Tag Archives: mario kart

Android, Random Games

Random Game #26 – Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing [Android]

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Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

When you have a video game collection like mine, it can be hard to play all of the games. This is especially true when additions are made on an almost weekly basis. Still, I appreciate nearly every game I’ve accumulated for this reason or that. In the hopes of improving my writing through continuous effort and promoting ongoing learning of these games, I’m going to compose brief, descriptive articles.

Now didn’t I just discuss a Sonic racing game? What’re the chances I’d get another one this quickly? Actually, it was a 2/1732 or 1/866 so it was quite rare. I acquired this through the Humble Sega Mobile Bundle and like the bulk of that lot, haven’t played this. I have played its sequel on the Wii U though, and it’s pretty good. I don’t find it as polished as a Mario Kart game, but it offers much more variety – specifically in the properties on display. Reading about this title, it appears to do the same, albeit, with a little less than its successor. I’m not too interested in giving this game a shot, especially on Android, but if I found a copy in the wild for a good price, I’d still snatch it up.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing was originally developed by Sumo Digital and released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS on February 23, 2010, in North America. A PC port was released a couple of weeks later – March 3, 2010. There was also an arcade version (!?) and mobile ports for iOS (2011), Android (2013), and Blackberry (2013); these were ported by Gameloft. Lastly, a Mac OS X version is available courtesy of Feral Interactive (2013). One more interesting point – the Xbox 360 and Wii versions featured exclusive characters: the Xbox 360 had Banjo and Kazooie (in fact, that version goes under a slightly different name noting that) as well as the Avatar while the Wii version featured Miis.

Let's Play

JohnTheGamer and Tridrakious Play Street Racer and Super Bust-a-Move

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WTF!?
WTF!?

Watch the splendor of Street Racer for the PlayStation and Super Bust-a-Move for the Playstation 2 in low-fidelity splendor! Played by none other than JohnTheGamer and Tridrakious, courtesy of just1morelevel.com!

First Impressions, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

SkyDrift – Demo Impressions

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This game has substance over style.

SkyDrift is a downloadable game released last week for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and the PC. It’s a racing game featuring airplanes and power ups, think Mario Kart and I thought it was pretty good. It was developed and published by the Hungarian studio Digital Reality; they also published Dead Block.

I played through SkyDrift’s tutorial learning how to maneuver my airplane as well as what the power ups did. It took me a few races before I really got used to controlling my airplane. I had to learn to plan my turns about a second before the actual turn. What helped was going knife-edge by turning with both analog sticks.

There was a decent blend of variety within the power ups. They were mostly focused on attacks but there were a couple of defense-oriented ones. I could hold two power ups at a time and if flew over a power up that I already had, that power up would level up and become stronger. Similar to Wipeout, if I didn’t want a power up, I could recycle it for boost. There were alternate ways to receive boost too. I got more for damaging and taking out other players or for flying close to the ground.

Fly through power up icons to receive them.

The demo also featured a multiplayer component but I forgot to try it out. There was only one stage in the demo, but it looked very nice. The demo ended touting a few more environments but I wonder how different the stages are visually. The soundtrack was very noticeable and it was rocking and upbeat, matching the tone of the races. There wasn’t much style to SkyDrift’s design; it seemed like everything was created realistically, but like I said, it looked very nice. I enjoy this type of racing game and SkyDrift seems like a fully featured power up-based racing game.

First Impressions, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Blur Beta – First Impressions

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A still from the Blur website.

Blur is a racing game being developed by Bizarre Creations; it will be published by Activision this spring. They gave away beta codes so they could test the multiplayer and see if there are any balancing issues. I received a code and have played through to the level cap in the beta. For an easy summary, the game can be described as Mario Kart plus Project Gotham Racing with Call of Duty influences in the online play.

From the start there are only two modes and a handful of cars to choose from. As you progress, you’ll unlock two additional modes, more cars and modifiers which act like perks from the Call of Duty games. I found little differentiating three of the modes; they were normal races with one for 2-10 players, one for 4-20 players and the third one limited to the fastest class of car. The fourth mode was a battle royale which played like a game of Twisted Metal or a battle in Mario Kart.

The races were fun and there was always a lot going on. I rarely finished in the top three, but even when coming in a lower position the game was exciting just battling it out with the different power ups. The power-ups are creative and not as derivative of Mario Kart as I initially expected. There are around six power ups and most can be used in offensive and defensive ways. You can hold three power ups at a time and cycle through them which allows for unique strategies; I tried to always have a shield on hand just in case. There were a few tracks in the beta and they all had alternate paths which helped in splitting up the sometimes twenty car group. The battle royale mode was nuts; throwing you into an arena left carnage as the only objective. You are ranked according to your points which are received from attacking foes; you are also assigned a rival which will net you bonus points if you attack them.

There were a handful of modifiers available in the beta and there appears to be three sets. One set seemed to net you more fans for your actions, one seemed to affect your defense and the third set seemed offensive. Similar to leveling up weapons in Modern Warfare 2, as you use your power ups in different ways; they’ll level up and unlock rewards. Say you have a shunt which is essentially a homing missile. You could shoot that in front of you and attack someone, or you could save it and when someone shoots one at you, fire it backwards and destroy them both. You also gain fans for using power ups effectively, drifting and finishing. Fans represent your overall level which allows you access to different modes and more. Regardless there will be plenty of unlockables to keep playing the game a long time after you’ve reached the level cap.

People looking to Blur for a straight up racing game might be disappointed. There are a few good ways to progress in the game and strictly trying to finish in top positions looks to be the hardest and least fun. There will be modes that don’t have power ups in the retail game but those won’t be the draw I presume. The element of luck in the game is heavy and will provide for a fun online racing experience. Frankly, I could see getting this game and never touching the single player.