Sonic All Star Racing Transformed (2012)

[Lothar Hex]

19 hours ago, dumpster said:

 

This is my problem.  on that video, the guy overtakes the ghost on the last corner of the last lap, and wins with only a 1 second or so lead. All the way though the video, he's playing like a gaming god, doing stuff that prompts everyone else who's commenting "oh my god how is he doing that". 

 

I bought this game in 2013 on the strength of the trailers showing the Afterburner plane level, in the Daytona car.  It looked like a great throwback to that era.  It did not say anywhere that those cars were the last ones to be unlocked, and you'd need to be an absolute expert to get that far.  Reading through this thread, most people seem pleased to open up 150 stars.  You need 165 to get to the next stage.  I can replay and replay a level for hours and maybe I'll get that extra star.  But perfecting my play to the degree that I can earn an extra 15 ?  I'm on my lunch break here. No-one has that amount of free time, do they? 

 

Keep in mind, I don't really resent the game for being too challenging, I can play it on a lower difficulty and it's a brilliant game.  It's the structure that locks away the content I wanted because I just can't get those extra stars without completing more levels on Expert difficulty. 

 

In other games completing a game on easy opens up "New Game Plus" on easy.  Games don't normally lock away the BASE CONTENT and force you to play on the most extreme difficulty just to get access.  Why should you not be able to play as the Daytona car on an easier difficulty? 

 

Once you unlock these vehicles you are free to play them at any difficulty so why force you to play on expert to achieve them?   Lock up challenging game modes and Madhouse levels, but don't lock away cars and tracks behind a wall that requires god-like play from an expert.

 

Dara O'Brien discussed this in his stand up using Guitar Hero as the example.   But in Guitar Hero if you play through the songs on easy, it unlocks the next ones on easy.  In Sonic Transformed you can go as far as the game allows you to on easy, and instead of completing the game at your own pace you hit a brick wall.  You have to go back on higher difficulty to earn extra stars, so what was the point of having that easier difficulty level in the first place?

 

I just played again, and was about to cross the finish line in 1st place when 3 different things all hit me at once, and 5 seconds later i finished the race in 7th.  This game is 98% perfection and 2% makes you want to set the fucking thing on fire and that's why it makes me so angry when I try and play it.  As I said 5 years ago, games are meant to be fun, this one is do-able if I devote my life to it but I have to go to work. I don't have time to play the same race 40 times in a row hoping for that bit of luck that makes all the difference. It winds me up so much because this tiny design flaw ruins a game that is otherwise brilliant.

 

There should at least be a cheat code after all these years.  I paid for this game (twice now) and still can't play all the content. 

 

If you have the PC version you can download a save game with all the stuff unlocked. You can either replace your steam cloud save with it, like I did for the same reason.

[Nespresso]

4 minutes ago, Isaac said:

 

If you must feel the need of some arbitrary system that gives you stuff you've already paid for as a "reward" for completing challenges, make it entirely cosmetic, as I mentioned. Costumes, car types (that don't affect the handling) etc? Totally fine.

 

I'd argue that there isn't really a place for a bit of both if you feel that you need rewards to keep playing a game, why on earth are you playing it in the first place? Why punish people who've paid for the product but aren't as skilled with the inability to use some of the content they've paid for?

 

It's all a hangover from when games were much more elitist and less user-friendly than they've ultimately become. 

 

Imagine if when you bought a film you had to complete tasks in order to see the ending. Mental!

Imagine when you bought a game and had to put down the controller for two hours just before being allowed to play. Crazy! 

 

Films are a passive medium, games are not. Unlocking content such as vehicles and characters are perfectly viable incentives to keep playing. At the end of the day they're only variations on existing content. 

 

Obviously this doesn't work for every game mind you (see RB6 Siege). 

[Isaac]

1 minute ago, VN1X said:

Imagine when you bought a game and had to put down the controller for two hours just before being allowed to play. Crazy! 

 

Films are a passive medium, games are not. Unlocking content such as vehicles and characters are perfectly viable incentives to keep playing. At the end of the day they're only variations on existing content. 

 

But why lock them away in the first place? Why not unlock everything from the off?

 

If you want to keep playing, you'll keep playing. You shouldn't need some arbitrary reward in order to continue.

 

I think that this discussion has outgrown this thread perhaps. Give me a second and I'll make a separate one.

