OK this is weird. When the great Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed was released it sold well but it didn't hit any charts.
Everybody Super Sonic Racing!!! :D
I was starting to lose the hope of see the new Sonic game in any TOP 10 but after more than 2 months of the game release without any reason the general public (not only sonic fans) are buying the new sonic game.
The charts has been:
Until February 11, 2013
Dead Space 3
FIFA 13
Call Of Duty: Black Ops II
Far Cry 3
Hitman: HD Trilogy
Ni no Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Just Dance 4
Hitman Absolution
Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed
And now a week later I though that Sonic will fall down from the list because it's a game with many months in the market, and the strong competition but Sonic move forward step by step.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Dead Space 3
FIFA 13
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Far Cry 3
Assassin’s Creed 3
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Just Dance 4
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Halo 4
Also the sonic game its the only kart racing game in TOP10 not even LBP karting or F1 Race Stars can stand up against the blue blur!
Why this means so much for me? Because the general public is having interest in Sonic again. And being in the Charts means more prestige for the Sonic Franchise.
SEGA is recovering the Gamer's confindence in Sonic games, I wish that this can continue and in the near future all gamers will say "Hey, the new Sonic it's about to be available"
I really believe that if we spread the voice with our pals and SEGA continue releasing awesome games SONIC will return to N°1 someday.
Until then, let's spread the voice. All we can do will help!!!
Before I start this post I just want to say that I like both games, both are awesome titles to spend time with friends and please don't think that I will talk good about Sonic and bad about Mario just because this is a Sonic Blog.
No videogame war is better than a Sonic vs Mario!!!
I will be as much impartial as I can, I promise.
I will compare both SAGAS but I will put my atention specially on All-Stars Racing Transformed and Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 7
I will make an update of this post if a new Mario Kart its anounced later.
GAMEPLAY and Level Design.
Sonic All-Stars and Mario Kart are different ways to racing. Let me explain:
Mario Kart its like the MotoRacer gameplay: you mostly fight with the ROAD.
I have won some races with the help of the items, but I felt that most of the time I was fighting against the road and not so much with the other players.
Sonic All Stars has different style, This game prefers you to battle mostly with THE RACERS. Eventhough some roads have places in which you can fall from 1° place to last as a sample its the Race of Ages in which if don't handle well you will suffer.
Specially in Online Matches with Skilled players you will see a race in which you dont have idea of who will win because the desing of the road has the intention to have two or more players being head to head during all race and that is what I like from the sonic game: Being fighting all the race.
Who's better? I think it depends of what do you like. I like both but....
All-Stars Racing Transformed has something that Mario Kart doesn't: TRUE air and water sections.
In Mario Kart the handling of the kart its almost the SAME when you fly or in the earth, the kart just modifies his look.
In Sonic Racing Transformed the physics of the car, the plane and the boat are TOTALLY DIFFERENT and that makes you to change your strategy constantly.
WEAPONS
I think Sonic Weapons are more based on strategy than the Mario Kart ones. And does not unbalance the race as in Mario Kart.
In the Sonic game you have to decide if you prefer a quick shot (Ice cannon and the Firework shoot) with the risk of failing or a slower weapon (tornado and the clone machine) who follows the other racer and gives you time to move quickly in case of any other racer is pointing you with other weapon.
Also you have to be carefull if your oponent have the defender glove and can redirect your shot.
In Mario Kart in the last moment you can get a blue shell and all the effort of the others is ripped in pieces
The All-Star is also very powerfull but it doesn't come by random, you have to drive very well to receive it and the All-Star Attacks can be evaded.
I enjoy so much when someone got the All-Stars and I evade all his shots. It's almost perfect! you sometimes will have to fight against something most powerfull but you have the oportunity to beat it.
Career Modes
Both games have a lot of content to be played. I love the "challenge" roads in the sonic game like the Turbo Challenge, The Battle Race, The Ring Race, Drifts Time-Attack Races and others.
