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Description
TEAM SONIC RACING.
Developed by: Sumo Digital.
Published by: Sega.
Genre: Kart-Racing.
Rated: U (Suitable for all).

A lot of talk of a Sonic Adventure remake in the air lately. I mean after Sonic Forces kind of shat itself in 2017, what could Sega really do with the franchise now that some fans showed them up with Sonic Mania? It's not as if they can pull a Ubi-Soft and put Sonic to bed for a year so they can figure out what went wrong (besides firing the wankers responsible). In the meantime, we have Team Sonic Racing to tie us over I suppose. A team based kart-racer that's skipped the pretences and dropped the Sega Allstars aspect from this series altogether. A shame really for I was looking forward to them adding Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima to the mayhem. While this game probably isn't tied to the events of Sonic Forces, I do find it amusing how Sonic gave that little speech of "fixing the planet!" which I presume involves stopping pollution yet here we're driving around in gas guzzling cars. So from Al Gore to Jeremy Clarkson in less than two years. Impressive!

I said team based kart-racer but don't start getting Sonic Heroes flashbacks (at least not yet) for you're not switching between three characters mid-race, rather you're in charge of an overall team who need to finish in the highest positions possible. Novel idea but I really didn't see the point of a 3 man squad when I was doing all the heavy lifting, while the A.I. buddies either did okay or god awful.

Now I'd be the first to admit that racing games were never my strongest point, seeing how I'm more invested in shooters, platformers, fighting games, and the odd survival horror title. I think the only proper racing game I enjoyed was Speed Devils back on the Sega Dreamcast. Though I do enjoy a kart-racer and Team Sonic Racing is a pretty competent title for this genre. Everything you could expert is present and accounted for. A wide selection of courses, items mid race, grand prix, and level gimmicks to prevent things from getting stale. However unlike say Mario Kart, Sega couldn't fight their instincts and added a rather unneeded storymode to the mix. A storymode with all the enthusiasm and charm of a powerpoint presentation. I don't see why they couldn't get Tyson Hesse and his team to make cutscenes for this game, since his cartoons for Sonic Mania are lightyears ahead of this dull presentation on offer here.

The set up for this storymode can be summarised as thus.

Newguy: Hello, people I've never met before, I'm Newguy you've never heard of and I'm giving you all cars to race for undisclosed reasons which is highly suspicious.
Sonic: K.

It's funny how they go along with this setup, despite the fact they keep suspecting foul play but never act upon it. Mind you, intelligence has never been a strong point for Sonic and his never ending friend circle. As mentioned, the Newguy for the game is Dodon Pa (or Dopinder as I began calling him) a Tanuki who is a king on his home planet, president of a car company, and something of a gary stu. That might sound like an unfair comparrison but that's all I could think to call him. My evidence for this is that he literally shows up out of nowhere, effectively can do whatever he wants, and the main cast all talk about him like they want the D. All I'm saying is that anyone who can send race invitations through time and space may as well be bench pressing planets with their dick and has both Goku and Superman making sandwiches for 'em.

He also acts as something of a red herring for you suspect he's Eggman in disguise or the main antagonist of the plot. The game labours on this point long enough for you to deduce he isn't the main threat at all, although you figure this out about half way through Chapter 1. The overall writing is pretty decent and never feels like its dragging its feet. That can be looked at as a bad thing because my overall complaint with the storymode is that it's over before you know it. 7 chapters is what it has to offer but you'd blink and it's all finished. I've had longer train rides than this game and that's saying something. If I must quibble then some of the jokes fail to stick the landing but I do admit to cracking the odd smile here and there. Mind you humour has also never been a strong point for Sonic and his never ending friend circle.

The game has something of a hard on for Sonic Heroes as many call backs and nods to the game make up the bulk of TSR. such as the return of Team Sonic, Team Rose, and Team Dark. Team Vector replaces Team Chaotix and Team Eggman make up the remainder of the roster. While Dopinder recruits several characters to compete in his races, other characters just kind of show up without any ceremony or fanfair. Shadow and his fellow mallgoths arrive in Chapter 3 without any explanation, and Metal Sonic doesn't even get a single introduction! Just a "He's here now! Roll with it!" It really depresses me when the single most iconic villain in Sonic's history plays second fiddle to forgettable trash like Zavok!

Making up the roster are expected additions such as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Yet Cream the Rabbit, Espio the Chameleon, and Charmy Bee were cut to make way for Omochao and Big the Cat of all characters. It's because of the Internet Memes for why they're back isn't it? Well at least IGN have something to feign outrage about while they wait to take EA's dick in their ass! Sadly character selection is one aspect the game does better than Mario Kart. Yes, Mario Kart 8 has more racers than this but at least here we don't have Sonic, Baby Sonic, Grey Sonic, Gold Sonic, Sonic in a tanuki costume etc. While I would have liked for more racers to choose from there is enough here to prevent things from getting stale. Sadly it appears no DLC is on the horizon, which is a shame since the game could do with more racers in my opinion.