[dumpster]

I think unlockable content is the way to go - it gives you something to aim for.  What Transformed seemed to get wrong was to have that 165 star gate with base content from the trailer behind it.  Mathematically you can't get 165 stars without a sizeable chunk of the game being played on the hardest difficulty, which is very hard, in a Sega "Blue Blue Skieeeess" game that all the family should be able to enjoy.  The personal thing that really got my goat is that the trailer that really sold me the game was the most Sega thing ever, Afterburner track, Daytona car, Dreamcast controller boat.  It's frustrating to unlock Danica Patrick when you're expecting glorious Sega memories.  

 

All they need to do is separate the difficulty levels.  At the moment, there's no point to playing the game on any difficulty level other than the hardest because you'll need to tackle it on the hardest level eventually because it's impossible to finish the game on easy, you cannot earn enough stars to progress, it's almost like a game-breaking bug. Or recalculate the number of stars needed to open that gate.  Most people here seemed to get to 150 stars.  I have no issue with the game being difficult because it has 4 difficulty settings - the problem is that you are obliged to play it on expert to get enough stars.  I'm not good enough, and it's a colourful cartoon game suitable for all ages.

 

I'm interested in the way that achievements have influenced game design in the last few years.  I commented a while ago about the time I won an achievement in The Evil Within for completing level 4 and the achievement was "ultra rare", showing that the majority of gamers had given up before they were a quarter of the way through.  I appreciate that @S0L released an update to tweak the difficulty, and acknowledges that he agrees it's too hard.  I suspect that a game released today would have these tweaks business as usual, as they can see if there's a sudden drop off in achievement progression.

[Isaac]

I created a new thread here to discuss unlockable content in games more widely:

 

 

[Majora]

On 3/11/2017 at 17:40, mushashi said:

They do seem to work on the oddest things at times, bits of other devs games, I did not know they did one of the episodes of the recent Hitman reboot for example:

 

HITMAN Episode 5: Colorado

 

Oh, this is interesting. I wonder what their exact involvement was in this level, because it was by far the least Hitman feeling level from the reboot.

[stefcha]

51 minutes ago, Isaac said:

If you must feel the need of some arbitrary system that gives you stuff you've already paid for as a "reward" for completing challenges, make it entirely cosmetic, as I mentioned. Costumes, car types (that don't affect the handling) etc? Totally fine.

 

I'd argue that there isn't really a place for a bit of both if you feel that you need rewards to keep playing a game, why on earth are you playing it in the first place? Why punish people who've paid for the product but aren't as skilled with the inability to use some of the content they've paid for?

 

Make your mind up, you're arguing both for and against the same thing. A different character in this game largely is cosmetic, given that by levelling them up you can tweak their stats to an extent anyway. And I enjoy playing the game, the reward of a special character late on was just a nice testament to that - it wasn't the aim of the game but merely gave a reason to go back and improve on some earlier sections despite having "finished" it. It's little different to a hard to achieve item in Dark Souls, Monster Hunter or something really, just in a different genre.

[S0L]

We likely would have unlockable content if we did something again. I'd probably want to ensure there was a way to unlock content through multiple means though.

 

I thought the SEGA miles we had in the original All-Stars game was a better system, regardless of what you did, you earned miles and could spend them on any item you wanted. More valuable items cost more miles. It meant that regardless of if you played single player, local co-op or online you got miles and could spend them on what you wished, be it new music (low miles cost), new tracks (medium cost) or new characters (high cost).

 

The catch was, as I said, we came under pressure to make sure there was a reward for progression. As whilst there clearly was a means to unlock new content, you didn't necessarily get anything for completing any of the modes.

 

If I was to do it all again, I'd likely keep the it almost exactly the same as a result of how it happened, but either have a secondary unlock mechanic (let's say base it on accrued playtime) or you know, put some well hidden cheats in there and then release them in due course. Indeed during development there was a code combo you could enter on the UI to unlock all the characters, but we were requested to remove it before release.

 

But... Whilst yes, it's a bit of a throwback mechanic, arguably from the recent responses alone, it has kept people playing as they want to get that elusive content. Even though it's annoying, it's doing what was meant from a design perspective.

 

Note we wanted to keep AGES a complete secret though so you didn't get told about it up front. Catch is of course, publishers love to show off the shiny lures.

 

But arguably, games do need some level of progression based on context. Crackdown for example needs the player to spend time levelling up their skills. That will take a fair amount of hours. But if you didn't do that, and let you start wholly levelled up, you'd have no progression. OK, you may be thinking, well that is a totally different game, but even then, we still have Co-Op play and you may well want to play with a friend who is close to finishing the game, whilst you only have a low level Agent. Should we let you jump to max level? If we did, would that not shorten your potentially engagement and interest with the game?

 

It's not straight-forward. I thought MarioKart giving you everything was pretty brave. It's rare example though.

