As well as the usual gifts of jazzy ties, plentiful piles of socks and sugary treats, this Christmas I got a copy of Mario Kart 7. Being a casual Mario Kart fan since Super Mario Kart on the SNES, I was pleased I could finally get some extended hands on time with the new game.  I have always preferred the arcade style of racing games over the more realistic car simulators, for example I never got on with the likes for Forza Motor sport or Gran Terismo as they seem to realistic for me. I have always favoured the ‘Race to the finish line using any means necessary,’ approach to racing games and Mario Kart 7 fits nicely into this genre.

Mario Kart 7 has a good selection of single player modes to choose from.  Classic Grand Prix mode pits you against several AI Karts in a four race ‘no holds barred’ battle to become King or Queen of the road. In Time Trial mode you have to beat a course of your choice in the fastest time possible. There is also Balloon Battle, where you are thrown into an arena littered with weapons to pop you opponents balloons before they pop yours. Finally there is Coin Battle where you have to pick up as many coins as possible in the allotted time. All of these modes are fun to play in both single player and in multiplayer, however for me Grand Prix and Time Trial mode have always outshone the rest.

The racing mechanics of Mario Kart 7 are what fans have come to expect. This game is fast and really easy to pick up, making it a great game for new comers as well as experienced pro’s. It also fits in well with the portable gaming style of the 3DS. The power sliding technique is back, however this time round they have made it a little easier. Taking a page from Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7 doesn’t require you to wiggle the circle pad from side to side while power sliding to gain a mini turbo boost. While this is a good idea to stop people from snaking (Constantly power sliding to get a turbo boost) in my opinion it has toned down the skill of the game slightly.

This is the first Mario Kart game to come out for the Nintendo 3DS system and I must say graphically the game looks really good both in 2D and 3D modes. Just by looking at it you can tell that Nintendo have really invested a decent amount of time into making the game look good on the 3D hand held device.  The sounds that have become synonymous with Mario Kart and indeed the Mario Franchise make a welcome return to Mario Kart 7, making Nintendo fans such as myself  feel at home when playing this game.

There are thirty two tracks to choose from including sixteen brand new tracks and sixteen tracks from previous Mario Kart titles. In my opinion there is a great selection of classic tracks such as Mario Circuit 2 from the original Super Mario Kart on the SNES, Kooper Beach from the N64 and Waluigi Pinball from Mario Kart DS. All of the tracks have been slightly re-imagined for Mario Kart 7 to make them fit in perfectly with the newer elements of the game. Don’t forget about the new tracks though, as they are also brilliantly made and worth a race too. Most tracks have elements that are new to the Mario Kart Franchise.  These elements include underwater sections where a propeller sticks out the back of your kart as you motor under the water and massive ramps which turn you kart into a mini glider. Personally I feel the underwater sections aren’t that great as they slow your kart down a little too much, but the glider sections do add a great skill element as you try and balance height with speed to gain a lead on your adversaries.

Much like previous titles in the series, Mario Kart 7 brings a fantastic arsenal of weapons and power ups to aid you in your battle to the finish line. Fan favourites such as the heat seeking red shell, the speed boosting mushroom and the slippery banana make a welcome return. There have also been new additions that in my opinion add more skill to the game. The Tanooki tail can smack opponents off of the track as well as flick bananas and mushrooms away. The fire flower has also been added so that you can throw fireballs at anyone who tries to get in your way. There is also the lucky 7 which gives you the a collection of weapons and power-ups to use including a Banana, a Green Shell, a Red Shell, a Bob-omb, a Super Star, a Mushroom and a Blooper. Be careful though, as with the Lucky 7 opponents can steal power-ups from you and if you are hit by a passing Bob-omb  you can lose your entire Lucky 7 arsenal. Game balancing power-ups  such as the Spiny Blue Shell and Bullet Bill also make a comeback, but I feel these are a bit overpowered this time round. There have been countless times when I have been in first place and have been Blue Shelled just before the finish line, which then lands me finishing the race in 5^th. I also find that Bullet Bill pretty much always puts the player into first place which it never seemed to do in Mario Kart DS.

Coins also make a welcome return to the Mario Kart franchise increasing your top speed as soon as you have collected ten. They also go towards unlocking new elements to the game such as new parts to customize your Kart. This brings a great sub-objective to the game which some of the later titles were unfortunately  lacking.

Mario kart 7 brings a great collection of characters for players to choose from. You have Nintendo fan favourites such as Yoshi, Toad, Koopa Troopa and Princess Peach, but you also have some great new additions such as Rosalina from Mario Galaxy and Latiku the cloud surfing Mario Kart race officiator. In true Mario Kart fashion all these characters have their own stats and attributes which effect how you race. There is a total of eight characters to unlock in Grand Prix mode and you also have the opportunity to unlock you Mii as a driver.