One aspect that can be hit or miss with you is that characters will talk during races. Now some of the banter can be basic trash talk, complements, or "I need assistance!" hints for you to trade items. Its when the game tries to be funny that makes me groan the loudest. "Hotstuff coming through!" Rouge will exclaim as she inspires 300 more hentai images, or Sonic makes the confusing remark of "Scatter! You also-rans!" And then you have those rare moments where Knuckles asks the more deeply philosophical questions.

Knuckles: Why is everything wet?

While we're mentioning vocal communication, I should probably mention some of the characters recieved new voice actors. Some of them sound no different to the previous cast but a few stick out to me. Mainly that Knuckles now sounds like Biff Tannen and Silver sounds like he wants to play Magic: The Gathering with me. It's also very depressing to me that Big the Cat is the most likeable character in this entire game.... It's got to be the memes.

That's enough story. How does the game handle on the race track?

For the most part, I don't really have a negative thing to say for the game overall. The courses are all varied and have a new gimmick to keep things interesting. The tracks mainly pull inspiration from three paticulaur Sonic games - Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Colours. When a new track was introduced, it took me one lap to get a feel for the course before I could curb stomp the competition. The one racer that quickly got on my nerves was Amy Rose who seemed to have it out for during the races. I think the most recurring things I said were "Ms.Rose, we meet again!" or when I channeled TF2's Spy "Oh Amy please, this is getting awkward!"

When you start things out in storymode you have 6 characters on the track but this gradually morphs into 12 as the difficulty slightly climbs. Even on the normal difficulty setting I wouldn't say this was a difficult game to comprehend for I was able to clear the story in less than 2 days. The difficulty starts to climb near the end of Chapter 1 but it doesn't budge from that position for the rest of the game. Even the final race with Eggman was about as easy as shooting down on of MovieBob's insane Twitter rants. What slowed things down for me is when the game got bored of standard races and through him clumsy challenge based races. This to me is the worst aspect of TSR by far because these challenges are somewhere between tedious and frustrating. Things such as gathering enough rings, passing through checkpoints, survival races, shooting Eggpawns, and avoiding traffic. I appreciate Sega (and by extention Sumo-Digital) are trying to add some variety, but I was perfectly fine with just the racing part, thanks.

As I mentioned earlier, your top priority in races is to have all 3 team members come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. You can achieve this by exhanging items, gaining boosts by riding in the back of a team mates slipstream (I thought those were on planes?) or performing an Ultimate move once the special meter is filled. There are a variety of ways to do this but I found the best way was just passing off items the second I got them. Not going to lie but the items are pretty useless at times, with the exception being the boost Wisp. You can also fill the meter by performing stunt tricks while in mid-air, which I embarassingly didn't discover till I was at the tailend of the game. Just the sight of a car flipping "up and down and all around" while in mid-air did provide a few chuckles. What is a little disappointing about the "Ultimate Power" move (as the game calls it) is that there is no character specific abilities. Everyone has the same basic super boost. No Super Sonic. No Chaos Control. Or even Vector's awful singing. Just a "flash gold while you speed up for 30 seconds."

Meh.

When you decide to take a breather from racing, you can customise your car in the garage. Your options are mainly swapping car parts and customising colours that you unlock in a similair vain to Injustice 2. Spend a bunch of ingame currency on a bubble gum machine to unlock an upgrade for a character you don't use, and maybe after what feels like £5,000,000 worth of ingame dosh you FINALLY get the car part you needed to improve your racer. Just thinking outloud here but how about, and go with me on this, instead of wasting currency on glorified gumball machines we have an ITEM SHOP? All the items, weapons, costumes, gear, vehicles, and all the other niknaks we want are there for the right price! That way I can get the bloody engine for Sonic's car I need and the US Government doesn't have to keep investigating lootboxes!

Just a girl with a dream.

Lastly I wanna quickly mention the soundtrack. Sonic games tend to be up there with the Mega Man franchise on kickass music, but this game to me at least is seriously lacking. Apart from a sweet remix of Sandopolis from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the soundtrack for TSR is forgettable remixes of tracks from Adventure, Heroes, Unleashed, and Colours. Even the main theme by Crush 40's not one of their strongest outputs. That's a real shame in the long run.

In conclusion - Team Sonic Racing isn't the prettiest horse in the stable, but she is a good runner. Competent selection of tracks, racers, and has enough content to warrant a few playthroughs. Though if you're like me and racing games aren't your cup of tea, you'll play this till the end and move onto something else. I had a good time however, but I think it'll be awhile before I come back to this race track.

Oh one last passing thought, does anyone find it amusing that Team Sonic Racing and Crash Team Racing were released in the same year?

