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Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Developer: Sumo Digital Publisher: Sega
16 November 2012
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed - cover art
Glitchwave rating
3.63 / 5.0
0.5
5.0
 
 
442 Ratings / 1 Reviews
#865 All-time
#30 for 2012
Race as Sonic and a host of legendary All-Stars and prepare to transform! Speed across land, sea and air in a high velocity battle to the finish line, as your amazing transformable vehicle changes from car to boat to plane mid-race. Racing on mobile will never be the same again!
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2012 Sumo Sega  
DVD
US 0 10086 68063 8
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2012 Sumo Sega  
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XNA 0 10086 67101 8
2017 Sumo Sega  
Disc
XNA 0 10086 67101 8 WUP-P-AS2E-USA-0
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Title
This game is an example of excellence where you would least expect it. A title like "Sonic & All-Stars Racing" might have the air of shovelware and nostalgia-baiting, but be assured that this game is none of that.
It's quite honestly the best kart-racing game since Mario Kart: Double Dash! and without a doubt the best one on PC. It has tight controls, challenging skill-based gameplay and staggeringly beautiful and creative race tracks.
The only thing I would criticize is the character selection. You get all the important Sonic characters as well as classic characters from old SEGA games, but also a set of horribly bland and uninspired representatives from recent SEGA-published PC games, the only positive exception being the Team Fortress 2 kart.
Nevertheless, if you have even the slightest interest in arcadey racing games, this is a must-buy.
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IgorEmu 2021-05-06T23:30:04Z
2021-05-06T23:30:04Z
3.5
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The best kart racer around, with maybe only Crash Team Racing as true competition. Sonic ASRT features a fine roster with a few weird surprises (Wreck-It Ralph? Danica Patrick?), the right amount of unlockables, a great track line-up, a transformation gimmick that tangibly changes the experience as you play and a career mode that legitimately tests various parts of your skillset as it goes along and gets suitably harder. The powerups are actually underpowered in this one, making it feel a bit flavourless at points, but I'd still take that over some of the controller-breaking frustration of the worst Mario Karts.
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Lowlander2 2017-08-23T10:39:40Z
2017-08-23T10:39:40Z
4.0
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The first time I turned a sharp corner next to a goomba and tossed a red shell at King Koopa, I barely knew the world of Nintendo. Super Mario Kart [スーパーマリオカート] was a great racing game for its time, providing one of the best arcade racing experiences you could get at home. Having the races and racers come from familiar Nintendo franchises was the cherry on top but not necessarily the main draw. The same can’t be said of the kart racers that would follow from Konami, Naughty Dog, and now Sega.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, released in 2010, threw together a wild cast of Sega characters that didn’t exactly fit well together -- but that was kind of its charm. Its sequel, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, has an even more awkward title, but, as a game, it’s superior in every way. Sega has managed to drive away from Nintendo’s shadow to create a unique, thrilling arcade racer that doubles as excellent fan service.

The nuances of driving rarely factor into casual Mario Kart matches, in my experience. The focus is always on picking up items and griefing friends. When someone who knows how to drift and perform tricks picks up the controller, the dynamic suddenly shifts and people get frustrated at this newly introduced Mario Kart scholar. In All-Stars Racing, the scales are shifted. Item pickups aren’t as devastating, but the ability to drift through long roadways and boost past opponents is paramount to winning. In this respect, All-Stars has more in common with Ridge Racer [リッジレーサー], Blur, and Split/Second than Mario Kart.

That’s the fun of All-Stars as it was in 2010, but things have changed in this iteration. Racers and the race track now transform throughout a race, thus the title. Cars become boats and planes as the terrain morphs more and more after each lap (a la Split/Second). Planes go faster and gain boosts from dodging incoming objects at the last second and by air drifting (is that even possible?) Boats are much slower than cars with difficult handling. Many maps feature routes for two types of transport, but you’ll need to become proficient at each by the time you reach Transformed’s last track set.

The original’s bare bones campaign that mirrored Mario Kart has been overhauled. Transformed offers one of the most robust, imaginative single-player racing experiences. There are so many variations of maps and modes that you won’t likely grow bored during your 12+ hour playthrough. I lost count of all the different modes in Transformed, but they can be divided into three categories: races, solo events, and missions.

Races are self-explanatory, with some modes putting an emphasis on item-picks (elimination) and others foregoing items (boost race). The races are exhilarating, demanding players to master sharp turns, item pick-ups, and stunts on the fly. I ignored tricks and drifting for my first couple hours with the game, but I soon learned how vital they are in battling Transformed’s vicious computer opponents. No rubber banding or cheap tricks here; the A.I. is just really good and believable. Each track offers numerous secrets, hidden routes, and coins that you can collect and spend on a slot machine that spits out power-ups between matches, both online and offline.

