Lycett to Sega Racing Purists: Give ASR a Chance

By
Tristan Oliver
– January 30, 2010

“This is a Character Driven Racing Game”

As there have been ongoing debates about why one character was chosen over another for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, in other circles there has been criticism that ASR is not wholly reflective of Sega’s rich history in video games as a whole.  Most notably, animosity settles for some in the game so far snubbing most of the game’s storied racing franchises, items like Daytona USA, Super GT, and even OutRun, which Sumo Digitial recreated for XBOX and PS2 among other platforms, and later online for XBOX 360 and PS3.

That’s where this passage, sent into us by Deven Gallo via News Tips, comes in.  It is from Sumo’s Steve Lycett, and under his S0L handle, he addressed those concerns on Sega Nerds, saying the point of ASR is to be character based–something hard to do with those racers.  With some humor and sarcasm thrown in, Lycett says every effort’s been made to have more proper Sega Racing representation in the game.  He also notes that the game is also meant for players not as familiar with franchises, as opposed to the more hardcore, but still urges those wanting more to give the game a try:

On the topic of ’where are the Daytona/OutRun/Hang-On/SCUD Race/Virtua Racing/*insert SEGA racing game here* tracks!!!!???!!!101011010′ I think you’ve somewhat missed the point.

This is a character driven racing game, not a compilation of SEGA driving games. If/when we get to do Sega Racing Megamix, then I’ll happily be visiting all those past SEGA racing games, taking the tracks up to HD standard and sorting all manner of interesting car licensing issues.

Here however, we’re doing bright colourful characters on bright happy environments. Well mostly. We’re also making this game just as much for players who may not know any of the SEGA cast, so we’ve gone for a nice diverse and visually interesting cast and set of tracks.

Sure, when it comes to the handling model, we’ve tried to capture the joy of speed and drifting, which is the where we’ve tried to pick up the SEGA arcade feel.

Also recognise that we have absolutely tried to squeeze as much fan service in as we can, I think we’ve been pretty thorough in this  – as well as being clear with the directions we’ve taken out here in the wilds of the forums. Yep we don’t have every character in from every SEGA game ever, but then we were never going to. I think we’ve chosen some rather brave characters personally, especially some of the very old school ones.

Seriously – wait till you get to play it – then spend some time moaning and crying! I thought this site was SEGA nerds, not SEGA haters…

Keep it up, and next time we make a game, I’ll just make it Sonic characters only, with a soundtrack composed purely by Bentley Jones :P

We thank Deven Gallo for sending this in via our News Tips system.  If you have a story to share, be sure to share it with us by clicking News Tips at the top of every page.

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