Sega plans to release a sequel to 2010's Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, the kart racing game originally made for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and DS, at the end of this year, Kotaku reports. The New York Toy Fair outed the sequel with a display of new toys (At a toy fair? Surely not.), and an attendant confirmed its development. New characters and vehicles will be announced later this year, Kotaku says, some time before the holidays, we assume.Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing sequel striking stores this sholiday season
The latest Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing toys are a lot easier to acquire than the Ryo Hazuki forklift figure, requiring only a trip to Toys R Us and $25 (each). These actually move, too! Sadly, there's no Ryo among them -- it's just Sonic and Knuckles this time.
If you're a supporter of all of Sega's ludological offerings -- not just the ones that include attitude-infused blue rodents -- you'll want to check out the Sega Complete Pack on Steam. For $90, you can grab all of Sega's PC games currently available on the platform; a list that includes Empire: Total War (and all its expansions), Space Siege, The Club, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Aliens vs. Predator and a whole lot more. (Sorry Mac users, but almost all of these games are still only available to the Windows crowd.)
If you're looking for something a bit more cost-efficient, Steam is also offering Aliens vs. Predator alone at half price, for $24.99. But why not chip in the extra $65 and pick up more Total War games than you could ever play in a single lifetime? That seems like a sound economic decision to us.
Despite recent troubles in the North American and European branches, Sega overall had a good fiscal 2010, which ended March 31, financially speaking. The company as a whole saw its operating income rise to ¥36.7 billion ($397 million), a huge increase over fiscal 2009's operating income of 8.3 billion ($89.8 million). Operating income refers to profits minus expenses incurred in running the company -- in case you wondered why we picked up on that random statistic.
The consumer games division made ¥6.3 billion ($68.2 million) in operating income, returning to profitability despite a year-over-year drop of 7.5%. The profits in this division were driven by ridiculously strong sales of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (6.53 million copies!), as well as million-plus sellers Aliens vs. Predator (1.69 million), Bayonetta (1.35 million), and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (1.07 million).
Source [PDF] - Appendix of Consolidated Financial Statements Year Ended March 31, 2010
On Thursday, the UK PS3 version of Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing received a new downloadable racer and a new stage: Metal Sonic and the Egg Hangar, respectively. Then, in what seems like an inadvertent April Fools prank, it disappeared, having evidently been released early as a mistake. The Sega blog post announcing the actual DLC release for this week (Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki in his forklift) makes a point of noting that "This is the only DLC item out today."
For a few lucky, Sonic-fast buyers, it was some early DLC. But for the rest of us, it's the source of some footage, captured by reader Hogfather, that we can watch after the break to preview some upcoming DLC.
We may not usually condone the capricious waste of Microsoft Points on Avatar frippery, but we must admit that the Sonic & Sega All-Stars clothing set makes a pretty good argument for the existence of Avatar clothes. And that argument is "here's Ryo Hazuki's jacket." It's available for men and women for 160 ($2).
The other available items strike similarly at the heart of Sega nerds, including Beat's sunglasses, a little AiAi-in-Monkey-Ball prop, and a Samba De Amigo sombrero! You can even buy a Crabmeat to decorate your virtual Green Hill Zone (by which we mean your dashboard). See the full set at Xbox Live Marketplace.
Pretty good for not having the lyrics, don’t you think? I can’t decide which version of the sonic I like more! Thanks to KnucklesSonic for the heads up!
A portion of a Eurogamer review…
You’ll have unlocked all the characters and wallowed in enough SEGA branding all too soon however, and what’s left is merely a pretty good karting game with a few nice flourishes, a couple of clunky design decisions and a whole garage full of Mario’s leftovers.
It could just be our lowered expectations for games including kart racing, Sonic or "All-Stars" in the title, but we were pretty surprised by the positive buzz for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing; the Wii, PS3 and 360 versions are all doing well with a 79 percent average on Metacritic. Here's what's being said:
GameSpot (80/100): "Although the core of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is obviously pulled straight out of Mario Kart, this wacky racer can stand on its own four wheels. The tight controls and excellent track design ensure that head-to-head competition is always exciting, but it's so fun just to play around with these karts that it's easy to lose hours climbing the online leaderboards in Time Trial mode."
1UP (B): "Though it has some hiccups, unexciting party modes, and a questionable difficulty curve, All-Stars Racing is a respectable effort that makes a good kart racer at its core (and is at least much more cohesive than Sega Superstars Tennis)."
Nintendo Power (8/10): "It isn't quite the fan paradise it could have been, but it's a very good racer that makes great use of classic Sega franchises. We wouldn't mind a sequel with more franchises and tracks included."
IGN: (8/10): "It's pleasantly surprising to find out that the Nintendo Wii edition - apart from the lower resolution - gets similar treatment with close to the exact same features as the stronger hardware."Metareview: Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
We realize that it's probably difficult to cut together a trailer for a DS game. After all, there are two screens to deal with and the system doesn't exactly sport the HD (or even 480p) pizazz of its bigger console cousins. Considering the bottom screen in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing appears to be reserved solely for a map, you'd think you could zoom in on the top screen every once in a while. Still, even in such a tiny space, the DS version of All-Stars Racing looks much the same as the console versions, minus a few polygons here and there, of course.
As Nintendo has already proven with Mario Kart DS, kart racing can be very, very enjoyable on-the-go. If All-Stars Racing plays as well as it looks, maybe gamers will finally have a new reason to chase down some power-ups and clobber their friends. Let's just hope there aren't any damned, hateful blue shell power-ups.
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing hits stores this week.Squint at this Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing DS trailer
A portion of a Guardian review…
The often amusing All-Star moves give backmarkers the chance to catch up – thankfully blue shell equivalents are absent here – while an enthusiastic commentator’s interjections are informative rather than irritating. And while the action can get a little too busy at times (one track resorts to huge arrows to [...]
These come right from the guys at Sumo Digital…
Feathering the gas (that is varying the amount you are applying) during drifts will actually give you more control. As with all racing games, you want to be aiming to drift as close to the inside of corners as you can, you vary the gas, you can [...]
Do you remember all the fun times you had playing Sonic R? I don’t think too many of us do, but there are certainly dedicated fans out there. Those people will be very happy to know that two musical tracks from Sonic R are returning for Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing. If [...]
Direct link here
UK sales
ASDA :
Wii – £17.91
DS £17.91
Zavvi:
Wii – £17.95
DS – £17.95
The Hut:
Wii – £17.73
DS – £17.73
Woolworths:
Wii – £17.97
DS – £17.97
WH Smith:
Wii – £17.93
DS – £17.93
Chips World:
Wii – £17.99
DS – £17.99
Amazon:
DS – £17.73
- Ryo Hazuki’s voice clips were taken straight from the Shenmue games
[I]f you ramp the difficulty up, you get more SEGA miles. [...]
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