Parents' Guide to

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: Bonus Edition

By Mark Raby, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 9+

SEGA stars come to the track to race and wreak silly havoc.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: Bonus Edition Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

Community Reviews

age 10+

Based on 5 parent reviews

age 12+

Gimmicky racer is ok, but more jarring and not as kid friendly as it's predecessor.

As a sequel game, this offering is not as friendly to younger players as it has more of a leaning curve than the original, more so than just an average Kart style racing game. Each vehicle has 3 different modes of car, aircraft and boat perspectively that take place after passing through a certain ring causing the transformation to trigger. The boat and car are not as jarring but the aircraft changes the controls a bit with the up and down pitching making for an added dynamic from the simple right, left racing controls of the boat and car versions. This does NOT ruin the game, but perhaps bumps the age of playability up some compared to a more simple, straightforward cart racer. Depending on your preference, the constant 'changes' can either break up the monotony or ruin the pace of each race. this feature also causes a player to fall behind if they fail to pass through the ring in aircraft mode, making your vehicle reset further back and most likely losing your current position in the race. This weapons based battle racer is otherwise average and up to snuff for the genre, but this feature will either make or break your tolerance of the game. The fact that there was never a follow up game to this one may very well attest to the overall theme versus age appropriate playability of the game in general. As a family that has had younger kids from 8 to 13 years of age at the time, this was probably one of our least favorite and forgettable racers that we ever owned, even recommending the original version over this one. Or, for that matter, for anyone NOT owning a Nintendo to check out the 'non kinect' version of Joy Ride or the more realistic Blur which are both multiplayer, split screen racers in the 'cart' style playability theme.
age 13+

This title has:

Easy to play/use

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5):
Kids say (9):

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: Bonus Edition is a fun extension to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Anyone familiar with the series will notice that the race tracks are all very representative of typical "Sonic" environments, paying homage to various games throughout the franchise's history. The tracks are all very well designed, with some that are essentially basic loops while others have challenging series of twists and turns. The use of the GamePad controller on the Wii U is also well executed, giving players the change to have two different perspectives on the race, and also allowing up to five players in multiplayer mode (four players on a split-screen TV and one player on the GamePad). The single-player experience is somewhat lacking, but those who enjoy playing video games with friends will no doubt have a great time with this game, Sonic fan or not.

Game Details

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