Team Sonic Racing

I've always enjoyed racing games, maybe due to me never being able to drive. It gives me an experience I may never have. Granted this could go for 99% of games, and it's kind if the point of games (or film, TV, literature), but it feels different as driving is something most can do and with me missing out it gives me a chance to experience something that I don't really have context of. There's a difference between this and say, FIFA. I have played football, obviously not professionally but I feel like I have a good understanding of the game and that gives me a chance to express my feelings on 'the beautiful game', in a way.

I like unrealistic driving games too, such as wipe out or Onrush but I've never been able to get in to carting games. Maybe it's because I don't have an attachment to the mascot led games. Much like my Issue with Smash bros. I have no care for the Nintendoverse with Mario kart, nor anyone but Crash himself in Crash team racing and mod nation racers didn't have any mascots and was just forgettable. It's probably no coincidence that the first carting game I really liked was Sonic and Sega all star racing transformed. The good news here was that Team Sonic racing was based on one of my favourite franchises just like that, and was even made by the same studio.

This game does play well, although not that different from the aforementioned previous Sonic carting games or indeed any other modern cart games I've tried out (eg. Mario kart 8). If you've played a carting game in the last few years you know what you're in for from a gameplay kind of view.

The big difference here is the team aspect as teams of three come together, with each of their members having different skills, albeit the slower, strong type characters (eg. knuckles) are so slow and bad to control I find them awful to play as, whereas the speed characters (eg. Sonic (obvs.)) are certainly the most fun, they play just like you'd expect any cart racer to play like. The other one with good acceleration (I think they're called the 'technical type' (dunno why) eg. Tails) are somewhere in the middle of the two.

I do have issues with the teams, and the lack of characters though. For one, not sure why they removed the other Sega characters, like Nights, Alex Kidd, Gillius and Danica Patrick... but that's a decision someone has made. With those restrictions in mind I'd move Vector in to a newly former team Chaotix (from knuckles Chaotix), the seeming random team of Blaze, Silver and the aforementioned Vector just seems to be there but you can easily put (sigh) cream the Rabbit in there as her and blaze are attached through Sonic rush. Zavok can come out of Robotics team and go in to a deadly six team and you can throw in an egg robo like from Sonic R. In another call back to the finest of all Sonic racing games, Sonic R (good news, they do make reference to it in the form of menu music) you can make a team of puppet tails, puppet knuckles and super sonic. In a nostalgic throwback (which for me there aren't enough of, which is crazy for a modern Sonic game) you can add a 'Sonic, the fighters' team and maybe, much to my chagrin (and I feel bad even suggesting this) maybe a Sonic boom team could be added. Okay, this super nerdy/ fanboy bit is over now.

So, the game has a story mode, which teaches you how to play, introduces to to the characters and tracks and plenty of racing which can be as easy, or hard as you want it to (there are also some none racing challenges, mostly optional, but unfortunately not all). The story though is both badly presented (in static cut scenes) and is total garbage, it's like Sonic colours all over again, but even that had animated cut scenes. The local multiplayer is good too, you can team up with your friends as a team or face off as teams, or one on one (on one on one). Moving on to the on line multiplayer though, sure it plays the same again, but matchmaking takes a long time, most games struggle to be a third full of real people and is filled with mostly bots. On top of this all the scoring junk it shows you at the end that you can skip offline is not skipable and seems to last forever, with an added system where you have to vote for who you think was the best player (including bots) that I don't see why anyone would care about voting in, unless you vote for yourself, but then who else would care besides yourself anyway? Totally pointless.

Overall this is a good cart racer, that stands out to me due to the attached franchise but overall it plays no better or worse that Mario kart or than Crash team racing likely will (I'll never know to find out unless maybe it comes to PS plus some day). This is a cart racing game. It does nothing extraordinary apart from the new team idea but that doesn't make much difference in the minute to minute gameplay. If Sonic is a franchise you enjoy, like myself then play this game, same too if you're a fan of carting games. Otherwise skip it. I enjoyed it fine but there's nothing mind blowing about the game.

You may also like: Mario Kart 8

For now I've skipped Rage 2 and am trying out Observation. After a couple of hours I don't like it at all. I'm not into the story that the Internet seems to be raving about, the way you move around is awful the the tasks to complete are so obtuse that it's taking me ages to get through the game. I don't know if I'll continue and am unlikely to write any more than this paragraph about it unless I magically get in to it (it is now almost 2 days later and I've still not played it again). The interesting looking game American fugitive game that seems to play like classic GTA (1 and 2) got me interested enough to do some research and realise that instead of getting that game I should but Shakedown Hawaii instead, which I did so that's up next for me.