Mario Kart 7 also brings vehicle customisation to the table. Here you can mix and match wheels, Kart bodies and gliders to make your perfect Kart. For me this is a great element to add to the Mario Kart franchise, but I feel it could have been taken a step further maybe with colour customisation and fine tuning you kart. Hopefully we will see more Kart customisation in future Mario Kart games.

The thing in Mario Kart 7 that has impressed me the most is the multiplayer. Mario Kart games have been infamous for their local multiplayer however Mario Kart 7 takes multiplayer to the next level with its online multiplayer option. You can now create communities online for you and your friends to join in and race. Not only that but you can also set community preferences such as what weapons will feature in your races. The multiplayer fun doesn’t stop there as you also have some great features over street and spot pass where you are able to race against your friends’ ghosts on their favourite track. The 3DS can also take the ghost data and convert it into an AI which features in your single player grand prix races. This is a huge step up for Nintendo and online multiplayer and I hope to see much more of the same kind of thing in the future.

Pros:

+ Great Visuals
+ Gliding Mechanics that bring a good element of skill to the game
+ Great Re-envisioned tracks which complement the new game play elements
+ Well thought out online multiplayer
+ Kart Customisation

Cons:

- Some power-ups and weapons seem overpowered
– Underwater elements slow down the races too much
– Revised Power sliding makes the game easier.

8/10 – Mario Kart 7 is a great new addition to the franchise and to the 3DS. The new game play elements such as gliding are welcome but it is a shame that some of the power-ups and weapons feel a bit too overpowered. With brilliantly thought out multiplayer options this is a must have title for any 3DS owner.

- Garv

I must admit I was sceptical at first. I didn’t think anything could come close to challenging the dip in and play fun of MK, but Blur does a damn good job. After about half a lap playing with 5 other strangers I had got the feel of the controls, figured out what power ups to use and, the most important thing, I was having fun. The power ups themselves were pretty straightforward I’m going to talk about just a few of the 8 available; you have the shunt which functions as your red shell, the barrage which acts a temporary invulnerability against approaching cars and attacks, the nitro acting as a speed increasing mushroom and, the most annoying and useful power, the lightning bolt.

So yeah, blur was less a kind of twisted homage to Mario Kart as directly stealing and renaming different power ups to use. Although in fairness, those used in both games are kind of what you would expect to be integral to such an arcade racer. Then a revelation hit me, here I was squeezed in a massive hall in-between cosplayers, dealers and desperate dealers, I felt relaxed and completely engrossed in the race. I was waiting for key moments to release mines, shield myself from incoming attacks and fighting for every place. Even though I only managed to finish second I left the stall with a smile on my face. Racers aren’t my main source of entertainment, but if I had the spare cash knocking about I’d definitely fork out for Blur.

That said, I think its best enjoyed as a multiplayer experience over single player, so it’s by no means perfect. I’m just happy that PS3 and 360 owners now have the ability to play a great multiplayer arcade racer without having to invest in a Wii or DS. Don’t get me wrong, Mario still wears the crown, but Blur is a great experience and I’d definitely recommend it as at least a rental for a gaming night or a definite purchase if you’re really into online gaming.

-That Bloke In The Beanie

As many people will agree, Sonic games have been on a steady decline since they left the 2D roots – although I enjoyed Sonic Adventure, the games have seemingly gotten ever worse with SEGA trying everything they could to make him work on a 3D plane, and with each failed effort moving ever closer to his retirement. The latest installment, Sonic Unleashed, had me cringing at cheesy voices and boring gameplay, with some semi-enjoyable running scenes and a heck of a lot of awful “Were-hog” parts that separated the fun parts with some long, really boring rubbish. I quit the game soon enough, and finally accepted that Sonic was well overdue on his retirement, and had strayed too far.

However, I recently got hold of the demo of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. I don’t know why I did – I mean, I’m not a huge fan of racing games or 3D Sonic, so it didn’t have a lot going for it. Perhaps I was bored. Anyway – the single race the demo offered made me want to try a little more, being surprisingly decent and bursting with colour.

Come release day, I decided I’d buy it and give it a real shot – heck, I hadn’t bought a racing game since Mario Kart Wii, and I felt like picking up something casual to play between Heavy Rain and Final Fantasy XIII.

As Garv said in his demo review, S&SASR plays almost exactly like Mario Kart – with fast paced multiplayer kart-style racing set in colourful environments, with weapons, jumps and turbo pads. Almost everything feels like Mario Kart – but is this a bad thing? I don’t think so.

