This holiday season saw the release of three fairly high-profile kart racing games, and not a single one of them had anything to do with Mario. But which one is worth your limited holiday money, and how do they stack up against each other? GamesBeat put F1 Race Stars, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and LittleBigPlanet Karting through their paces to find out.

Presentation

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

As with the original, courses in Sonic Transformed are inspired by games across the entire library of Sega franchises. With courses from sources such as Panzer Dragoon to Nights into Dreams, this has plenty of nostalgic magic to bask in. It’s also interesting to see some of those worlds re-created (in race track form, of course) in modern, high-definition graphics. Sonic Transformed isn’t exactly rocking the latest in Unreal Engine technology or anything like that, but the colorful, cartoonish approach fits this well. Likewise, the expansive soundtrack by longtime game industry composer Richard Jacques revives some of the greatest tunes to ever accompany pixels and polygons on-screen, and even throws in some subtle dubstep on the main menu for good measure.

LittleBigPlanet Karting

Even in kart form, Sackboy and the LittleBigPlanet universe retain their wholly unique audiovisual stylings. The game is not so fast or frantic that you can’t still enjoy the pieced-together locales, and the soundtrack is as an eclectic medley as you’d expect from the series. Longtime fans will find the identical user interface immediately accessible, but, just as in the main games, I feel like the weird, forced story elements are mere nuisances just begging to be skipped. 

F1 Race Stars

F1 games are typically rather dull as far as visuals goes. No matter how impressive the graphics engine behind them are, basing a game around real-world locations doesn’t always make for the greatest eye candy. But F1 Race Stars doesn’t have any such “realism” holding it back, and so the cartoonish tracks are very imaginative, complete with loops, river rapids, and huge jumps. The track design is definitely the key to F1 Race Stars appeal, as its audio presentation is forgettable (seriously, I can’t even remember it, at all).

Wreck It Ralph’s Sugar Rush course recreated in LittleBigPlanet Karting.

Gameplay

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Building off of the strengths of the original Sonic & All-Stars Racing, developer Sumo Digital has taken a page out of Nintendo 64 classic Diddy Kong Racing’s playbook: In specific stages, your vehicle transforms between a kart, a boat, and a plane.

The core racing is what you’d expect, especially if you’ve played any other kart racing game ever (drift long enough to build up a speed boost and so on). Aerial sequences are decent. The controls are not as precise as they probably could have been, making it unnecessarily difficult to navigate tight spaces. The water sequences add some nice variety, at least visually, but the water physics themselves seem intentionally flat. This was probably to even the playing field for all racers, and that’s not a bad thing, but don’t expect any impressive water effects like what you’d find in Hydro Thunder or Assassin’s Creed III.

Unfortunately, Sonic Transformed is surprisingly difficult, and this comes from someone who mastered notoriously frustrating games like Crash Nitro Racing, Diddy Kong Racing, and Demon’s Souls. Each Grand Prix or World Tour event has four different difficulty settings, from Easy to Expert. The Normal setting will give you a run for your money, but the difficulties beyond that will be downright insurmountable for most players. This is its biggest fault — and a surprising design decision for a kid-friendly kart racer.

LittleBigPlanet Karting

Powersliding so that you can boost out of turns seems to be a mainstay of kart racing games, and LittleBigPlanet is no different. You can also pick up power-ups to attack fellow racers, but this system is much more pedestrian than the bullet hell-esque upgrade system in ModNation.

Sadly, the stunt mechanic in LittleBigPlanet Karting is terrible, in my opinion. You hold a button to rotate Sackboy in mid-air, but if you don’t land perfectly, and I mean perfectly, you’ll end up facing the wrong way or losing speed. It just doesn’t seem worth the trouble.

F1 Race Stars

Touted as being developed by the same company behind technical racers such as Grid and Dirt, F1 Race Stars makes two rookie mistakes, the first of which is completely unbalanced enemy A.I. who will constantly spam you with heat-seeking attacks. I have no problem maintaining first place in a race and blocking the occasional attacker looking to dethrone me, but when you’re overwhelmed every few seconds by incoming missiles, it’s impossible to dodge them all. One successful hit can set you back several race positions, and this killed the game for me pretty much immediately. It’s just not fun.