[mushashi]

1 hour ago, S0L said:

It's not straight-forward. I thought MarioKart giving you everything was pretty brave. It's rare example though.

 

Having not really played Mario Kart in single player mode since the start of this century, it makes perfect sense for that game, they might aswell rename it Mario Party Kart as the single player is so secondary to the reason most people play it these days.

[Jbone]

Also they probably had an eye on getting Wii U owners to double-dip, so asking them to unlock everything again may have seemed like a bad idea

[dave7g]

2 hours ago, Isaac said:

 

 

Imagine if when you bought a film you had to complete tasks in order to see the ending. Mental!

I'm pretty sure every single video game ever makes you complete tasks before you see the ending.

[Super Craig]

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe doesn't unlock everything from the off. There's one character and tons of vehicle parts to unlock.

[deKay]

14 hours ago, partious said:

In hindsight I think this is my favourite game of the previous gen.

 

Thought the bump might be news of a switch port

 

I thought the bump was because Sega announced the new one today.

[Oh Danny Boy]

Unlockable content tied with game progression is outdated. The modern way is to lock your extra content away behind a paywall. I personally prefer how Sonic racers did it. 

[Ketchup]

3 hours ago, S0L said:

 

If I was to do it all again, I'd likely keep the it almost exactly the same as a result of how it happened, but either have a secondary unlock mechanic (let's say base it on accrued playtime) or you know, put some well hidden cheats in there and then release them in due course. Indeed during development there was a code combo you could enter on the UI to unlock all the characters, but we were requested to remove it before release.

 

Smash bros probably does this the best. You have challenges e.g. Beat 100 oponents in this mode to unlock a character or that character will unlock after X amount of hours play time.

 

Then there's the gold hammers for those tasks that are just too difficult for you or you just want to open that unlock right away.

 

Hopefully if there is a 3rd game in the series you could have a combination of miles unlocks things super slowly but also progression which is really the quickest way to unlock stuff.

[stefcha]

So I've been playing through this again tonight and... I've done better than I thought I would. The first couple of races were tricky, but arguably that's because I've not played it for years. Seriously, if you're continually drifting for boost and getting at least one trick in when you've got any air at all you've got a good chance of winning. Anything that isn't a race you're better off taking your time with and as a result you'll probably complete it - drifts, ring races, one on ones and those ones where you've got to shoot tanks especially. Easy, easy stars. I've been taking the A rank option on everything from the off and so am up to 112, whereas the requirement to carry onto the next world is a mere 35 stars. 

 

And then I reached the Burning Rangers level at the end of world 4, which, perhaps ironically, can go die in a fucking fire. I've failed to A rank it so often it's been offering to let me skip the level for absolutely ages (which will give you a 1 star completion) but I've been too stubborn to give in  This is the first and only one so far where I do not think I can complete it at that level without a generous slice of luck though. 

 

[Down by Law]

On 17/12/2013 at 18:36, MW_Jimmy said:

So any sales of Ryo Hazuki DLC goes towards the Shenmue 3 kickstarter. That's how this works right?

 

Mw Jimmy confirmed for time traveler! 

[S0L]

6 minutes ago, Down by Law said:

 

Mw Jimmy confirmed for time traveler! 

 

Yeah it was strangely prescient that. As it was was I suggested Yu kickstarted Shenmue 3

[mushashi]

23 hours ago, deKay said:

 

I thought the bump was because Sega announced the new one today.

 

Doesn't sound like they have any current plans to do another one, as despite Sumo listing an unannounced Kart racing game based on a known property being in development, they denied it was a sequel to this.

[stefcha]

I take it (slightly) back about the difficulty, whilst I just breezed to the "end" of the game with enough stars in pocket to immediately unlock AGES that's when I spotted the 200 star gate straight after, which requires a revisit to previous levels to glean a fair few S ranks - about thirty! So yes, that part is unfairly locking off what's presumably the actual end of the game, but to be fair the credits have rolled before then so in effect this is a post credits scene to get you to go back, get a load more stars then come back for the last bit because you've loved it and you've earned it. I think it's just one or two final races anyway? Can't really remember. Also I suspect the PC version must surely be a bit easier, as I've not gotten any better at games in the interim that's for sure.

 

Completed that fucking Burning Rangers level on A first go coming back to it as well, a switch of character and not having any beer beforehand did the trick

 

Another of these games, with a more consistent difficulty level in the single player - and without the guy who designed the Burning Rangers track - would be one of the most lovely things

[Darwock]

I dropped this a couple of years ago having reached 184 stars when I let my PSN subscription expire.

 

I renewed my PSN plus again recently so got it back on my vita, so I'm having another crack at it. I have a question, I used Amigo and Sonic mostly, so those two have a red crown on the selection screen and all the different handling styles are available to use.

