Sonic & All Stars Racing is a franchise that might resemble the Mario Kart series most of all, but that's just on the surface of things - because the use of the various company mascots, as well as race circuits built around backdrops from familiar games, is what you'll notice first.

When it comes down to the actual racing mechanics, however, the game reminds me more of a mix between the fast-paced racing and weapons-based action of the Wipeout series and Sega's own stellar line-up of classic arcade racers.

Then there's the 'Transformed' part of the races, which involves your car being transformed into either a boat or a plane at specific points, which mixes things up nicely, and can be a bit of a challenge at times - particularly the boats, which aren't always easy to control around corners. Sometimes it stops being challenging and becomes just plain frustrating, though. It happens on one stage in particular, but luckily it's something that gets better with time, practice and lots of memorization.

The frustrations are few, however, and it has to be said that the game is great fun 95% of the time, whether you're in regular races or the various types of challenges (boost, drift, overtake, rival elimination, and there's something resembling boss battles) that are strewn across the game's main mode, World Tour. The Tour is structured nicely, with you earning stars based on the difficulty of the races/challenges, which you then use to unlock new races, characters or the next stage of the Tour. It's a great and really fleshed-out singleplayer mode, something which the Mario Kart series has always been sorely lacking. The only real downside is that the jump in difficulty in regular races seems way too steep when going from Normal to Hard, something which is very annoying when you reach a certain point, because you need to complete lots of race and challenges on Hard to earn enough stars to unlock all characers in the game.

The game is also great fun when played online, and there wasn't a shortage of players to compete with at the time of writing.

All in all I'd highly recommend this if you're looking for a really fun, fast-paced and colourful arcade racer for the PC, particularly if you've liked other Sega arcade racers in the past, or the Wipeout series, F-Zero or Mario Kart.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is a kart racer simlar to Mario Kart. It differentiaties itself by having three vehicle modes car mode boat mode and plane mode. Since you switch between the different modes throughout the track it adds alot of variety to the different tracks. This is one of the most fun kart racers i have played in a while and the PC version has some exclusive characters such as a TF2 kart Football manager and Shogun. If like kart racers you can't go wrong with this game.

Sonice & All-Stars Racing Transformed is fun and fast pace racing with mix with water and air racing which add more challenge to the race. The game have different event:

Race - basely standard circuit racing with power up item with 3 laps around the track atlhough most track after the first lap may change up part of the track to air racing or water racing.

Versus - you have beat the race against 3 opponents which you race each of your opponent one a time on the same track.

Boost Challenge - somewhat like checkpoint racing but you need to use boost as often as possible to get you to the checkpoint.

Traffic Challenge - this is a checkpoint racing where you need to avoid oncoming traffic.

Ring Race - you must fly through all the rings before time run out.

Battle Race - in this mode, each racer have 3 health bar you need take out all the opponents with power up items, the last racer remain win the event.

Sprint - it is kind of similar to versus event but without power up item and you race against a ghost opponent who is very fast. You have 3 laps to beat your ghost opponent, you need to beat your opponent with one lap in order to win the event.

The hard difficulty can be insanely difficult on those events where you have to race against AI opponents, the AI opponents is racing skill and targeting skill with power up is so good, I have to say the AI is cheating, that is especially true with sprint racing event on easy difficult I still have quite hard time getting ahead of my ghost opponent.

Overall, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is very fun racing game if you can get pass a few of those frustratingly difficult event and forget about earning 3 star (difficulty: hard course) on every events then you might enjoy the game very much.

What little I've managed to play of this game is very good (and coming from someone who doesn't often play racing games, that's saying something!)

However, if you're buying to download and play on your laptop, be careful; after about ten minutes, the screen starts flashing furiously, your entire desktop is rotated (God knows why!) and the only option is to close it from inside Task Manager.

I'm playing it on a Samsung laptop (Windows 7) and have had this problem every time. However, as I say, what little I've managed to play has been very good (some of the courses actually change on the third lap and there are plenty of shortcuts and different paths, so you're not just going around and around the same track!)

Worth a buy, but as I say, certain laptops may struggle.

Brilliant racing game - cute but challenging and fun. Single player has time attack, world tour and grand prix mode. Tons of content to be played offline.

Could use some improvements in network code though. Multiplayer often gets disconnected even for the slightest lag.

A beautiful update and twist on Kart racing, Sonic & All Stars Transformed stands out for its gorgeous engine, wonderful homages and delightful "Transforming" mechanic which switches up the game play (and looks cool!) on the fly. Obviously, it's just a kart racer and that has its limits, but it takes it as far as it can go, giving you lots of modes, lots of unlocks and lots of levels that trip you up hard on nostalgia assuming you grew up playing SEGA games like I did.

And why does Sonic drive a car? Because he can't swim and it turns into a boat!

The previous All Stars Racing game lacked several features such as online multiplayer, but this time we get the full package.

It also has local coop, and worked fine with 2 Xbox 360 controllers on one PC just now.

There are a reasonable number characters at the start, and more that can be unlocked.

There are also several versions of each character's car. Allowing adjustment of the balance between say speed and handling etc.

This game offers quite a few modes, and also some interesting activities other than just racing:

Pursuits had me destroying a tank, some boosts are drift challenges, there are time trials, and so on.

It has some strange character choices, and not all the voices are the same actors. (Ralph for example.) That's nothing major though.

Controls are solid, and it felt better than the first game. Courses also had a better design this time round.

The Transforming mechanic could have been more fun if you could do that at any time, but that's personal taste.

All in all this is a pretty good, and amusing kart game. It's also a pretty solid pc version.

A really good kart style racing game with some legendary characters. The controls are really simple and the graphics are really slick. The online mode is ok (they do need to ban cheaters, nothing ruins fun like it) and there are a TON of things to unlock.

I couldnt really find anything about the game itself not to like, it ran flawlessly and was a blast to play, it also supported my hydra which is a big plus.

Transformed's new mechanics (the changing vehicles) is amazing. I mean it works beautifully and is really good fun (although the boats can be a little frustrating), and it adds new challenges and dimensions to the game.

The problem is there's only about 20 tracks (21 with DLC) and their mirror variants (making 42) as it currently stands, and only a few stand out as excellent. There's also still a major imbalance in characters, including the addition of some obvious marketing ploys (Wreck-It Ralph, for example), and I feel it dilutes the vision a little. I would have liked to see at least a couple more Sonic characters, including Rouge, to help round the cast out a little more.

But if you liked the first game, or any carting game, then you'll love this.

The best damn Mario Kart since Mario Kart DS. Filled to the brim with nostalgia for the early 2000's and before, when Sega was in a heated battle with Nintendo (and Sony) in the Console races. Including tracks based on Panzer Dragoon (Saturn), NiGHTS (Saturn), Golden Axe (Arcade and Genesis), House of the Dead (Arcade and Saturn) and more, as well as having hilarious PC exclusive racers, such as the Football Manager dude, a Shogun from apparently Total War, and the Team Fortress 2 team (composed of Heavy, Spy and Pyro, even if none of them sound like they should), along with a bunch of Sega characters you may or may not have heard about (unfortunately, no House of the Dead racers, or Ryo Hazuki).

It also runs very well, supports split screen, and has GREAT online racing. I know because I already have played it on Steam.

Excellent Game with the added ability to play with friends the multiplayer was a much needed addition for the sonic racing series of games especially with the limited amount of sonic games on pc already. This game is fun for the whole family 10/10