting line, including: Alex Kidd, Jacky & Akira from Virtua Fighter and Beat from Jet Set Radio. Does Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing have what it takes to match Mario Kart in the kart racing podium?


The short answer is yes; I’ll come right out and say that my experiences with this title have been very close to what I had with Mario Kart Wii. If anything, I would say that it’s almost a direct clone of the game, right down to jump stunts and mixing bikes with 4 wheeled vehicles. If you’ve had any experience with Mario Kart since the Nintendo 64 iteration, then you’ll feel right at home with this title. Even the drift & boost system is in tact here.

On the initial play, you will only have 8 racers and tracks available. This can be fixed by participating in races, cups, missions and time trials. On completing any of these events, you will be rewarded with SEGA Miles, which is the in game currency for buying Tracks, Characters and Music. Each character is pretty balanced, so when it comes to unlocking characters, you’re more than likely going to choose who your favourite characters are before the rest.


Majority of the features in the game are your standard fare for a kart racer. Grand Prix, Single Race, Time Trials, Battle modes and Multiplayer is present, but Sumo also opted to include a Mission mode. Missions are very reminiscent of Outrun 2’s Heart Attack mode, right down to the bubble showing your goal and score. Some of my favourites included: Chase Sonic (with Amy Rose of course) and Samba’s Drift challenge.

Grand Prix is what you’d expect -- a themed cup with four tracks -- my only grievance with this game’s Grand Prix options much -- much like in Mario Kart Wii -- is the fact that you cannot play a multiplayer Grand Prix. Multiplayer Grand Prix being one of the things that kept me coming back to Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Gamecube. Although you’ll unlock the new cups in Grand Prix, you will still need to unlock the extra tracks individually via the shop system, which feels like a step backwards at times.


The ranges of tracks in Sonic & SEGA follow the SNES Mario Kart standard of having a few themes, which are applied onto a number of tracks. You have the House of the Dead Curien Mansion, Sonic’s beach, casino and Eggman themed stages, Jet Set Radio future tracks and so on. One big complaint is that I would have rather seen tracks for each character from their own universe or games; an Alex Kidd stage would have been amazing.

All of the items you remember from the Mario Kart series are here with a different coat of paint. Squids are swapped with Rainbows, Green Shells as Boxing Gloves and Red Shells as Red Rockets. Instead of including the Invincibility Star, SEGA opted to include a catch up burst titled “All Star”, where a character will initiate a brief cutscene introducing their ability. For example, Sonic will get Chaos Emeralds and become Super Sonic, followed by flying through anything in his path for 10 seconds. Sometimes this is all you need to return from eighth to the top four.


Sonic & SEGA make some changes to the Mario Kart formula that seem pretty logical. When you get a trio item, you are able to hold the shoot button, which will use them all at once. In a situation where you have three rockets, you would launch all three, sending them towards three different opponents in front of you. Using a set of boost shoes would see a single boost lasting three times longer. Another welcome change is the process of drifting and boosting, where you only need drift for as long as possible to gain the highest level of boost when releasing the button.

Graphically, the game is runs fine at 720p; however, when bringing in more than 2 players, the game starts to chug. Rumor has it that there is a patch incoming to address this, but this is something that should have been foreseen during testing. On the subject of testing, this game has some pretty lousy load times, which could have been overcome with a simple game install option.

If you enjoyed Mario Kart Wii, then you’re going to be right at home with Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing. It’s nice to see Sonic & SEGA finally get a solid game out. The perfect addition to any non-Nintendo library, it will fill that kart-less void. With SEGA hinting at DLC, the future looks very bright for this title and possible sequals.

What the got right:
Mario Kart +: When it comes down to it, this is really just a Mario Kart clone for a different group of fans.

SEGA house party: Rather than just limiting us to Sonic’s family, we get the opportunity to play as some of our favorite characters, such as Opa Opa from Fantasy Zone!

SEGA world tour: For the most part, this game has better tracks than Mario Kart Wii.

Mission possible: Mission mode gives kart racers something fun to do between multiplayer sessions.

New improved formula: Takes the Mario Kart formula and Does some nice things with it. Drifting and item handling is improved upon.

Blue shell free zone: Instead, we get a remote control super rocket!

What they got wrong:
Sonic on Contiki: Lack of variety in track themes; No Alex Kidd track!

Ride for two: When playing with more than two players, the game starts to chug.

Solo affair: Lack of multiplayer grand prix.

Coffee during downtime: Lack of game installs (PS3), means long load times.


Note: This review was written based on the PlayStation 3 version.