The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Apparently I didn’t write a blog about it, as my search for one is coming up short, but let me just make it clear that I really, really enjoyed Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing for the 360. It was, by far, the best Mario Kart clone I’ve ever played. It’s better than, say, Mario Kart Wii. If you like that kart-racing, power-sliding kind of game, and have any affinity for the likes of characters like Ulala at all, it is a game worth playing. You could probably pick it up now on the cheap, too.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that because that’s part of what prompted me to pick up Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing for iOS. The other part was that it was getting a ton of positive buzz as being basically the best racing game on iOS. The third element was that it was on sale. Isn’t that always the reason I buy something like that?

It’s really good on iOS, too.

Basically, the iOS version has all the features of the full console version. The races, powers, and so on basically work exactly the same. Of course, it smartly uses the auto-gas that many iOS racing games use, but you have a “drift” and “brake” button on one side of the screen, and your items on the other. You turn by tilting. It was well-calibrated for me right from the get-go, and felt quite good, even better than, say, Hot Pursuit. I was pulling off power slides like I do in the console version with little effort. The controls are fine. The courses, from what I’ve seen so far, are exactly the same as well. I am getting something extremely close to the full game experience for my two dollars. That’s really just kind of amazing.

It’s not the complete game, though. You’re missing several cups worth of courses, though you do have quite a few to play in the game. You’re also missing some of the racers. Ulala not making the cut hurts me deeply. There’s still a good variety, since they smartly decided to weed out a lot of Sonic characters like Amy and Shadow, and I have Beat from Jet Set Radio to fall back on as my go-to racer, so I suppose it’s okay. Maybe they’ll add more courses and racers in updates? I don’t know. There’s still tons of kart racing to be had here, though if you liked a specific course from the console version, you may be out of luck. You also will have trouble playing online matches. I tried to quick match a few times against online randoms, just to try, and it never found a game. iOS multiplayer just never quite works well enough like that. It does have local bluetooth stuff, though, so I suppose if you’re lucky enough to have friends around with the game, you can at least do that.

Seriously, though, if you like Kart racers, this is a fantastic fucking value at the sale price I bought it at. It’s probably worth more than two dollars if you like racing. Sega did a damn good job with this port, just like they did a shockingly good job with the original game. It’s worth a look, if it sounds like something you need in your iOS life.