Teamwork Makes The Dream Work In ‘Team Sonic Racing’, Even If You Suck As Much As I Do
Team Sonic Racing works to help skilled and less skilled players have a good time playing together. I just suck at kart racing to an unmitigable degree.
Playing kart racing video game Team Sonic Racing, my goal was to not come last.
I have never been the best kart racer. I didn’t grow up with them, as my parents believed owning a console would adversely affect my studies. As such, I didn’t learn the language of kart racers in my childhood, a time when so many of my contemporaries were whizzing down Rainbow Road.
The result is that now, when I sit down to play a game such as Team Sonic Racing, my greatest hope is that nobody is witnessing my fruitless attempts to drive between the lines. God probably turns his face away at least.
If there is an obstacle to ram into or a track to fall off, I will find it. And if we are doing multiple laps, I will find it multiple times.
I had hoped that Team Sonic Racing, with its cooperative gameplay, would mitigate my fumbling. Perhaps, with the assistance of two teammates, I would be able to not suck for once in my wretched life.
Indeed, Team Sonic Racing’s team-based racing does a lot to help less skilled drivers still compete and have a good time, which I did. Racers are split into teams of three, and there are various mechanics that encourage you to stick by your teammates and help each other out.
The one I employed most was the Slipstream. Your leading teammate automatically leaves bright gold tyre tracks on the road, and if you follow them it will increase your speed, even allowing you to slingshot past them.
You can also buzz by a teammate who’s slowed or spun out in order to give them a boost of speed. Of course, to do a Skim Boost you have to catch up with them first. And to catch up with them, you have to stop driving your car into every single giant crab or mud puddle on this green Earth.
Item Boxes on the track contain power-ups that you can pick up to give yourself an edge. Called “Wisps”, they’re largely standard kart-racing items such as missiles and bombs. You can get some idea of what each of them does by their shape, but mainly you discover their functions by playing.
My strategy was to pass my teammates practically all of my items, trusting that they would know what to do with them better than I do. Besides, I was too focused on not falling off the track to use them, and too far behind the other racers to see any impact.
It’s good to transfer some items even if you’re close to your opponents. Transferring gives your teammate a more powerful version of said item, and also helps to power up your Ultimate ability, which makes you super fast and invulnerable for a short period. You can use your Ultimate by yourself, but it lasts longer if you coordinate with your team to activate it simultaneously.
Alas, despite all this extra help, I continued to suck to a record-setting degree.
In Team Racing mode, points are awarded to each racer, most to least from first to last, and a team’s combined score determines where they place. Whether against human opponents or AI competitors, every single time I found myself coming in at number 12, adding a measly one point to my team’s total. Looking at my teammates’ double-digit scores, I felt like Danny DeVito in Twins.
This isn’t a criticism of the game’s difficulty, or in any way saying that it isn’t enjoyable. If I dialled down the setting from Hard to Normal, only played against AI, and tried my best, I could place first.
It is a testament to how much I suck at kart racers, forever and ever, amen.
Team Sonic Racing‘s story mode leaves something to be desired in terms of narrative, which kicks off with Sonic completely ignoring “stranger danger” and agreeing to board a sketchy man’s spaceship to take part in a mysterious race. Then again, nobody plays kart racers for the plot.
I intend to treat it like a series of objectives, and will happily work through the map on Normal. Doing so earns points to unlock random car mods, ranging from performance-altering to purely aesthetic. When I earn enough, I’m going to build the ugliest car the world has ever seen.
I may suck at kart racing, but I enjoyed Team Sonic Racing‘s bright, fun, fast-paced action even when I was well behind the pack. Through hard work and perseverance, I even managed to achieve my goal in the end. I didn’t come last in every single race involving real players or Hard AI. Once, I came 9th.
Team Sonic Racing is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch today.