Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing

Sonic in a car never really bothered me. Yeah he could probably move faster without it, but running on foot and racing in a vehicle require very different movements and strategy. He's not allowed to have fun doing something else once in awhile?

It's already looking better than Mario Kart Wii, at any rate. And I adore Diddy Kong Racing, so I'm certainly not against the resemblance.

Also, anyone else notice they've made the headlights on Sonic's car green and connected to match his his eyes? I kinda like that they've done a different take on the whole overdone 'make Character X's car by pasting his face on the front' concept by making the resemblance more subtle. Looks like they even did it a bit with Amigo: the grill matches his grin.

 

You're all stupid if you're getting your panties in a bunch over a vehicle.

 

Just wanted to say all this racing talk made me want to play Zero Gravity. Sonic with the Angel/Devil with the glorified hard mode the game goes into when you get Super Sonic is pretty fun. I actually was ahead of the computer about a whole minute on Gigan Rocks.

It's not running, sure, but the gameplay was still pretty fun. At this point though, I'm just playing to collect rings, which is probably the hardest and most time consuming task in the game when you're trying to buy all the boards.

Point is, was it on-foot racing? Not really (though it can be if you're crazy enough and want to constantly come in 8th place) but the gameplay lent itself to be rather enjoyable. It only gets frustrating when you want to beat up the computer for first. That may be the only thing to be wary of in this title of the A.I. follows a similar programming. I never did like that the A.I. was able to take shortcuts right away, even against a player who's just beginning. There doesn't seem to be rubber band A.I. as much... that, or I get too far ahead on some courses and the rubberband effect deactivates, which allows for some of those ridiculous time gaps in the computer.

 

Not that it's particularly hard to do so, but I downloaded the teaser video from the website linked in the first post, in case someone wants to download it too and doesn't know how.

http://rapidshare.com/files/238358057/soni...cing__sq_1_.wmv

 

Yeah, and apparently you and me are the only ones around here who made the connection.

Edit: You, me, and Clutch.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one. CPZ is the most nostalgic Sonic zone for me, since Sonic 2 was the game I saw in stores. Emerald Hill? Meh, just a shiny grass-like level, seen that in a million other platformers. A mechanical city with odd purple chemicals and piping - something that takes advantage of Sonic's ball form? Intriguing!

 

I always liked using the plane more in Star City. I don't know, I just thought the plane was the best vehicle most of the time in DKR. That hovercraft was pesky at times.

 

I too made the connection. Maybe not here, but I did somewhere

 

In Diddy Kong Racing, everyone has a set of three vehicles; a car, a plane and a hovercraft. The paintjobs may be different, but they are still the same vehicles. You get to strategically choose which vehicle you want to use, which completely changes the gameplay and gives you advantages and disadvantages over choosing another type of vehicles.

In this game, some character have cars, some have places, some have whatever. That's it. So although it LOOKS like DKR when you see Sonic in a car, Tails in a place and Aiai in that weird banana car type thing, it's cosmetic, nothing more. So no, it's more like Mario Kart, if anything. (Although granted, you do get to use bikes in MKW)

 

I meant in terms of the visual style, but I guess the vehicle types also added to that.

I'd like to see more, but it's certainly somewhat exciting, even if the graphics do have to be lowered a notch to be on the only system I own. I'd especially like to see the vehicle designs - since they're not limited to some particular types of vehicles now (hoverboards, hoverbikes, hoverskates...), so they can make all sorts of wacky stuff.

 

This game looks...

Fun.

Yeah. Because it looks interesting, the cars are awesome, the course they drove on looks epic, and it just looks fun.

Of course this is just a teaser but still.

Also, this somehow reminds me of Diddy Kong Racing. Maybe Tails in the flying car/plane?

But anyway, as of now, it looks like a true Mario Kart competitor, one of the few besides CTR.

 

That's dodging the point of the complaint: Why would Sega make a game such that Sonic needs to be in a car?

It looks like Doom's engine, though (That sounds like the name of a Rob Liefeld comic).

Regardless, I see no evidence of the HE's GI effect, and the water is being rendered in a completely different way.

 

Probably so, and besides, that was a good game, but I think it was under-rated. I wouldn't mind getting a copy for my N64 today to be honest.

It'll be interesting to see what they do if they implement items. I also noticed in one of the screens a Sonic-style spring platform, so looks like some level functionality as well, which is nice.

 

I saw some people complaining that this is the next big Sonic titleon other sites, and it makes no sense that Sega would waste their time with this. First, it's not a Sonic game. Secondly, it's not developed by Sonic Team. It's the kind of filler second party title that will buy Sega enough time to polish up Unleashed 2 in 2011 instead of "needing" a mascot game in 2010. Mario & Sonic this year, Superstars Racing (and maybe another Rush title?) next year. We're talking two potential platinum sellers. It's great business sense.

I was looking forward to Winter Olympics(because of the story mode), but this is looking much more promising. Sega Superstars Tennis was great in every way...except for the actual tennis. So, the question will be the racing itself. The Superstars games have had great design, music, nostalgia etc.

I also noticed Rings, I wonder what function they serve?

 

I can imagine an upgrading system similar to the one seen in Zero Gravity on vehicles where a certain amount of rings were needed to get a "Gear change."

 

Yeah sorry, not digging this. Sega's trying too hard to get its own ridiculous cast of characters ala Nintendo and it just ain't working. Previous Sonic-Involved racing games also don't help this game case.

 

If you paid attention a few pages ago you would've noticed a good bit of the parallels I was drawing between this and DKR was the idea behind it being a racer featuring several of a developer's IPs. All of the racers in DKR were meant to show up again at some point as a cameo or even in their own game. Truth is, some were eventually scrapped, and some just made rather skimpy cameos in Banjo games and DK64. DKR had Diddy's name in the title, but the game took place on Timber's Island, and your hero could've been one of several different kinds of characters, such as Banjo, Conker, or a Kremling. Fuck, even a giant, red, stopwatch.

But also, as it was said before by someone else, this is all we know of about the game: it's a Sega Superstars racing game. That trailer might have played out the way it did to give us the idea that several different types of vehicles would be available for the stars. After all, didn't the release mention customization? The trailer may also have just been hinting at each vehicle having a special power based on the character (Eggman's missiles, Tails's kart can also fly, Sonic's car appeared to perform an Unleashed-esque Sonic Boost of sorts in mid-air).

I'm willing to bet Sonic's Homing Attack was just a "nice touch", but we'll just have to see.

Please realize the game's existence hasn't been public knowledge for even a day. We don't know shit about it aside from what was given us in the release. While we know how general kart games work, we have to take into account there might just be something new and fun in there.

Maybe if it sells well enough they'll finally feed us a Sega Superstars Fighting game.

And then everyone will bitch about it copying Smash Bros.

Think about it. Copying Mario is like copying The Simpsons. He's done everything, so why not take a crack at what's become the norm?

 

Has he picked up a gun and started shooting at everything that moved? (Shadow the Hedgehog)
Has he went up against a giant Mecha that launched nukes? (Metal Gear Solid) I think not!
Mario is like the Simpsons in doing everything, because people's imaginations have grown up around them. So long as some imagination is put into them, you can come up with something different, easy.

 

And, yes, Mario has gone up against giant mechs that launch missiles, yes.

However, if you're focusing on the nukes portion, then not even snake has done that. Metal Gear Rex's rail gun wasn't armed in MGS, and Ray lacked nuclear capibilities. Metal Gear and Metal Gear mk II both weren't armed with nukes, either.

 

Ah, the doomships. Those were quite a bit of fun.