 

Since picking it up again I've been using AGES, and it's maxed out on xp - but no red crown and the last handling option is still locked.

 

I thought that was earned by xp, what am I forgetting?

 

 

[stefcha]

The last option is usually from a console mod, but you've enough stars to have unlocked them all that you can pick up around the world tour. Just had a look and my last mod for AGES isn't there either, wonder if it unlocks from somewhere else - the GPs that I'm going through, maybe?

 

edit: Apparently its console mod unlocks when you've got... every single star in world tour 

[DarhkFox]

I'd love another one of these but i always found the difficulty/ai was all over the place - at least compared to mario kart. The first game in particular was amazing fun.

[mushashi]

It's sounding very plausibly like the Kart racer Sumo are working might be a remake/sequel to Naughty Dog's Crash Team Racing, as Activision are apparently planning to milk the tits off the character now that they've killed Spyro again.

 

Though this bit of news might mean you can't even trust companies when they outright deny stuff:
 

Quote

 

Zappies who were responsible for a number of All Stars Racing Transformed toys way back when the game was first release were at the convention and have allegedly told Spindash.de that there is a third Sonic racing game on the way!

 

Whilst there is no outright proof of such a game, what strongly supports it is that their booth is full of the original ASRT toys which went out of production years ago. They claim these are here as placeholders in a bid to give some retailers an idea as to what the new game and toys will look like.

 

 

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2018/02/toy-maker-zappies-claim-new-sonic-racing-game-for-2018/

[DarhkFox]

To be fair i would love a CTR remake as i loved the original. Sequel is alright too but i couldn't get into any of the older follow ups.

[McSpeed]

On 2-2-2018 at 23:55, stefcha said:

I take it (slightly) back about the difficulty, whilst I just breezed to the "end" of the game with enough stars in pocket to immediately unlock AGES that's when I spotted the 200 star gate straight after, which requires a revisit to previous levels to glean a fair few S ranks - about thirty! So yes, that part is unfairly locking off what's presumably the actual end of the game, but to be fair the credits have rolled before then so in effect this is a post credits scene to get you to go back, get a load more stars then come back for the last bit because you've loved it and you've earned it. I think it's just one or two final races anyway? Can't really remember. Also I suspect the PC version must surely be a bit easier, as I've not gotten any better at games in the interim that's for sure.

 

Completed that fucking Burning Rangers level on A first go coming back to it as well, a switch of character and not having any beer beforehand did the trick

 

Another of these games, with a more consistent difficulty level in the single player - and without the guy who designed the Burning Rangers track - would be one of the most lovely things

 

Funny, I did EXACTLY this last month

 

Popped this game into my Xbox One a couple of times since it became backwards compatible and decided on breezing through to unlock AGES only then. Interestingly, the Burning Rangers level was the exact same one I had been 'stuck' at for... well, ages.

 

Though my girlfriend likes the original Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing much more (maybe because it was more similar to Crash Team Racing? She loved that too), I still rate Transformer the better game. Even thought it'd 1-upped Mario Kart, until 8 on Wii U came along.

 

Just hoping Sega churns out another Sonic racer. Will be revisiting Transformed until then!

[MW_Jimmy]

Sumo should just sack-off Crackdown Trei and start work on a Sonic Racing sequel. If they want to save some development time they can take the Crackdown environments they've built and place some tracks and pretend the entire game is a homage to Sonic 06.

 

I expect a release this Summer.

[stefcha]

14 minutes ago, Kirby said:

Agreed, I really hope they develop a new Sonic Racing, I loved the first game. I think it would sell millions, PS4/Xbox racers are desperate for a kart racer, there's been such a lack of arcade racing games this generation.

 

It's an ace series and I'd utterly love another... but let's be honest it'd sell fuck all unless it managed to be some sort of second coming. I do wish Mario Kart would flesh out some sort of single player experience beyond the barebones GP it offers though by borrowing some ideas from this side, a lot of the events in single player here would work brilliantly and it's a bit of a shame they doggedly stick to the same 25 year old formula there. It's stale on that front in comparison.

[MW_Jimmy]

There are rumours that there is another Sonic Racing game in production, but it doesn't have his Sega friends in it, only Sonic's shitty friends.

 

Which is a shame because I thought we could play, let's guess the game title. My entry:

 

Hatsune Miku Magical Mirai Concerts present Sonic and Sega Supersonic Racing R featuring Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue III Kickstarter in association with Geoff Keighley (copyright: Doritos/Mountain Dew)

 

 

[Dudley]

"Sonic And Mario at Daytona"?