Dear Chlorine,
Depending on whether I admit it or not, you may already know that I don’t particularly like racing games because I think I’m bad at them – the same reason I don’t particularly like any fighting game that came out after Mortal Kombat.
It doesn’t stop me from playing, and sometimes enjoying them, though. But if I had to pick, I would probably go with Kart Racing games (i.e. Mario Kart, ModNation) over more serious racing games (such as Need for Speed, Gran Turismo).
There’s something about its fast-paced, combat, anyone-can-win style that gets my heart racing more than the other racing genres.
While karting games are well-developed in consoles, with Mario Kart a unanimous favorite exclusively on Nintendo consoles, and ModNation ruling the PlayStation systems, the PC doesn’t get much love from developers - whether it’s because the controls can be awkward in a keyboard/mouse setup, or some other reason I have yet to understand.
Luckily, I prefer game controllers anyway, and I always make it a point to use one when the game calls for it.
Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed is one of the few Kart Racing games that breached the PC gaming scene, luckily, via Steam.
Here’s a video of me playing this game:
I did say I wasn’t good at racing, so please pardon the plethora of mistakes I made in this video. Also pardon the audio, I forgot to turn off the microphone input and by default it recorded sound coming from the webcam’s mic, which is awful at best.
On the road, Sonic looks like the usual Karting game. It’s a tad faster than Mario Kart, but I actually prefer this pace, which is somewhat similar to ModNation’s.
I prefer ModNation’s take on boosts and its management factor – that is, you have to decide whether use your boost meter for speed or for defense. But the fact that in Sonic, your vehicle transforms into a boat or even into a plane (which turns the game into what looks like Star Wars’ Pod Racing, albeit a slower one) arguably makes up for it. Of course, ModNation does give the player the ability to customize anything, from the racer, the kart, up to the race tracks, which is absent in this game.
Just like Mario Kart, Sonic features an all-star cast from Sega, which is probably not as popular to casual gamers than Nintendo’s lineup. Mario Kart has the better, probably more balanced* set of weapons in the game, and even though Sonic adds a bit more customizability, it can’t beat Mario Kart’s different game modes (i.e. non-racing battle modes).
*In Karting games, “balanced” has a weird meaning. It is balanced in the sense that anyone can win even if you’re running in last, but it is also unfair in the sense that you can be in first place the entire race only to get hit by a certain flying blue turtle shell which drops you to sixth.
The game is very enjoyable. To me, it’s in the top three of all karting games along with the two games I’ve been mentioning.
That said, if I had to rank these three, unfortunately, Sonic would be last, with ModNation taking the top prize simply because I like its faster pace and offense/defense mix more than Mario Kart.
But since those two are exclusives of Sony and Nintendo, respectively, I can easily say Sonic is the best Karting game for the PC.
In fact, by the time you read this I’m sure I’d have already taught you and asked you to play this game. Have you beaten Mommy yet?
