IGN’s Hands-On with ASR

By
Tristan Oliver
– February 19, 2010

Mario Kart Comparisons, But Praises “Inspiration”

IGN has put in their two cents in a preview published today of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.  It is a preview many are watching, given allegations of the gaming media site’s anti-Sonic bias.

The writer, Craig Harris, acknowledges framerate issues with the build he played.  He also went into great detail in comparing ASR to the Mario Kart franchise, even going so far as to say, gameplay wise, Sega and Sumo Digital have little originality to show for the product.

But, in Harris’s opinion, there’s a difference between plagiarism and “inspiration”:

Sumo Digital clearly looked at the past Nintendo designs when it was building Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing. While it has a huge assortment of characters, elaborate environments, and original track designs, there’s very little in the gameplay that SEGA can claim as its own. There’s still the rocket start on a timed acceleration at the starting line. There’s a heavy emphasis on power drifting around turns, not just for cutting corners with no loss in speed but also to build up the car’s turbo boost. And most of the weapon pick-ups, both offensive and defensive, have a Mario Kart analogue: the boxing gloves are the green turtle shells, the lock-on missiles are the red ones. Each character does have his or her own All-Star move — from Sonic’s Super Sonic form to Big the Cat’s giant frog that stomps everyone in its path — but it’s an over-the-top version of the Mario Kart Star power-up that gives racers lagging behind an easy way to catch up.

Naturally if game designers want to build a successful game design, it helps to look at the games that made the genre work. It’s called inspiration. And Sumo Digital did right by the product in basing much of Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing without making it feel like a blatant rip-off. This isn’t a Dante’s Inferno/God of War situation — you can look at the Sumo Digital game and immediately recognize it as the SEGA racer. It certainly helps that the level designs really capture key styles from the different franchises.

The preview stated IGN will be reviewing ASR proper next week, and it will be a judgment many in the community will be watching closely.  Next week is release week for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, and TSSZ News is here to cover launch festivities and mainstream opinion of the game.  We will also be reviewing the XBOX360, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo Wii editions of the game.

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