Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is still one of the most joyful kart racers ever made

PC Gamer's 2018 re-review of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed — originally published in PC Gamer #322 UK — makes a compelling case that Sumo Digital's 2013 kart racer is something genuinely special. The game launched January 31, 2013, costs $20 on Steam, and is Steam Deck Verified.

The review's central argument is that Sumo Digital succeeded precisely because it didn't try to out-Nintendo Nintendo. Instead of chasing Mario Kart's polish, the studio leaned into Sega's chaotic brand identity — cars that transform into planes and boats mid-race, tracks built from Sonic 3, After Burner, and Panzer Dragoon Saga, and a roster that swings wildly from Sonic and Knuckles to Ryo Hazuki riding an OutRun arcade cabinet, B.D. Joe from Crazy Taxi, and AiAi from Super Monkey Ball with the Dreamcast logo shaved into his head. The game also pulls in Sega's later life as a PC strategy publisher: you can drift across an aircraft carrier as a Company of Heroes general, or attack Tails with a bee swarm as a Total War Roman centurion. The review's unlikely highlight is Football Manager — literally just a man in a football-themed car who shouts "get in!" while transforming into a boat off a collapsing bridge.

Sumo Digital had already built a reputation as a reliable licensed-game developer before this, but Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is widely regarded as the studio's breakout moment — the game that showed they could take a cynical brief and turn it into something with genuine personality. The review frames Sega's post-console-war identity not as a liability but as the whole point: a brand too scrappy and self-aware to pretend it's something pristine, and all the more lovable for it.

The re-review doesn't score the game, but the tone is unambiguous — this is a kart racer worth revisiting, and the crossover madness holds up five years on.