Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds review – an exquisite handling model saves an overly disruptive karting offering
A fun arcade karting experience is often too chaotic for its own good, but a tight handling model with a high skill ceiling offers surprising depth.
I’ve recently decided to embrace my interests more, so I binned all my old polo shirts that made me look like a lower-middle class wannabe golf pro who works as the manager of a regional carpet store. To replace them I bought a Pac-Man baseball cap and a truckload of image-heavy t-shirts, most of which make references to video games, films, and popular culture. OK, so this sounds like I’ve become the fashion embodiment of Ready Player One, but some of these shirts are pretty nice. Long story short, my daughter wanted me to buy a Sonic the Hedgehog shirt to match her Sonic hoodie. I did. I am a Sonic fan – there, I’ve admitted it!
Sonic Racing: Crossworlds review
- Developer: Sonic Team
- Publisher: Sega
- Platform: Played on PS5 Pro
- Availability: Out now on PC (Steam, Epic), PS4/PS5, Xbox Series X/S
A side-effect of this is how popular I am at parties for pre-schoolers – an age group that, it seems, absolutely adores the Blue Blur. A few months back I happened to wear my Sonic t-shirt, completely coincidentally, to a Sonic-themed birthday party, and at points I was more popular than the magician. Kids parties are always a lot, but this one had an extra level of chaos. Not dissimilar, then, to Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, a kart racer that has the unpredictable energy of someone unintentionally wearing themed merch to a five-year-old’s party. To use a phrase that probably died off at least two generations ago: this pops off.
CrossWorlds at its core is as you’d expect a fun-focused kart racer to be: you pick your character and vehicle (cars and hoverboards) to determine your basic stats, such as how strong you are, your top speed, acceleration, and all the rest, and then duke it out over a grand prix of four races alongside 11 other racers. Speed and a good racing line only go so far, with there rarely being more than a few seconds between power-up attacks or on-course obstacles. So far, so kart racer… but one that’s even more unrelenting than the norm with its power-up fueled carnage.
More options to shape your vehicle come from purchasable items (using the easily obtained in-game currency) that can be equipped in the customisation menu, plus a load of perk-like gadgets that give you stat boosts or special abilities. While these gadgets are simple at first and your options are limited, you’ll quickly unlock more and be able to equip extra in each race, making them more useful than they initially appear to be. While I found a gadget that gets you going quicker after falling off the track to be quite useful as I was learning the tracks, I ended up focusing more on stat boosts and didn’t tinker too much once I had a set I was happy with.