Description
TEAM SONIC RACING.
Developed by: Sumo Digital.
Published by: Sega.
Genre: Kart-Racing.
Rated: U (Suitable for all).

A lot of talk of a Sonic Adventure remake in the air lately. I mean after Sonic Forces kind of shat itself in 2017, what could Sega really do with the franchise now that some fans showed them up with Sonic Mania? It's not as if they can pull a Ubi-Soft and put Sonic to bed for a year so they can figure out what went wrong (besides firing the wankers responsible). In the meantime, we have Team Sonic Racing to tie us over I suppose. A team based kart-racer that's skipped the pretences and dropped the Sega Allstars aspect from this series altogether. A shame really for I was looking forward to them adding Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima to the mayhem. While this game probably isn't tied to the events of Sonic Forces, I do find it amusing how Sonic gave that little speech of "fixing the planet!" which I presume involves stopping pollution yet here we're driving around in gas guzzling cars. So from Al Gore to Jeremy Clarkson in less than two years. Impressive!

I said team based kart-racer but don't start getting Sonic Heroes flashbacks (at least not yet) for you're not switching between three characters mid-race, rather you're in charge of an overall team who need to finish in the highest positions possible. Novel idea but I really didn't see the point of a 3 man squad when I was doing all the heavy lifting, while the A.I. buddies either did okay or god awful.

Now I'd be the first to admit that racing games were never my strongest point, seeing how I'm more invested in shooters, platformers, fighting games, and the odd survival horror title. I think the only proper racing game I enjoyed was Speed Devils back on the Sega Dreamcast. Though I do enjoy a kart-racer and Team Sonic Racing is a pretty competent title for this genre. Everything you could expert is present and accounted for. A wide selection of courses, items mid race, grand prix, and level gimmicks to prevent things from getting stale. However unlike say Mario Kart, Sega couldn't fight their instincts and added a rather unneeded storymode to the mix. A storymode with all the enthusiasm and charm of a powerpoint presentation. I don't see why they couldn't get Tyson Hesse and his team to make cutscenes for this game, since his cartoons for Sonic Mania are lightyears ahead of this dull presentation on offer here.

The set up for this storymode can be summarised as thus.

Newguy: Hello, people I've never met before, I'm Newguy you've never heard of and I'm giving you all cars to race for undisclosed reasons which is highly suspicious.
Sonic: K.

It's funny how they go along with this setup, despite the fact they keep suspecting foul play but never act upon it. Mind you, intelligence has never been a strong point for Sonic and his never ending friend circle. As mentioned, the Newguy for the game is Dodon Pa (or Dopinder as I began calling him) a Tanuki who is a king on his home planet, president of a car company, and something of a gary stu. That might sound like an unfair comparrison but that's all I could think to call him. My evidence for this is that he literally shows up out of nowhere, effectively can do whatever he wants, and the main cast all talk about him like they want the D. All I'm saying is that anyone who can send race invitations through time and space may as well be bench pressing planets with their dick and has both Goku and Superman making sandwiches for 'em.

He also acts as something of a red herring for you suspect he's Eggman in disguise or the main antagonist of the plot. The game labours on this point long enough for you to deduce he isn't the main threat at all, although you figure this out about half way through Chapter 1. The overall writing is pretty decent and never feels like its dragging its feet. That can be looked at as a bad thing because my overall complaint with the storymode is that it's over before you know it. 7 chapters is what it has to offer but you'd blink and it's all finished. I've had longer train rides than this game and that's saying something. If I must quibble then some of the jokes fail to stick the landing but I do admit to cracking the odd smile here and there. Mind you humour has also never been a strong point for Sonic and his never ending friend circle.

The game has something of a hard on for Sonic Heroes as many call backs and nods to the game make up the bulk of TSR. such as the return of Team Sonic, Team Rose, and Team Dark. Team Vector replaces Team Chaotix and Team Eggman make up the remainder of the roster. While Dopinder recruits several characters to compete in his races, other characters just kind of show up without any ceremony or fanfair. Shadow and his fellow mallgoths arrive in Chapter 3 without any explanation, and Metal Sonic doesn't even get a single introduction! Just a "He's here now! Roll with it!" It really depresses me when the single most iconic villain in Sonic's history plays second fiddle to forgettable trash like Zavok!

Making up the roster are expected additions such as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Yet Cream the Rabbit, Espio the Chameleon, and Charmy Bee were cut to make way for Omochao and Big the Cat of all characters. It's because of the Internet Memes for why they're back isn't it? Well at least IGN have something to feign outrage about while they wait to take EA's dick in their ass! Sadly character selection is one aspect the game does better than Mario Kart. Yes, Mario Kart 8 has more racers than this but at least here we don't have Sonic, Baby Sonic, Grey Sonic, Gold Sonic, Sonic in a tanuki costume etc. While I would have liked for more racers to choose from there is enough here to prevent things from getting stale. Sadly it appears no DLC is on the horizon, which is a shame since the game could do with more racers in my opinion.