Thing is, I think Mario Kart is a real solid racer, especially good for casual fun with friends and equally good fun solo. However, since I’ve never been a fan of Mario, the cast was never something I really enjoyed – I picked my characters for their attributes since none of the characters appeal to me for who they were. So what have we got? Take the Mario Kart system and change all the levels and characters to that of Sonic and other SEGA titles – and pretty much what S&SASR is on a basic level. And that’s the end of the Mario Kart comparison (mostly) how does the game stand as a title of its own?

 The cars in the game aren’t Karts, rather they’re vehicles specific to each character – Sonic drives a personalised blue sports car, Eggman (or Robotnik as he should be known) drives his traditional Egg Mobile kitted out with some monster-truck wheels, and Billy Hatcher drives an egg-styled car. Some characters, such as Ulala and Tails, have vehicles that don’t even have wheels, but they all play evenly and balanced - though they have different stats with some characters with better acceleration, while others are better at manoeuvering or have better turbo boosts.  There are 20 characters in total (plus one or two extra depending on console), with racers from wide range of source games both old and new.

The game offers 24 tracks in total, which are separated into 6 Grand Prix’s for the main solo mode. There are eight main level themes including Sonic “grassland/beach” style, Sonic “Casino” style, Billy Hatcher themed courses, House of the Dead and Samba De Amigo themes. Each of these themes has three courses, but they’re all individual in their own right – such as the HotD stages which include an outdoor course, a sewer run and an indoor/rooftop course. There’s a good mix of different arenas, from the snowy Icicle Valley (of the Billy Hatcher set), the psychedelic Samba De Amigo stages, and the urban Shibuya Downtown city course (as one of three Jet-Set Radio courses). The selection is quite vast, and it feels as though it encompasses a wide range of different areas and elements.

As you progress through the game, you earn “Sega Miles” which act as credits to unlock new characters (since only some are available to start), courses to play in the modes outside of Grand Prix, and alternate music tracks which can be selected to play when you race. Unlocking new characters is always good, and the other items feel worth unlocking rather than just garbage gallery content, too. Each character only has one car each, which at first disappointed me – until I realised that they all have their own unique vehicles, unlike the Mario Kart’s simple Light, Medium or Heavy class Karts – and all of their unique vehicles are actually well modelled and often intricate, which is quite impressive really.

As with a certain Kart game I’m no longer mentioning, the game has a variety of weapons, obtained from pickups around the course. There’s a good selection of weapons such as homing missiles, proximity mines, nitro shoes, and disorienting abilities such as the “Confusing Star” which flips the target’s screen upside down, and the “Pocket Rainbow” which temporarily obscures the vision of whoever is unlucky enough to hit it. There’s a decent selection, and they don’t feel too overpowered, either. There is one super-weapon, though – the All-Star move. Each character has a specific attack that they can access at random, usually when toward the back of the pack, and it gives them a temporary but huge advantage – such as driving at super speed for a while, or being able to fire barrages of missiles at anyone who gets in their way. The moves are really fun, and it’s quite exciting to see what each character does – Sonic turns into Super Sonic and speeds up the road, while Billy Hatcher runs on a giant egg and crushes anyone he rolls over. Although the moves are powerful and can make a big difference, they don’t feel overpowered so in the end skill is the main deciding factor to who wins the race rather than chance - it just gives a bit of extra fun and a helping hand to whoever falls behind.

The game has a decent challenge to it - the Beginner mode is easy enough that a skilled player should be able to win 99% of the time. However, once you progress to the Advanced level, the AI really ups it’s game and it’s a lot more challenging to pull out ahead of the pack. I have yet to attempt Expert, but I can safely say it will definitely need some skill to master – it’s required to learn how to drift and score extra turbo boosts if you want to keep up with the AI on the later levels, since they’ll be making use of it all the time.

The game has a solid base to it with a good cast and a decent selection of tracks, but one thing that does make it shine is the inclusion of optional extras. The time trial mode is included as with most racers, and allows you to race against the leaderboards, yourself, and also a Staff Ghost to give yourself a sort of par to set yourself to. One of the bigger modes is Mission Mode, which gives an assortment of different challenges with set rules, such as winning one-on-one race as Tails against Sonic, collecting rings and chaos emeralds down a course within a time limit as Eggman, or crushing as many birds as you can using Billy Hatcher’s special. This mode really adds some extra enjoyment, feeling like a real full mode rather than simply filler material, giving the game some extra depth.

Obviously with a game like this, Multiplayer is a big factor - and it goes just as well as it should. Offering up to four-player local split-screen, the game allows you to play all the courses against your friends, and also allows you to toggle weapons and AI opponents to tailor the matches to your needs. Sadly there’s no “multiplayer Grand Prix” mode, but the game does keep track of who wins each game so all that’s really missing is an end-of-set award ceremony of sorts.

