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It's a simple enough trick to pick up, assigned to a yellow button in the bottom right of the screen, and it works best in the deeper tracks, where it's possible to build both a healthy lead and gain much satisfaction when you pull it off perfectly.
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It's this need to drift – and pick up the speed boost that results – that defines much of Sonic & Sega All Star Racing's play. Long courses, in contrast, require a far smoother approach, calling for a knowledge of the racing line and an ability to drift. Short and sharp tracks, for instance, are hectic affairs that can be won or lost on the last corner, with pickups often deciding the outcome.Īs you might expect, the game's question marked boxes contain a variety of treats, including those that boost your own speed as well as those that hamper the pace of your rivals, rockets being the most prominent example. Though arguably not as tight a package as Mario Kart as a result, Sumo has ensured the game has a nice sweep of circuits. It's this very range of settings that helps set Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing apart from the competition. Skill rather than luck determines your fate, and the courses – which reach out across the high points of Sega's library, from House of the Dead to Samba Di Amigo – do their best to stretch your talents. In this regard, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is without equal: Sumo Digital has nailed the often delicate nature of accelerometer controls, and the rest of play flourishes as a result. On track are five rivals, and your task is to bump and slide your way to the front of the pack.Īiding you in your mission is Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing's supremely balanced controls.Īcceleration is handled for you, but you steer by gently turning your iPhone like a steering wheel. For starters, the very structure of play – competing in three cups made up of four tracks each – is a familiar one. Instead of trying to banish each and every reference to Mario Kart – or, even worse, copying it pixel for pixel – the developer has taken the elements that work and adjusted them to fit around the Sonic mould.įirst up, let's look at the similarities. The game is unashamed of the association. As a consequence, Sumo Digtial's inspiration is inescapable, and runs coherently behind almost every element of Sonic's stab at racing: Mario Kart. The one advantage Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing has over Sega's own calamities, however, is that this is not a platformer. No surprise, then, that it should take Sumo Digital to master the one element that's proved to be the bane of Sonic's life: his speed. The best games in the biggest franchise of them all - Star Wars - have come not from within the LucasArts stable, but from third parties.īy the same token, Sega's ability to make a hash of Sonic games over the years is well-documented.
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Almost every publisher has lost its way with its biggest franchise at some point during its life.