INNOVATION
This is when I consider Mario Kart Saga is overvaluated, with 7 games of the saga the innovation HAS BEEN MINIMAL.
I love both sagas but Sonic All-Stars Saga has innovated more with only two games than Mario Kart with 7 games.
And eventhough the critics always gived an 8 or more on innovation to mario kart, its just unfair that Sonic Racing Transformed only scored a 7 on innovation when it has been the game who bringed more new things.
I think it is just because of the game has the name Mario, if other saga has the same innovation as Mario Kart nobody would talk so good of it.
FINAL DECISION
I enjoy playing both games, this situation is like a FIFA-PES it depends of what characters you like most. It is other Sonic-Mario Battle.
I love when I play the sonic game and a friend argue me: "let's play mario kart and try to win again"
I reccomend both games BUT if I have to pick one, I would prefer Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed in the PS3 Xbox360 or WiiU versions.
If you havent tried the new sonic racing game give it a chance, you will have a lot of fun!
SEGA got his highest metacritic score in years, eventhought Sega has fall from 7° to 9° place.
"The result of a fairly dismal success rate of 30% (leaving 70% of the company's 2012 releases with mixed-to-negative reviews). Sega released seven more titles last year than in 2011, but aside from a few PC titles, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, the result was mainly a sea of yellow scores, and no truly great new games."
I believe that SEGA can have a wonderfull 2013 if they release high quality games, the gamers are trusting again and now its the time to confirm their confidence.
As seen in Sonic Stadium Forummus it's looks like bugs in Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed has their days counted.
Sumo Digital is only awaiting the approval of Sega, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
The patch will contain fixes for many of the bugs and glitches that have been found and reported for all of us.
This is what S0L’s said:
We’re certainly not ignoring these, indeed we’ve been busy both before and after the holidays addressing them. We’ve dropped new code with SEGA to check out the corrections, and once they’re confirmed, the next step is getting them submitted to the platformer holders.
So it’s coming, but you have to understand that this process takes time. Much as we’d love to push out instant updates, it’s not quite that easy. For example we found and fixed the Wii U version the day after it was reported, but it took well over two weeks for the fix to get checked out, submitted and approved. Same is true here, even when we’re satisfied it’s all fine, it still needs checking by SEGA QA, then by the platform holders. Trust me, we’re trying to get it to you as quickly as possible.
Sega is making an ofert for 3 of his games, SONIC and All Stars Racing Transformed, The Cave, Aliens: Colonial Marines.
If you preorder the PC Dowload of any of these games, you will receive $5 credit. For making the things easier I've posted the links down so you can pre-order them now.
This is a great chance to support Sonic or Sega's Games, I will personally pre-order The Cave because it looks like LittleBigPlanet Style and I will give the game a chance. See you later
Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed sold other 90,000 copies in the last week of the past year, so the new sonic game finished the 2012 with 600,000 sold copies.
We've ripped in pieces to our 2 competitors, LBP Karting and F1 Race Stars.
Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed 600,000
LittleBigPlanet Karting 410,000
F1 Race Stars 140,000
But as you may know it's neccesary to reach at least 1 Million but i'm sure we are gonna make it.
This was a picture of the moment when Sonic heard about LBP Karting.
Sonic Generations also sold 40,000 more copies to reach 2.64 Million.
The popular Mario and Sonic in London 12 sold other 50.000 and finished the year selling 4.34 Million,
Our beloved Sonic Colors has sold worlwide 2.57 Million of copies.
AND FINALLY, until 2012 the Sonic Franchise has sold worldwide an estimated of 104.260.000 and we had to add to that numer the digital sales.
That was all for the last year, I wish this year SONIC keep strong.
We have just started 2013 and the good news are coming!
Look to Sonic, his happy with the results.
From December 15th to December 22 Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed has sold 120,000 Copies.
The Xbox 360 version is the 62th game of the week in Europe with 6 weeks in charts.