Solo events are hit and miss. Trying to beat a ghost’s time is boring, and the air events can become maddening with the wrong pilot, but the drift and boost challenges are great fun and help you learn the mechanics. My favorites are the missions types that put a creative spin on the game’s mechanics. Pursuit has you track down a tank and take it down with items, as it evolves and applies defensive techniques. Traffic Attack has you cross lines between cars for time extends, as you dodge incoming traffic. The single-player does a great job of throwing new modes on old tracks, keeping the game fresh until you reach the unforgiving final world that offers mirrored versions of the game’s 20+ tracks.

Transformed offers three difficulty settings for each track, with a fourth Expert option that unlocks after finishing the majority of the single-player. I struggled on normal but always wanted to do expert since a win earns four stars, as opposed to normal’s two stars. These stars are what you use to unlock new characters and mods. Each mod re-attributes a character’s stats, so you can fit him or her for the current challenge instead of swapping your favorite character out. Some mods are unlocked with stars on the world map, but others you have to earn for each character by leveling them up via xp earned after a race (regardless of winning or losing).

Sega has left almost no franchise out of Transformed. The game even has a Ristar cameo. You can even drive as a Dreamcast VMU card! In comparison to Transformed, PlayStation All-Stars looks like brash self-promotion that seems to care little about loyal fans’ nostalgia. Seeing bright, gorgeously designed Skies of Arcadia [エターナルアルカディア], Burning Rangers, and Panzer Dragoon [パンツァードラグーン] tracks make me pine for HD sequels to these franchises. Playing Transformed can be bittersweet, but not because we are seeing Sega characters we love in a bad game. For once, that's not the case.

Transformed’s online multiplayer is lean but functional. You can show off achievements with a sticker book and earn points for racing, but there isn’t much to do online than race. Nothing wrong with that when the racing is this fun.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is the perfect arcade racer for those that feel left out by Forza and Need for Speed’s latest open-world, multiplayer focused outings. Sega has cherry-picked the best elements of kart racers and applied it to the best arcade racing games to create a sleeper hit that’s great fan service and great fun.
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SUPER_Lonely_Panda 2016-04-08T02:09:54Z
2016-04-08T02:09:54Z
4.5
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Catalog

MF_IGUIN Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-26T18:36:44Z
2024-03-26T18:36:44Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
MutenRoshi5137 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-20T08:55:07Z
PS Vita
2024-03-20T08:55:07Z
2.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
eliottstaten Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-15T06:12:27Z
2024-03-15T06:12:27Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
worstcaseontario Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-13T11:26:11Z
Windows
2024-03-13T11:26:11Z
7.0 /10
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
tj2nimus Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-10T23:12:52Z
Wii U • XNA
2024-03-10T23:12:52Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
toadbidu Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-05T16:35:11Z
2024-03-05T16:35:11Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Kremling98 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-04T20:12:41Z
2024-03-04T20:12:41Z
5.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Bearzebaa Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-03-04T07:43:49Z
Windows
2024-03-04T07:43:49Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
fryuts11 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-02-25T18:22:25Z
2024-02-25T18:22:25Z
2.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Giann96 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-02-22T09:11:20Z
PS3 • XNA
2024-02-22T09:11:20Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
GeniusStupidity Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-02-05T09:52:28Z
2024-02-05T09:52:28Z
1.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
tonitaste Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 2024-02-02T11:49:42Z
Windows
2024-02-02T11:49:42Z
4.0
3
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Content rating
PEGI: 7+
Player modes
1-8 players
Media
1x Blu-ray
Multiplayer modes
Deathmatch / FFA, Team play
Multiplayer options
Local, Online
Franchises

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  • Previous comments (6) Loading...
  • morvit 2021-07-07 03:45:02.974661+00
    Nostalgia was strong in this one
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  • de_arcade 2021-11-15 01:19:55.843958+00
    Still think this is the best racing game ever.
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  • ... 2022-03-10 22:37:52.192091+00
    Better than Mario Kart 8, IMO the game rewards skill and in general has a much higher skill ceiling.
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  • OGDreamcast 2023-10-03 19:31:16.910624+00
    There's a small level of uncanny in some of the character models but yeah honestly prefer this to any MK
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  • finemotorsmiff 2023-12-06 21:24:45.199745+00
    Really hate the look of this game, the vibes are way off. But the high game speed is a good switch up for a kart racer (and on brand might I add). And I highly respect the depth of single-player content here. I can see how people would be really into this game
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  • ... 2023-12-11 05:19:09.839623+00
    Best kart game, it was so good.
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  • screechie 2024-01-09 00:24:42.36786+00
    His mom and his dad tooMercyful Fate
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  • tonitaste 2024-02-02 11:50:32.366126+00
    Best kart game for PC.
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