One aspect that can be hit or miss with you is that characters will talk during races. Now some of the banter can be basic trash talk, complements, or "I need assistance!" hints for you to trade items. Its when the game tries to be funny that makes me groan the loudest. "Hotstuff coming through!" Rouge will exclaim as she inspires 300 more hentai images, or Sonic makes the confusing remark of "Scatter! You also-rans!" And then you have those rare moments where Knuckles asks the more deeply philosophical questions.

Knuckles: Why is everything wet?

While we're mentioning vocal communication, I should probably mention some of the characters recieved new voice actors. Some of them sound no different to the previous cast but a few stick out to me. Mainly that Knuckles now sounds like Biff Tannen and Silver sounds like he wants to play Magic: The Gathering with me. It's also very depressing to me that Big the Cat is the most likeable character in this entire game.... It's got to be the memes.

That's enough story. How does the game handle on the race track?

For the most part, I don't really have a negative thing to say for the game overall. The courses are all varied and have a new gimmick to keep things interesting. The tracks mainly pull inspiration from three paticulaur Sonic games - Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Colours. When a new track was introduced, it took me one lap to get a feel for the course before I could curb stomp the competition. The one racer that quickly got on my nerves was Amy Rose who seemed to have it out for during the races. I think the most recurring things I said were "Ms.Rose, we meet again!" or when I channeled TF2's Spy "Oh Amy please, this is getting awkward!"

When you start things out in storymode you have 6 characters on the track but this gradually morphs into 12 as the difficulty slightly climbs. Even on the normal difficulty setting I wouldn't say this was a difficult game to comprehend for I was able to clear the story in less than 2 days. The difficulty starts to climb near the end of Chapter 1 but it doesn't budge from that position for the rest of the game. Even the final race with Eggman was about as easy as shooting down on of MovieBob's insane Twitter rants. What slowed things down for me is when the game got bored of standard races and through him clumsy challenge based races. This to me is the worst aspect of TSR by far because these challenges are somewhere between tedious and frustrating. Things such as gathering enough rings, passing through checkpoints, survival races, shooting Eggpawns, and avoiding traffic. I appreciate Sega (and by extention Sumo-Digital) are trying to add some variety, but I was perfectly fine with just the racing part, thanks.

As I mentioned earlier, your top priority in races is to have all 3 team members come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. You can achieve this by exhanging items, gaining boosts by riding in the back of a team mates slipstream (I thought those were on planes?) or performing an Ultimate move once the special meter is filled. There are a variety of ways to do this but I found the best way was just passing off items the second I got them. Not going to lie but the items are pretty useless at times, with the exception being the boost Wisp. You can also fill the meter by performing stunt tricks while in mid-air, which I embarassingly didn't discover till I was at the tailend of the game. Just the sight of a car flipping "up and down and all around" while in mid-air did provide a few chuckles. What is a little disappointing about the "Ultimate Power" move (as the game calls it) is that there is no character specific abilities. Everyone has the same basic super boost. No Super Sonic. No Chaos Control. Or even Vector's awful singing. Just a "flash gold while you speed up for 30 seconds."

Meh.

When you decide to take a breather from racing, you can customise your car in the garage. Your options are mainly swapping car parts and customising colours that you unlock in a similair vain to Injustice 2. Spend a bunch of ingame currency on a bubble gum machine to unlock an upgrade for a character you don't use, and maybe after what feels like £5,000,000 worth of ingame dosh you FINALLY get the car part you needed to improve your racer. Just thinking outloud here but how about, and go with me on this, instead of wasting currency on glorified gumball machines we have an ITEM SHOP? All the items, weapons, costumes, gear, vehicles, and all the other niknaks we want are there for the right price! That way I can get the bloody engine for Sonic's car I need and the US Government doesn't have to keep investigating lootboxes!

Just a girl with a dream.

Lastly I wanna quickly mention the soundtrack. Sonic games tend to be up there with the Mega Man franchise on kickass music, but this game to me at least is seriously lacking. Apart from a sweet remix of Sandopolis from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the soundtrack for TSR is forgettable remixes of tracks from Adventure, Heroes, Unleashed, and Colours. Even the main theme by Crush 40's not one of their strongest outputs. That's a real shame in the long run.

In conclusion - Team Sonic Racing isn't the prettiest horse in the stable, but she is a good runner. Competent selection of tracks, racers, and has enough content to warrant a few playthroughs. Though if you're like me and racing games aren't your cup of tea, you'll play this till the end and move onto something else. I had a good time however, but I think it'll be awhile before I come back to this race track.

Oh one last passing thought, does anyone find it amusing that Team Sonic Racing and Crash Team Racing were released in the same year?