The PS3 Version is the 87th (6 weeks in charts) and WiiU is the 90th game of the week (4 weeks in charts)
By the way ASR Transformed is the 7th Most Sold game for WiiU.
Until December 22, 510, 000 copies were sold in all plataforms.
That's a good start, if the game sell 100,000 copies each week we will have a succesfull game soon.
Other Sonic Games
Sonic Generations sold other 70,000 copies in the same week, right now the game has sold 2.60 million. In Europe was the the 96th Game of the week with 57 weeks in charts.
And Finally, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games has sold 4.29 million.
This game is the 27th Most Sold Game in Europe (this game even defeated Call Of Duty MW3 PC Version) and it's the 49th Game of the year in USA.
As I mentioned before the web 3DJuegos nominated Sonic and all Stars Racing Transformed in 4 categories.
Best WiiU Game
Best PSVita Game
Best 3DS Game
Best Driving Game
Sonic did not won in any of these categories, but we must not be sad. Remember those awards not always are about quality are just popular based contest.
Just an example, Assasin Creed 3 won "Best Tecnology", I mean come on! The game is good but it has more bugs than sonic 06!, well not so much but almost XD.
But in some categories Sonic was on the first places of the votes.
What can we conclude of this? The critics are awarding Sonic Franchise, but we must get more fans.
As I mentioned a lot of times, show your sonic games to your friends (the good ones of couse, like Generations, ASR Transformed, If any of you show to any of your friends sonic 06 I will personally go to your home to give you a kick in the ...!XD)
AAA Sonic Games are getting better so looks like sonic is going to enjoy 2013
Another year was gone and Sonic is stronger than in the past years.
I want to make a resume of the most important things that Sonic give us on 2012.
3 Sonic Games hits the charts.
From december to early 2012 Sonic CD was the most downloaded game on PSN.
Also in Spain in GAME Store Sonic Generations 3DS was the most sold game for the console.
Mario & Sonic in London 2012 also were the 2º most sold game for Wii.
In PS2 Sonic Heroes was the 4º most sold game and Sonic Riders reached the 10º place.
In PSP Sonic Rivals 1 & 2 were the 7º and 9º most sold games.
Good Start
In 2012 the franchise began strong because of the critical acclaim of Sonic Generations. If you remember Generations was the redentor game for a lot of sonic fans that had been far because of the bad games like sonic 2006.
But was not enough
Eventhough Sega was really bad, they report loses for a value of $188 million. That force the company to reestructure itself. (A lots of Jobs were lost because of that).
Sega only recover a little bit because of the 3.28 Millions of sold games of Mario and Sonic London 2012 and the 1.85 Millions of Generations. (At this time Generations has sold 2.53 millions)
Sonic 4 Episode 2 Hits the Charts
It may not be the most epic Sonic Game but was really fun and looks that that was enough for the fans because we make it the Nº1 Game on PSN from May until some months later.
Also in Xbox Live the game sold well.
12 Million of Digital Dowloads
Sega recently announce they will focus on Digital Games and it's look like was a good shoot.
Sonic CD, Sonic 4 Ep2 and other sonic games reached 12 Millions of digital (and legal) dowloads for mobile devices.
Recently Sonic Jump and Sonic the Fighters (for PS3 and Xbox 360) has joined to the action and is being well received.
I personally think that this could help Sega and complement the results of the AAA games.
The Game who no one were expecting (Of course yes!)
Another good new, the HD remake of Sonic Adventure 2 was a best selling.
In USA in october was the 2º most downloaded but during november and early december it was the most dowloaded.
In Europe was the most downloaded game from the very begining.
And in Xbox Live reach very good sales too.
It's Racing Transformed
The new sonic game was a critical acclaim, I posted in this blog more than 10 reviews including the always skeptical IGN who give a high rate, EuroGamer, 1UP and others, also in Metacritic the users reviews are excelent.
But the sales doesn't came as we spect it. Until now the game has only sold 390 000 copies.
But remember that we are waiting the charts update and we spect better sales according to the succes on the UK charts.