Of course with today’s standards online modes are included, allowing for 8-player matches. This is great for playing against friends, and is also fun in random matchups, although I must say the lobby system might need some tweaking – I found myself waiting for over 15 minutes to get into a session before, but this may just be early-release kinks that will be fixed when there are more people playing. Still, when it works, its great fun and you can keep playing so long as there are people left in the lobby after each race.

Although the game is available on all three major consoles, I personally went with the Xbox 360 version which is arguably the best, with the most characters. The 360 version includes Banjo-Kazooie as an extra character, alongside the ability to play as your Xbox Live Avatar – which works really well given the game’s graphical style. The Wii version includes Mii capability, and the PS3 has no extras (no idea why it got the short end of the straw).

The game is solid, and although it’s almost impossible not to compare it to Mario Kart it seems to be using the ideas to great potential rather than simply making a sub-par clone. The game is bright and exciting, and is really good fun with lots to do. Personally, I think that the courses, racers and modes elevate the game to a level even more enjoyable than Mario Kart, but then I am a little biased. Let’s just say, I own both – and I know which one I’ll be sticking to in future.

Although the game is fleshed out and definitely doesn’t feel lacking, it’s been said that DLC is also a possibility in the future – if the coming year finds us having access to an even wider selection of racers and courses to expand the game even further, this could easily be one of the best kart-style racers ever made. With Sonic 4 on the way, perhaps Sonic’s got something more to give us yet.

-Leon

I have now made it abundantly clear that Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing (Or S&SASR as I am now going to call it to save my fingers) is a lot like Mario Kart, so lets leave this fact aside now and look at this game as a separate title.

Right from the get go the demo gives you a choice of two characters to race as, our good friend sonic and the Xbox Exclusive character Banjo & Kazooie. As this is only a demo you can only play a single race or a 2 player split screen single race; as there was no one to play with at this given time, I went for the single race, and I of course chose Sonic first - I have grown up with the blue needlemouse so I thought it would be rude not to.

As with all racing games you start right at the back of the group as the 3 second count down starts, it is then your job drive round the circuit in a three lap race trying to get over the finish line first. It’s the racing game standard that has not been changed for decades. However, in S&SASR you are have the opportunity to drive into question mark boxes which in turn give you either a power up or a weapon to use to your advantage. So you could get a considerable advantage over your racing opponents if you use these power ups tactically. Now from previous Mario Kart experience i had some knowledge of what the weapons did, as they were quite similar. But as I played through the race countless amounts of times I noticed that this game really bring in a challenge, even on beginner mode I struggled to get first place, which brings a smile to my face. I love a challenge. Mind you the countless amounts of times I did get into 8th place gave me an advantage, if you are lucky enough to hit a question mark box while trailing behind the other racers, who will get your all-star special item. Each of these is a unique power that each racer has to get back into the race. Sonic for example has all the chaos emeralds at his disposal and turns into super sonic, giving him a huge boost in speed which you can increase by repeatedly pressing A. One of my favorites though has to be Amigo’s from Samba De Amigo. He unleashed his special just as he was passing me, he got a boost in speed and then drew all of his opponents into a huge conga line. All the racers were dancing behind him, and as soon as his power ran out, the other racers exploded….Awesome.

While you are racing around your circuit, you will come across jumps, these jumps can again be used to you advantage, as you take to the air start mashing the left trigger to pull off an array of aerial tricks. If you manage to land on all four wheels you will immediately get a boost in speed, the more tricks you pull off, the more boost you will get when you land, meaning if you have a heart of a daredevil you will take some comfort in this small game mechanic.

As you can well imagine with the cast of crazy characters and a whole variety of ludicrous weaponry and power ups, thew circuits themselves aren’t going to be on the plane mundane side, even though the demo only offers you one circuit, there is a chance to take a sneak peek at what will be available track wise, in the full game, you got tracks inspired by the sonic games which will have a lot of loop the loops and helix turns. You also have tracks inspired by house of the dead, samba de amigo and super monkey ball just to name a few. So you can expect a whole variety of whack and wonderful tracks to race around when the game comes out on full release.

From what I have played and seen of S&SASR I will be defiantly keeping my eye on it, it looks to me that a lot of thought has gone into the characters for this game. I mean you would never think a monkey in a marble from super monkey ball being pitted against some hard-core fist fighters from virtua fighter in a race would ever work but it strangely does. A lot of imagination has gone into this game and I think it is a worthy competitor for Mario Karts throne.

Garv