I download the Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing demo today.

It was over 1 GB and took forever. I did stuff as I waited.

Then it was complete. 7:30 PM, my brother came over. The demo was started.

AND WAS ENJOYED BY ALL!

Now, it's not without it's flaws and the game was specifically designed to please Sega fans, such as myself, but I can tell a crappy kart racer when I see one.

Let's start with the good, eh:

The main thing that Sumo Digital got right with SSASR (I'm not going to type that name everytime) was keeping it simple. Three buttons, that's all. Go, drift, and use item. There is barely any learning curve besides understanding the powerups and memorizing the tracks. The first race I did with my brother was instantly fun and neither of us experienced any frustration or confusion to lessen our enjoyment. This is incredibly important in a game designed for players of completely different skill levels. It's going to be easier to convince your non-gaming friends/significant others/family to play with you if that first minute of play is easy to understand and fun.

Another positive game design choice was the lack of a brake button. Instead of slowing down you have to figure out how to drift around the twists and turns keeping the speed of the game up. It's similar to Sumo Digital's Outrun 2 but to an even greater extent. Outrun 2 had some moments where braking was necessary, SSASR does not. It gives the player one less thing to think about and makes the game more exciting in the process. What's more fun: braking or drifting around corners and instantly boosting into the next straightaway?

Keeping with the simplicity all the power-ups I've found in the game have been easy to understand and use. Rockets shoot, bombs get thrown and blow up, traffic cones are basically banana peels, etc. A couple power-ups take a couple uses to understand mainly because they aren't something found in other games but after one or two uses you'll be able to properly use any item.

The game also has Ryo from Shenmue. He hasn't aged a bit since Shenmue 2. Maybe a little more polygons but that's all.



For the Sega fans, it seems that Sumo Digital has found a great assortment of characters many, of which, I'm sure we don't know about yet. The Sonic level in the demo is great, as well, and hopefully the variety of levels are as strong as the one level in the demo.

Now the not-so-greats:

Since when did Billy Hatcher become a staple Sega character?

Also, do we really need so many side characters from the more recent Sonic games? Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Robotnik are understandable but Amy and Big the Cat? That's two characters that could have been removed to provide space for some Sega characters from games that didn't get any representation. It would have been really interesting to have someone from Altered Beast, Phantasy Star, Bayonetta, Virtua Fighter, Yakuza, and the list goes on and on. One of the best aspects of these mashup games is seeing characters from completely different games together. Ryo from Shenmue is a great start but the majority of the characters are very brightly colored and cartoony. I want to be a muscular homoerotic male whose special ability is turning into a hairy manbeast racing against a monkey with a square head who plays maracas!

I'm also worried about the track selection. In the demo most the locked tracks seem to be from the same handful of games. I can understand having a bunch based on Sonic levels but we don't need several levels based on Billy Hatcher. Hopefully, in the full game we get some Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Alex Kidd, etc. The House of the Dead levels should be interesting though.

The last thing I noticed was the opponent's AI seemed way above average. I played several matches and rarely came close to first place. Maybe I just suck but something never felt quite fair to me and the AI didn't really make for a great opponent. For a multiplayer based game this isn't a huge deal and the full game could fix this with different difficulties but it's worth mentioning. Especially, since to unlock everything you'll probably have to play through the whole single-player campaign.

Update: Sega has announced that by default the demo is automatically set to Advanced difficulty mode. So, that's why I always lose. I'm not advanced enough. You can go into the options and change the difficulty if you desire to.

Overall, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing seems like it will be a great kart racer. It's easy to play, fun, and addicting and also throws in a lot of fan service. Now I'm off to find an extra $50.