totalbi.blogg.se

These two characters, in an obvious money-grabbing, cross-marketing ploy, feel hugely out-of-place among talking hedgehogs, monkeys trapped in balls, and flying purple jesters. One modern intrusion into Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed's retro paradise is the inclusion of multiple non-Sega characters like NASCAR driver Danica Patrick and Disney star Wreck-It Ralph. When players are first setting up the game to their liking, it can be a hassle having to repeatedly quit the game, boot up the configuration launcher, then restart the main game just to see the performance difference in something as basic as turning anti-aliasing off. Inconveniently, Sega has hidden the graphical settings inside its own separate launcher that can only be accessed outside of the main game. The PC port easily surpasses the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, both of which peak at 30 frames per second and lack many of the advanced graphical features found in the PC release.

On maximum settings, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed looks stellar, maintaining 60 frames per second, even with advanced features like motion blur and dynamic lighting/shadowing turned on. Why is Sonic driving a blue batmobile? What did poor Beat do to deserve a redneck ATV with flame decals? In a game that's otherwise gorgeous, it's mystifying that a design element this crucial could go so horribly wrong. In addition to being flat-out ugly, many of the cars fail to align with the personality of the characters behind the wheel. The only weak aspect to Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed's visual design are the cars themselves. At a time when browns, blacks and grays are dominating video game color palettes and bland techno or sound-alike symphonic scores are being slapped onto virtually every release, it's refreshing to play a game that's lighthearted in its presentation, preferring colorful, imaginative worlds to the dark, gritty realism of most modern games. The same blue skies, bright colors and blazing guitar solos from classic Sega racers like OutRun, Daytona USA and Sega Rally have carried over into the company's latest driving game.