Sonic is a Nintendo launch title.

Following up to its well-received predecessor, 2010’s Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed improves on its sibling in almost every aspect, providing an immensely enjoyable experience for all ages. Whilst Sonic is certainly no stranger to whoring himself out to different genres (see: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games), the game provides a mix of your favourite Sega characters along with some of the most unique and fun to play tracks you’ll find in any racing title. Put simply, if you’re a PS3 user and trying to decide between this and LittleBigPlanet Karting, this should undoubtedly be your mascot racer of choice.

Wii U Features and Performance

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is largely unchanged from other iterations of the game, which is both a good and bad thing.

If you’re looking for a title that will show you what the Wii U GamePad is truly capable of, sorry folks, you’re not going to find it here. However if you want a faithful version of the game, which doesn’t have tacked on features and unnecessary touch-screen controls, you’re going to have a good time.

The Wii U version brings across all the modes and characters from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, along with the Limited Edition DLC which unlocks Metal Sonic from the get-go along with an extra track and some bonus features. Mic support has been dropped in favour of the Miiverse for bragging rights, but otherwise they are identical games.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a fun kart game that feels right at home on the Wii U.

There are two multiplayer modes that are exclusive to the Wii U however. Ninja Tag is a game of tag where the player using the GamePad must find and crash into all the other racers to turn them into ninjas. Banana Heist is similar, although the player controls a Monkey Ball and must catch the other players before they snatch up all the bananas. These modes are light-hearted fun with friends, but don’t offer any true staying power.

GamePad integration is simplistic yet welcome. While playing solo it provides an overview of the course map, along with visual indicators as to whether any of your attacks have hit another player. When playing splitscreen, one player will use the GamePad as their viewpoint while the other gets the full TV to themselves. It’s similar to what a number of other games are doing out there, but it’s a nice feature that I hope continues with future racing games on the Wii U.

Visually, the Wii U version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a little crisper than the PS3 version. The colour are vibrant and bright, keeping a silky smooth frame rate as you pass through the detailed tracks as blistering speeds. The audio is great, but by and large this is very much the same game as the other platforms.

Detailed Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Review

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed instantly throws you into the action, no matter what game mode you choose. There’s no dedicated tutorial mode to explain the game’s mechanics, instead dropping tips for areas such as drifting and info on weapons as you play. This is only a minor gripe – the game’s controls are extremely simple to grasp – just make sure you’ve read over the controls so you don’t spend the first ten seconds of your inaugural race trying to figure out which button is mapped to accelerate and which one is for item use.

In saying that, if you didn’t happen to play Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, the level design is going to blow your mind. Playing for the first time, I loaded up the ‘Coastal Cruise’ track – what seemed like a vibrant and relatively meek raceway soon flipped my expectations on their head – for the last lap collapses the road and throws your car onto the water beneath, transforming your vehicle into a virtual hovercraft and shaking up the gameplay dramatically. Gameplay-wise, there’s never a dull moment, with the colourful tracks never ceasing to provide frantic gameplay.

Vehicles handle well, and while each character possesses a different set of attributes, tracks are always a joy to play and won’t leave you wanting to pull your hair out. Weaponry and other various pickups are also easily identifiable and simple to use. From a measly boost to speed past your enemies, throwing balls of ice to freeze your opponents or even summoning a swarm of bees to block the path of other racers – each weapon/item is useful in its own way.

The game’s Career mode will see you explore a vast array of different terrains, with certain areas of each track transforming your seemingly innocent vehicle into a plane to soar through the skies or even a hovercraft to transcend along water. The gameplay is frenetic and the World Tour mode provides plenty of replayability – not only will you face standard races along the way, but you must pass various other events such as Drift Challenges, Versus and Traffic Attack. Drift Challenges must see the player drift along a set path to gain seconds to add to each checkpoint, and must gain enough time before the clock runs out. Versus sees the player battle three different icons from the Sega universe in a 1v1 race (you have to be in front at certain intervals for the new counterpart to appear), and in Traffic Attack players must weave through virtual traffic to reach checkpoints before the timer runs out.

In terms of playable characters, you can choose from a variety of familiar faces such as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, whilst characters from the game’s predecessor (Sonic & All-Stars Racing) such as Beat from Jet Set Radio, B.D. Joe from Crazy Taxi and AiAi of Super Monkey Ball return and are just as fun to play again. This time around though, Sumo Digital and Sega have given the nod to nostalgia and included playable icons such as Gilius Thunderhead from 1989’s Golden Axe, and Vyse from Skies of Arcadia. The inclusion of American racecar driver Danica Patrick as an unlockable player is rather bizarre and frankly laugh-worthy, however, especially after playing through the Skies of Arcadia stage in World Tour and expecting to unlock Vyse, only to have a real, helmet-wielding woman pop up on your screen.

Back onto Career mode, whilst World Tour is the central theme, Grand Prix, Time Attack and Single Race modes provide plenty of incentive to persist with the game. For those familiar with Mario Kart, Grand Prix is the stock standard four map, three lap tournament – you’ll be awarded points based on your placing at the end of each map, in order to win tournaments and take home trophies. Time Attack allows players to race against ghosts of other online players in an effort to set the fastest lap time, and Single Race is ultimately the game’s pick up and play mode. The game’s online and local split-screen modes play seamlessly (as they should), and you can choose from a variety of different race and arena gametypes to play.

The Final Verdict

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a fun kart game that feels right at home on the Wii U. While it doesn’t push any limits as to what devs can do with the GamePad, if you don’t already own it and you want some unabashed arcade fun, definitely consider checking this one out.

By Stephen Heller and Jake Galouzis

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed