Sega announces Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing

[Shadow Hog]

I played the 360 demo. I actually kind of liked it, but the drifting felt... weird. Neither really Outrun nor Mario Kart, some awkward place in-between. Not sure if I like that much. Also, the AI... well, it doesn't really cheat or anything, but damn will it hand your ass back to you. I'm perpetually in last place with little to no hope of getting very far - the highest I've ever been was 4th, and that "lead" died FAST.

[Kogen]

Dude, how big are your hands?

Lumber-jack size.

And Shadow Hog, I think you just suck. I get in high positions constantly on default settings. Just play it longer until you know how to play it properly.

[P.P.A.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMajYTGLTlQ
Opa-Opa is now also confirmed! Or was this known before too and I just missed it?

[Opa-Opa]

Yeah, it's on the website but it was never properly announced. His "Allstar Move" symbol is the Parts Shop baloon. Sweet!

[Edgerock]

http://www.tssznews.com/2010/02/18/asr- ... lycett-qa/
http://www.segabits.com/?p=288

Steve “SOL” Lycett from Sumo Digital was nice enough to give an interview for the upcoming Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. We tried to ask most of the questions we wanted more information about and I think the interview came out pretty good, read it yourself after the jump.

Question: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your job and how you got to work on so many SEGA games.

Hello! I’m Steve Lycett, Exec Producer at Sumo Digital. Generally day to day my job is making sure the game is going to go on time and be as good as we promised when we started! I’ve been at Sumo from pretty much day one, so I’ve had the fun of working on a number of SEGA titles now. Don’t tell anyone, but they’re my favourite ones :P

Q. Did Microsoft approach you guys about adding Banjo-Kazooie in the game or is that something you wanted to do? If so how was it working closely with Microsoft?

SEGA went out and showed the game to all the console manufacturers, and Microsoft loved it. They suggested we add in Banjo, and Rare helped us a lot to make it happen. Of course we also have the Avatars on too, which Rare are behind too. Working with Rare was great, they sorted us out with models, music, VO and checked we’d got the look of the character right.

I know some folk think it’s odd to have Banjo in a SEGA character game, but stylistically he fits into the world, something both us and Rare worked to achieve – and why would you complain about getting something extra at the end of the day!

No-one complains about the Avatars or Mii’s not being SEGA characters after all!

Q. Did the original Japanese teams have a lot of say in how you used their characters?

We did a trip to Japan at the start of the project to show each studio the game concept and explain how we’d integrate the characters. I think given we’ve done a few games now for SEGA, they understand we’re going to respect their characters. We may do things differently from them, but I think that’s nice, to have a slightly different experience from a Japan developed title. If we’d not have done Sega Superstars Tennis, I suspect they may have been a little cautious, but we’ve proved we can bring a host of characters together and make it work.

Then throughout the development of the game we constantly sent assets for review, builds of the game and concept work. We’d get back really helpful feedback that made sure we stayed true to the games original visions, whilst still letting us move forward and show what those games would look like if developed on today’s platforms.

So yep, we’ve worked very closely with Japan and the folk originally behind all those classic titles. As I always say it’s been an honour and a pleasure, and I mean that entirely sincerely!

Q. Did you guys get Corey Marshall to record new audio for Ryo Hazuki or did you guys just take pre-recorded audio from the last two games?

With so many characters, and also with us wanting to stay true to how you remember them sounding, we again used a mix of files lifted from the original games. In Ryo’s case, we got a hold of the original master recordings – including some which weren’t actually used in Shenmue, and constructed a bank from there. So Ryo will sound like Ryo should sound.

Q. What are the most requested characters by the community that did not make it into this game? Please say Vectorman and Joe Musashi!

Last time at the end of SST, it was all about Ryo! So we’ve got him in this time purely as a result of that. This time, there’s been a lot of call for NiGHTS, followed closely by Ristar, and then we’re into Vyse, Joe Musashi, Vectorman and then we get numerous requests for characters right across the SEGA spectrum. Everything from Segata Sanshiro to the Daytona Hornet, to Burning Rangers, Sketch Turner, you name it, I’ve seen it requested.

At the end of the day we can’t get every character in, but I think we’ve got a much more varied roster this time, and it seems we’ve pleased a lot of fans with the ones we did pick!

Q. Are you guys planning on releasing SEGA themed items on Home and the avatar marketplace?

Ahhh, now that’s the first time we’ve been asked this one, and it’s a good question! Without going into too much detail, I can say this is being looked at, so keep an eye out :P

Q. What franchise or character did you personally want in the game, but weren’t able get them in?

I’ve always been a SEGA arcade game fan, so I was keen to try and get in some form of Space Harrier level. Not sure how it would have worked, but I’m sure we could have pulled it off. I constantly got told it wouldn’t work though. Bah!

Q. What qualifies a SEGA character to be considered a “All-Star” character? Is it critical reception, review scores or fan requests?

We generally pick the ones we like, then get SEGA to vet it and swap the list as required. Generally the ones that made the original shortlist were main characters in their own game, or characters that were visually appealing to both fans and non-fans.
We also considered what we could do in terms of animation, whether we could design a suitable vehicle and also looked at roster balance, i.e. the car/bike/flyer split. Fan requests come into it, but we looked for characters that were bright, colourful and fun. Simple as that at the end of the day!

Q. Does difficulty effect the amount of SEGA miles you get while playing?

It does, if you ramp the difficulty up, you get more SEGA miles. There are also hidden bonuses for say passing a rival. So if you beat Eggman as Sonic, you’ll get a cheeky extra couple of miles. Also, for example, if you do B.D. Joes All-Star, where of course you’re earning some ‘Crazy Money!’, that also gives you a SEGA miles bonus. Most of this is a little bit of hidden fan service, but mostly as we figured it would keep people guessing at quite how the game determines the miles given!

Q. Roughly how many unlockables can you purchase in the shopping section?

Off the top of my head, I think it’s near to about 60 items. Which is a mix of characters, tracks and music. The reason for the shop incidentally is unlike other games, you’re not forced to play single player to access more content in multiplayer. Here you can gain miles in all games modes, even if you lose, so there shouldn’t be any blocker to anyone being able to get at all the games content.

Q. Can you describe some of your favorite missions from the game?

I tend to prefer the more technical missions, so trying to drift as much as possible for example, just to see how quick I can triple A mission. Then there is the crazy stuff, like defeating a giant Zombie! I still want to kick the designers off about the mission where Big has to avoid a series of fragile pots mind. Evil swines, it’s nails!

Q. In the demo that was just released, there is a section called Licenses, but you can’t access it in the demo. What type of licenses will you get and how will this affect the game?

Each player has their own license, and this gets upgraded based on the overall amount of miles earned through the game. We actually sneakily uses this value when we match make players too, as we’ve then got a good idea of how long you’ve been playing for :P

Other than that, you can go into the license section to see how you’re doing with Achievements/Trophies or on Wii/DS what we call Challenges, which are very similar. You can also look at stats to see how many shots you’ve done or dodged and all manner of other stuff.

You can also view your collection, which has a list of all the tracks, characters and music you’ve bought from the shop, each of which has a short bio, just to give you some background of where they’ve come from.

So plenty to see in there!

Q. How many music tracks were used in the game?

Lemme see, each IP has 7 tracks (intro/outro and race music, 4 of which need to be unlocked) and then there are all the ASM pieces, and jingles, then Rich Jacques menu pieces, plus Bentley Jones credits piece. I think by the time we’ve totted them up, we’re pretty much well over 80 tracks, which is where we were for SST.

Q. Now that NiGHTS is the flag carrier that means that Flag Man is out of a job, what is he going to do now?

Well we tried to get Flag Man in, but apparently he’s busy with another game right now, that’s in-between his break dancing gigs that is.

So it was Microsoft's idea to have Banjo in this game. Wonder why Sony and Nintendo didn't take the opportunity to include one of their characters (Besides the Wii versions Miis).

[gr4yJ4Y]

Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't heard of any Sony equivalent to the avatars and Miis yet.

Has anyone else who played the demo think Beat's voice was weird?

I played the 360 demo. I actually kind of liked it, but the drifting felt... weird. Neither really Outrun nor Mario Kart, some awkward place in-between. Not sure if I like that much. Also, the AI... well, it doesn't really cheat or anything, but damn will it hand your ass back to you. I'm perpetually in last place with little to no hope of getting very far - the highest I've ever been was 4th, and that "lead" died FAST.

You know you can change the difficulty setting in the demo. That might help.

[P.P.A.]

Well we tried to get Flag Man in, but apparently he’s busy with another game right now, that’s in-between his break dancing gigs that is.

Well we tried to get Flag Man in, but apparently he’s busy with another game right now

OUTRUN 3 CONFIRMED?

[Kogen]

Flagman does more than just host car races. He might be a new character in the upcoming Virtua Fighter game.

[FlashTHD]

So here's the full roster w/ all-star attacks. Most non-Sonic characters either fall into "good speed/slide boost", "good acceleration/handling", or just balanced.

• Sonic in the Speed Star
• Tails in the Tornado Racer
• Amy in the Pink Cabriolet
• Knuckles in the Land Breaker
• Shadow on the Dark Rider
• Eggman in the Egg Monster
• Big on the Green Hopper, which amusingly has higher top speed than Sonic
• Aiai in the Blazing Banana
• Billy Hatcher in the Racing Rooster
• Amigo in the Sun Buggy
• Ulala in the Astro Glider
• Beat in the De La Custom GGs
• B.D. Joe in the unimaginatively titled Crazy Taxi
• Zobio & Zobiko in the Hotrod of Horror
• Ryo on Naoyuki's Motorcycle (the forklift attack is called "Working Man")
• Jacky & Akira in the Red Lightning
• The mice of Chu Chu Rocket in the...um, ChuChu Rocket
• Bonanza Bros. in the Get-A-Way Wagon
• Alex Kidd on the Sukopako Motorcycle
• Opa-Opa as himself. Yes, he appears to be the only character in the game who races with no vehicle.
• Banjo & Kazooie in the Bolt Bucket (360 only)
• 360 Avatars in the Ava-Car 720 (360 only), Miis in Wii version presumably in something similar

[G.Silver]

I approve of the Ava-Car 720.

[P.P.A.]

So I downloaded the PS3 version and am pleasantly surprised, it's pretty fun.
Am I the only one who uses the d-pad and L1 and R1 instead of analogue controls though?

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Nice to see that they revised Alex's model. He looks much better than he did in that tennis game.

The wings on Opa-opa look a little wonky, though. He doesn't seem to have any eyes, either.

[Blank]

So I downloaded the PS3 version and am pleasantly surprised, it's pretty fun.
Am I the only one who uses the d-pad and L1 and R1 instead of analogue controls though?

Got a nice driving seat/wheel setup here. Considering getting the game for 360 just to make use of it.

[Kogen]

I used D-Pad on PS3, too. It works just as fine.

So does this support the wheels properly? All of Sumo's other racing games do not because they are second-rate developers who enjoy Billy Hatcher games.

[Edgerock]

http://www.tssznews.com/2010/02/21/soni ... ng-to-asr/

We’re not entirely sure why people are making a big deal out of recent reports that Sonic R music will be included in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. We reported on that with help from Eversonic’s Fox Gungrave in November.

But this should be news to you: The same source that reminded the world of the Sonic R tracks, Sonic Wrecks, has disclosed several new pieces of new information regarding ASR–including confirmation of at least some presence of tunes from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Rush.

Kevin Eva, the SOE community manager who runs the site, says that ASR will include tracks from Sonic Rush, but did not disclose how many or what they were. What he did dish on was at least one Sonic Adventure piece to play in-game: And…Fish Hits!, the jazzy theme from when Big catches a fish in the 1999 Dreamcast classic.

According to Eva, that’s not all:

* The music also contains a piece from Sonic CD and Sonic Rush tracks also feature… but Wrapped In Black doesn’t. BOOOO!
* Fish Hits plays when Big does his All-Star move.
* Switching difficulty to “Off” removes the AI from a multiplayer game.
* Race distances can be set between one and nine laps in length.
* There IS a reference to Ryo and sailors in the game. You can officially rejoice.
* There is at least one line of dialogue from the announcer when talking about Big that…well… it made me choke on my drink.
* Amigo’s boost is probably the most powerful in the game. It certainly seems to be from off the line.
* There is a very clever way of getting the “no collisions” achievement.
* It is entirely possible to legitimately do the “Wonder Boy” (winning by reversing over the line) achievement.
* You will definitely need to master drift for later Super Monkey Ball levels as they mirror the games a lot. This means lots of 90 and 180 degree turns!

Eva disclosed the information while stating he had a copy of the game, and had been playing it throughout the weekend.

Music wise, remember that the soundtrack is expected to span over 80 tracks, and many tunes will be unlockable via the Sega Miles shopping system.

S0L and other places that have played the near final version have already confirmed there is no framerate issues, the demo is a older build.

[Opa-Opa]

The wings on Opa-opa look a little wonky, though. He doesn't seem to have any eyes, either.

Which is good. The only place where he has something that remotely looks like eyes is in the Zillion cartoon.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

That's must've been what I was thinking of. Then there's his dad.

[Blank]

I used D-Pad on PS3, too. It works just as fine.

So does this support the wheels properly? All of Sumo's other racing games do not because they are second-rate developers who enjoy Billy Hatcher games.

Works fine on my Forza wheel and 360 seat as far as Xbox goes. Don't know if I could say the same for generic USB wheels on PS3, haven't looked into any peripherals for that though.

[Dr. Watson]

The fact that the gameplay tips displayed before each race are actually labeled "Sonic Says" is the fucking icing on the fucking cake. Just had to say that.

[Radrappy]

Im surprised no one's spoken about the game yet. One of my friends bought it for his ps3 so we spent an evening playing three player vs. mode with another pal.

It's surprisingly great, actually. Sure it's kind of sloppy, the weapons are extremely lame, the all star moves are broken, and there are only 6 unique environments. But you know what? I spent 8 hours straight playing it with my friends, unlocking stages and characters with the miles we had earned in vs. It was extremely addictive, gratifying, and best of all bursting at the seams with great sega references.

My biggest complaints :

-Sound wise, the game is constantly raping your ears with obnoxious voices, edgy melodies, and abrasive sound effects. There isn't a single relaxing or easy on the ears moment in the entire game. Each race begins with a tour of the track, which features a song completely separate from what you'll be listening to during the race. It's unnecessary and ends up sounding choppy. Without any quiet moments/songs for contrast, it all ends up all sounding like goop. Character voices too, for the love of god. Why is that who ever is making sonic involved games feels absolutely compelled to have sonic and his friends talking CONSTANTLY over the action? The characters throw insults, comebacks, and jeers whether you are want to or not. Similarly, the racers can't seem to stay in their goddamn seats. They're constantly jumping ten feet in the air and doing flips as their vehicles go about 900 mph down the track. It just gives the impression that sega characters all have intense ADHD. In opa opa's case(the only racer without a car), his animations will actually give the illusion that he is veering out of control every 20 seconds.

-The weapons just suck. All star moves suck.

The games saving grace? You can turn most of these problems off. So for ultimate enjoyment I suggest: Turning off the voices, turning off the announcer, turning off all the items (yes even the allstar moves), turning down the sfx, and turning up the music.

So in conclusion, props to sumo for allowing gamers the most control over their experience I've seen in a game for a long while.

[K2J]

6 unique environments? So far I've heard of:

• Seaside Hill
• Casino Park
• Final Fortress
• Super Monkey Ball Jungle
• Tokyo-to
• Samba de Amigo's Town
• Curien Mansion
• Blizzard Castle

Also, The Conduit gave users unprecedented options for playing the game, but that didn't make the game good.

[Radrappy]

okay 8, big difference

[Kogen]

I think you are overacting about the sound effects. I played the demo a fair bit and it is not nearly as annoying as you say. Not enough to write a paragraph about it, any way.

The only really annoying issues I can think of are the stupid character animations and the poor choice of sources for music/levels/et cetera.

[K2J]

okay 8, big difference

Just checking to make sure they hadn't cut any out at the last minute, thanks.

[Segaholic2]

I like this game a lot and I've been playing with default game settings minus rubberbanding. I also turned the music up a bit and everything else down because otherwise you seriously can't hear the music over everything else. The character banter is kind of funny, especially anything that Ryo Hazuki deadpans.

Wish there was more variety in track atmosphere, but the tracks themselves seem well-designed and fun to race on, barring the fact they all kind of blend together in my memory thanks to the lack of environmental variety.

I just wish you could do grand prix with two players or set up custom grand prixes online or off. Online mode needs more mode variety. Also, if the framerate could be more consistent that would be awesome. Other than that, not really any more complaints. Fun game.