Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Critic Reviews

It's a great call back to classic SEGA characters and franchises, and provides a heavy emphasis on fan service while maintaining a level of quality not often seen in kart racers outside of the Nintendo developed ones. It seriously feels like a love letter to long-time SEGA fans, and is certainly worth picking up.

I can look at it from any angle I want. I can detract that SEGA fan bonus, I can play this with people who have no idea what a Dreamcast is and this still is the pinnacle of what this sub-genre has to offer. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed reaches new heights, challengingly smiling down on Mario Kart.

Sumo Digital has managed to create a cart racer that steps out of the shadow of Mario Kart and proudly stands beside it as an equal. The character gallery might not be as strong and sometimes the difficulty is almost too high, but Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is without a doubt the best cart racer of the year and one of the best additions to the genre of all times.

Transformed should not be missed by anyone who truly values a fun, exceptionally well crafted racing game.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed may have the most unfortunate name in gaming's recent history, but that doesn't stop it from being truly fantastic. This is easily my favorite kart racer of the generation, slightly outdoing its predecessor in both form, and sheer content. Sega fans will love it. Kart racing fans will have a blast, and gamers in general should really appreciate the love poured into this game. The price is right, the game is fun and anyone who enjoys a good time should definitely check out this amazing racer.

Despite its goofy title and questionable marketing tie-ins, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed deserves to be taken seriously... just not too seriously. It's a fun, challenging, and easily enjoyable racing game that uses a lot of familiar mechanics and ideas but knows well enough to try and do its own thing. And it does that thing pretty well.

Devilishly hard, but also very rewarding. Sharp controls, sugary colours, plentiful fan service and for the most part highly successful track designs combine to make one excellent arcade racer.

It's a balanced and entertaining racer, then, but above all else, Transformed is incredible fan service.

Yes, this game retails for $40ish instead of the typical $60 of other big-budget titles, and that's a fantastic deal for a game that, despite a few personal quibbles, would have been well worth the full price of admission.

Is Racing Transformed perfect? Not by a long shot. But it's every bit as engrossing and addictive as many of the Sega classics it mines for inspiration, and that's a phenomenal accomplishment in itself.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed doesn't depend on your nostalgia to be enjoyable. The core of the gameplay, the racing, is fast, fun, and easy to get into.

If you're looking for a karting game that seriously goes beyond Mario Kart than Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed ticks all the right boxes and enhances the genre considerably. It's just a fun game that contains a strong single-player mode and some great online options. The levelling system works but more importantly, the gameplay is almost flawless.

Dethroning Mario Kart is an amazing achievement in and of itself, and in that Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed succeeds. It does this as a gorgeous homage with big and small characters from SEGA's franchises, with great courses and gameplay. It's not hard to be impressed by this lovingly crafted, expansive arcade racer.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a remarkable title that takes three types of racing genres and somehow successfully combines them in such a way that your heart will vigorously pound with excitement, while your adrenaline enriched soul will never tire of the lush environments and epic races.

Here are all of the great songs and stars, flush with bright colors and silly in-jokes. It's all of my fond memories without any of the overwhelming disappointment of actually revisiting them.

It's manages to show its own personality, and offers loads of content supported by a great gameplay. Highly recommended if we want to play with friends or family, and on the top of that, its reduced price is something many players will appreciate.

With good looking visuals, solid sound, and gameplay that manages to buck the trend of "boring" or "childish" as it offers up challenge and reward, All-Stars Transformed is a game that many should not overlook as you'd be crazy to ignore all the good that it brings.

A gorgeous arcade racer with loads of characters, circuits and options to choose from.

Delivers huge value at a generous price: $40. If all you want is racing, you might be disappointed when you learn everything that awaits you, but it's easy to appreciate the wealth of multiplayer options, the smart gameplay and design, and how well it all comes together.

Transformed is one of the best fun-racers in recent months and a classy alternative to Mario Kart, whose dominance is crumbling away. Without the frame-rate problems during split-screen races the speeding hedgehog might even have outpaced the racing plumber.