Team Sonic Racing was pretty much dead in the water when it released a month ahead of Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled because ain't nobody care about Sonic and his garbo friends as much as they love Crash again, apparently, but it actually wasn't all bad. The team-based racing in Team Sonic Racing is super good. Too bad everything else was sub par. Read all about it and watch gameplay right here.
I freaking hate Sonic. This is known. I don't try to hide it. For some reason, though, I usually enjoy the Sonic racing games. Not enough to want to spend a full $40 MSRP on them, especially now that I don't get them for free to review anymore, but once Team Sonic Racing was cheap enough I jumped in. And it's kinda good.
Instead of being a straight Mario Kart clone like Crash Team Racing is - because it IS - Team Sonic Racing tried to mix things up with actual team mechanics. Unlike Crash Team Racing where the "team" part of the title doesn't actually mean anything, Team Sonic Racing puts the emphasis on racing as teams of three where you have to help your teammates out and your overall final race position is determined by all three members of your team. It's kind of great. It feels fresh and fun and strategic and honestly kind of thrilling because you never know when stupid ass Knuckles or Tails is going to mess up and screw you over entirely.
I'm only sort of kidding there, as generally your teammates place somewhere reasonably close to your position, so if you take first place your teammates almost always do well enough that you win the overall standings, but there's always a chance you won't and that makes it interesting.
The gameplay is very good and feels awesome. During races, at least. For some dumb reason Team Sonic Racing throws a bunch of other events that aren't just straight forward racing at you and they freaking suck. I never figured out how to not do terrible at these side events and, eventually, you reach a point in the story where progression is blocked by these events and I never beat it. That sucks. Why you gotta be so dumb and shit, SEGA? I was having a lot of fun up until then.
On another note, the online multiplayer is totally dead on Xbox One. I showcase that in the video to hilarious effect. Also, I actually lose a story mode race in the video, which is the first race I ever lost in all of the time I spent playing the game. I'm not joking, either. I never ever lost a standard race until I tried to record it and show off the game. Making game videos sucks and never works how you plan and is way harder than people think.