I want to believe that during the 2013 the game will sell more, the game deserve it, but I will not wait this get better by itself. I will continue promoting the game with all my gamer pals, making tournaments in my school and stuff like that.
2013?
We have so much news about the new year, but we know that sega is preparing a AAA Sonic Game and some dowloadable games.
Could 2013 be a good year for Sonic? Well it depends of Sega's future releases and of course is about us too. So if Sega does what it is asked for we must correspond too.
See you until new year, oh wait we are already... forget it, enjoy it!!!
Your Vote for Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed could make you win a PS3 or a Xbox 360 or a WiiU. How?
Well, the website 3DJuegos is choosing their GOTY 2012 and Sonic Football Manager franchises are nominated.
Football Manager 13
Best PC Game
Best Sport Game
Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed
Best WiiU Game
Best PSVita Game
Best 3DS Game
Best Driving Game
We all know that those awards are not the ultimate archievement for a franchise, but it helps with the public image of Sega and Sonic Games and by the way YOU COULD WIN A CONSOLE!!!! so you don't lose anything right?
The prices are only for Spain Residents but you can vote and support our loved blue hedgehog no matter where are you from.
This is not a good new. According to VGCharts Sonic And All Stars Racing Transformed Sales are really bad.
The last year I had a good memory, Sonic Generations reach the Top10 Most Sold Games, it doesn't matter that the game only be 2 weeks in the chartm the important thing is that he reach it. All the Webs were surprised about the succes of the game.
But I'm afraid this time is not the same
Since the game is available it only has sold 400,000 copies worldwide in ALL plataforms, is less than 80,000 copies per plataform.
Remember that when a game sales doesn't result well, something the studio lost their jobs, it would be a pitty than the guys of Sumo who has fight agains the time, the short budget and even more things doesn't receive the results they deserve.
And even more, weak sales cause damage to the Sonic Franchise. Think about it, if they released a good game (as I show you in all the reviews) and even then the sales doesn't reach the enough sales what can happen? They will start to devolop strange gameplays and everybody knows what happen next.
The Holiday Season is ending and if it is the best time to people buy videogames I don't want to imagine how the sales is going to be during the 2013.
Or go to your local videogame store and buy it, it doesn't matter where, and of course please don't buy it Pre-Owned, because if you buy it new you will get the OutRun and Metal Sonic DLC For FREE!, and remember that if you buy it pre owned you only help the store not the game.
3. If you have already buy it RECOMEND IT to your friends or game pals.
4. If you have a facebook page POST IT, recomend it.
5. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS to play the game with you.
6. ORGANICE TOURNAMENTS of the game in your schools.
ASK in the store for the game (even if you already have it) they will see the people is interested and they will buy more, the other customers may see the game and may buy it.
This game deserves more so is all about us.
I know you gonna found more and better ways to promote the game so I'll trust in you.
You guys love the price drops as much as I? Well I have a really good new. The online store Zavvi is offering some really cool Sonic games pricedrops.
First of all, if you don't have the limited edition of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, for Xbox 360 or PS3 now you can get it at half price: 23'41 €. If you want Sonic Generations you can get it for Xbox 360 or PS3 for only 16'75 €, ¡But this is only a limited time offer!
If you want to buy Sonic Colours, you can get the Wii version for only 19'29 €, and the Nintendo DS version for only 14'15€.
Finally, if you want to buy Mario & Sonic in London Games 2012 for Wii, you can get it at 28'35 € and also for Nintendo 3DS for 38'65 €.
All of the games Sonic Colours, Sonic Generations and Mario & Sonic are only price dropped for few time, and you will need to use the promotional code CLASS10 when you proceed to buy.
Nintendo has announced that 3DS version of All Stars Racing Transformed will be launched in February 2013.
Also PC gamers will love to hear that PC Version of the game may be launched on February 2013 too.
Also in the Official Sega Forums Steve Lycett told that the game has not the intention to make mods the focus of the game but he cannot assure that the game will not allow mods.
