Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is Mario Kart’s far more chaotic, perpetually drunk uncle, but it’s also perhaps the closest we’ll ever get to Nintendo’s flagship racer on our humble PCs.
It’s gimmicky and goofy as all hell. Rings fly as I crash and careen into other racers, dodging items takes far more knack than holding a banana to my ass and praying, and getting flung into entirely different tracks mid-race introduces all manner of frenzy. But my goodness if it isn’t one of the most fun, solid-feeling kart racers I’ve played that doesn’t involve an Italian plumber.
I’ll throw my hands up now and admit I’ve never even really been a Sonic the Hedgehog enjoyer… I just really like Shadow and Rouge the Bat, for no reason in particular.
While CrossWorlds is stuffed full of references that sweep the blue blur’s quarter-century career—tracks that crib from levels featured across the series, callbacks to random fluff dialogue in games of yore, and even a shoutout to the classic Sega arcade rail shooter Galaxy Force 2—you certainly don’t need to be storing all of that info up in your noggin to enjoy everything the racer has to offer.
Gotta go fast
And boy, if there sure is a whole lot to digest here. The first thing that struck me about CrossWorlds is just how damn customisable the entire experience is. Similarly to Mario Kart there’s some nifty accessibility here thanks to auto-steering (which’ll keep you from veering off-track) and auto-acceleration (so you don’t have to constantly hold a button down).
Outside of that, though, there are just so many different ways to race. CrossWorlds offers five different machines all with slightly different designs and advantages: sleek and sporty Speed cars, Acceleration buggies, compact Handling vehicles, giant quad-style Power cars, and (my favourite) Boost hoverboards.
You can even Frankenstein together different parts within a category and slap on decals to make your own bespoke racecar. Have I spent entirely too much time Guy Fieri-ing the hell out of every vehicle type because I firmly believe Shadow would go hard for a flame-adorned automobile? Obviously.
Gadgets are where CrossWorlds’ flexibility really shines, though. They’re different badges you can slot into a 3×2 board and it’s a great way to experiment or complement the way you already play.
There are gadgets that let you air trick faster, gain extra rings, hold more items, add an extra drift level, or even start a race with a specific item. More powerful gadgets take up more slots on the board, and playing around with different gadget builds has added so much more enjoyment to my time with CrossWorlds.
Kronos Drifting
Hell, all of this is even before I’ve bothered to dive into a race where I can put all of this to use. I love all of the little things CrossWorlds does here—the countdown gauge that requires careful timing to nab the best starting boost, the huge number of shortcuts that can take numerous replays of a track to even spot, the ability to snake while drifting before unleashing a devilishly long speed boost.
Tracks are three laps, with the second one always throwing me into a totally different world—see where the title comes from now? Each race presents two different options that the leader can drive towards—a random choice or a portal into a CrossWorlds. These aren’t full three-lap tracks, rather bite-size segments that continue to pay respects to Sonics of Sega past.
Some of them are full-blown flying segments that transforms my vehicle into a plane, even letting me drift in the air to hit speed boosts and collect rings (collecting 100 rings works similarly to getting 10 coins in Mario Kart, giving a lovely little uptick in MPH as long as I can hold onto ’em) while others have me air tricking through water and catching some waves.
Gadgets are where CrossWorlds’ flexibility really shines.
The game’ll sometimes throw a little frenzy modifier on top of these too, somehow layering even more chaos on top with things like near-constant random items or an insane number of dash panels and dash gates to speed through.
There’s a constant shifting dynamic that makes no two races in CrossWorlds feel the same. It gets a little too hectic for my liking at times—especially in multiplayer mode where players frequently hoard items until the final stretch, boiling the final standings down to little more than who had the best RNG—but I can’t help but be totally here to pick up whatever chaos CrossWorlds is putting down.
If this has got you itching to go all-in on hedgehog kart racing, you can check out Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds out now on Steam and the Epic Game Store.
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