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terryblount · 5 years

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Team Sonic Racing – Review

One of my favourite things in gaming is the subliminal rivalries between protagonists. Sam Fisher has Solid Snake, Duke Nukem has Serious Sam, Nathan Drake has Lara Croft, and of course, Sonic has Mario. While they start off as a product of fandom, I like how these little feuds inevitably trickle down to a developmental level. Because whenever studios start competing, you just know someone will end up with a great game.

I therefore think Sonic has every right to star in a racing game even if ‘The Blue Blur’ could probably outrun all the karts and then some. To me, a Sonic kart racer is a salute towards the long-standing duel between Sega and Nintendo trying to one up each other. While other kart games tend to feel like a knock-off of Mario Kart, the attempts by Sega somehow always felt more like a proper challenge.

That moment when your game is just as good as Mario’s

The PC has criminally slim pickings when it comes to the selection of decent kart games at our disposal, and Team Sonic Racing represents a good choice. All the strengths that Nintendo fans have been enjoying for years can be found right here. However, I was confused by several decisions made by Sumo Digital in the aftermath of their previous game, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. When compared with its prequel, certain aspects of Team Sonic Racing just feel like a step backwards.

Sub Sonic

This is still a great Sonic racing entry, so let’s get the nasty stuff out of the way starting with this game’s biggest let-down: The plot. Indeed, here we have a kart racer where someone actually deemed it necessary to shoehorn a story into the career campaign. I have probably driven virtual karts almost as much as my actual car, and I have never felt like the experience would be enhanced by, or even needed, a story.

Perhaps this is his biggest rival.

The narrative plays out within cut scenes between races, where characters speak to each other in a speech bubble, JRPG-style. Basically, a tanuki named Dodon Pa holds a huge racing tournament for the friends and foes of Sonic. He need to examine how well groups can race together so that he can develop an engine that runs on the power of… teamwork.

That’s right, teamwork. As a surprise to no one, Doctor Robotnik/Eggman joins in on the action with the ultimate goal of stealing this extraordinary new engine. It’s up to Sonic to protect his friends, and thwart the plans of the rotund, mad scientist. Again. Though, I have no idea why Doctor Eggman wants this engine so bad because he hasn’t got friends anyway.

Not the worst example, but it is all downhill from here.

I can usually turn a deaf ear towards the cheesy dialogue in Sonic games, but the exchanges in Team Sonic Racing’s story are on the level of an explosion in a cheddar store. Which nine-year-old was tasked with writing their lines? It becomes utterly cringe-worthy at times, and this represents the final nail in a coffin for a story that should not have been told in the first place. Nothing beats a good old career mode, and I have never been this grateful for a skip button.

A prickle of hedgehogs

Despite the story made a flub out of introducing the notion of teamwork, Sonic Team Racing’s main selling point is that you can race both against and with other people on the track. Whether it be couch co-op or online, the emphasis here is racing as your only little squad in a style that reminded me a lot of Need for Speed: Carbon.

What you can therefore expect is a lot of slip-streaming, helpful shunts as well as sharing items with your team all so that your overall positions can contribute to the win. It really does not matter who crosses the finish line first since the game assigns a consistent score to each place. This was a nice feature since I found other team-based, racing games still emotionally blackmail you, player 1, to cross the line before anyone else.

Drive in the yellow trail for an extra speed boost!

This makes for an interesting dynamic not just in terms of how the game plays, but also how Sumo Digital could make one vehicle type actually feel completely different from the next. As I mentioned, karts leave behind a yellow trail for the team to slipstream in, and if anyone missed the item collection points you can toss them a rocket or a boost power-up. Players can also shunt, or be shunted by, their mates back into the race at full speed if they spin out.

Also encouraging the notion of working together is that your squad of three always consists of three different kart types. The technique cart types, driven by characters such as Tails or Silver, drift just a tad more easily around the corner, while the speed type cars of Sonic and Amy have a higher top speed. The power type vehicles of Knuckles and Big are a bit more sluggish, but they are far less affected by knocks and rough terrain.

His car is actually pretty solid on the track

You can really tell the difference between them, and each type of kart encourages a slightly different play style. Players that really want to dominate the competition in a tactful way should combine the strengths of their carts, and thankfully the AI make excellent racing partners.

Further encouraging the notion of team work is of course the Team Ultimate power-up. Like the All-Star ability in the previous game, this power-up grants you a substantial boost in speed and invulnerability. The only way to obtain this beauty is by doing all the team based activities I mentioned above. Nevertheless, let me reassure those more inclined towards playing solo that Team Sonic Racing offers every race mode in both team and single-player options.

One step forward and two steps back

It was surprisingly good relationship therapy for me and my girlfriend to play in cooperation with each other in a kart game for once, but I do miss the transformation aspect of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. The tracks felt far more vertical and dynamic with this mechanic, and considering that Mario Kart 8 has also jumped on the anti-gravity bandwagon, I have to wonder why it was omitted in the latest Sonic kart racing game. It gives Team Sonic Racing a slightly dated feeling akin to older kart games.

I also have misgivings about using wisps (remember Sonic Colours?) to symbolise power ups since it took some memorisation to learn their purpose. For example, you pick up a white wisp, but what does it mean? Is it a projectile? No it’s a boost. Okay now a blue one. Is it a shield? Nah it’s a block. Not a major issue since you instinctively remember their functions eventually, but I should note they failed to contribute to the gameplay as much as I hoped. In general, the power-ups feel a little ineffectual, and I gave mine to my team mates most of the time.

Drive through the red arch for a score multiplier, drive through the yellow for score. Do you have any idea how hard this is????

At least I can tell that Team Sonic Racing really wants me to feel rewarded in my driving skill. Rewards become substantially more generous at higher levels, but there are also single player events designed to train the player. These races are time trials in things like drifting while collecting rings, or a particular favourite of mine where you must dodge through little robots to learn evasive driving.

They are superb little distractions to sharpen your edge on the competition, but I must say that the requirements for gold medal, heck even for silver medal, are a little steep. I am the laziest achievement hunter in the world, but at one point in the career I needed a silver medal to unlock the next set of races. Not cool.

Kart racing delight

Team Sonic Racing fell short in a few areas for me mainly because I feel like Sumo Digital was really giving Mario Kart a serious run for their money at one point. Don’t get me wrong, I really love Nintendo. I just feel like this game made unnecessary sacrifices for the sake of the whole team racing dynamic, and I think Sumo Digital would be wise to reintroduce them in coming titles.

As it stands, I can still see myself returning over and over again to Team Sonic Racing for the rest of this year at least because there is still tons of sweet kart mods to unlock, and so many gold and platinum medals keeping me awake at night. This is an essential game for Sonic fans, and a lovely quantum of solace for the kart lovers that feel like their first choices are growing a bit long in the tooth.

Number of tracks

Vehicles feel unique

Selection of characters

Kart customisation

Soundtrack

Inconsistent difficulty spikes

Awful story

Ignores strengths from previous game

Play time: About 14 hours total. Single player campaign around 12 hours.

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One controller

Team Sonic Racing – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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