To compound matters, F1 Race Stars also tries to introduce some Formula 1-racing staples such as repairing your car at the pit, which really has no place in an allegedly exciting fantasy kart racing game. It slows the pace of every match down and ties into my first complaint, which is being bombarded with attacks. These will not only make you lose positions and momentum but damage will quickly slow your kart down until you repair. No thanks.

Hitting the waves in Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed.

Multiplayer

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

You can either race or battle online in Sonic Transformed. Racing tends to get somewhat manic, as players all bunch up on the same places on the track, firing off weapons and running into each other. For some reason bumping another player in multiplayer causes you to lose speed and control over your vehicle, which doesn’t happen in single-player. It’s actually really annoying, as are all the weird glitches that seem to be provoked by playing against other players.

You can also play with up to four players locally in any of the game’s modes, including arena-style battle matches. If you have some friends willing to sit through the career with you, they can help level up your characters and combat the A.I. so you don’t have as many unfair enemies to deal with.

LittleBigPlanet Karting

There currently seems to be an issue with the servers that are preventing me from updating the game, so I couldn’t play online. We have a rule at GamesBeat that we write what we experienced (as opposed to saying what should have happened). However, just from playing the campaign and reading the trophy descriptions, Karting looks to sport all the same multiplayer options as the platforming versions, and of course the user-created levels and sharing play a massive role in the online portion of the game.

F1 Race Stars

F1 Race Stars offers a few team-based or solo multiplayer modes online, but you should consider them nonexistent since that’s what the community for this game is. If you’re looking to hop in a random match, you’ll be sitting in a lobby all by yourself for a long time. Up to four players can play split-screen locally, and this is probably the only good way to enjoy the game, as it reduces the A.I.’s presence to be a little more bearable.

Sackboy’s about to have a bad day.

Extras

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

The career campaign offers a handful of unique challenges aside from standard races. Getting as many stars as you can and unlocking all the characters will act as your primary goal in the game, but the Hard and Expert difficulties will test your patience and sanity. Time Trials and a Grand Prix mode round out the single-player offerings for those looking to eventually get all the Achievements/trophies.

LittleBigPlanet Karting

LittleBigPlanet games are known for their virtually limitless community-driven content, and Karting is no different. The story mode provides plenty of minigame races to whet your appetite with possibilities, and for newcomers it’s a bit easier to produce results with the creation tools here than in standard LBP titles. You can also import your Sackpeople and outfits from previous games.

F1 Race Stars

F1 doesn’t come with nearly as many bells and whistles as the other games. You won’t find much outside of the main Grand Prix mode.

Sonic and Amy having a romantic spat on one of Transformed’s Sonic the Hedgehog-themed courses.

Conclusion

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Racing your Xbox Live Avatar against Ulala and Nights in a Panzer Dragoon-themed course is worth the $40 asking price alone. The steep difficulty curve can be an insurmountable frustration in an otherwise great game, but there is still a ton of varied content and some solid racing to be had. Its transforming gimmick, multiplayer options and nostalgic soundtrack help liven the package, making this a must-buy for old-school Sega fans or younger players waiting for an introduction to some of gaming’s greatest franchises. GET!

LittleBigPlanet Karting

You could argue this is essentially a reskinned ModNation Racers, but LittleBigPlanet Karting is hands-down my preferred method for consuming this series. I never really felt like Media Molecule provided good enough controls or fun enough level design, but Sleeping Dogs developer United Front Games seems to have circumvented that. It’s not without its faults, and the standard retail price seems high for what’s essentially a side mode, but LittleBigPlanet’s signature user-created tools provide endless replay value and unique style make this a worthwhile purchase for most interested PlayStation 3 owners. GET!

F1 Race Stars 

While the concept was worth a shot, the execution fails in a few very vital ways. Even if this had been a budget-priced downloadable, which is what it looks and feels like, the annoying kart damage, pit stops, and relentless assault of enemy attacks suck any would-be enjoyment from this promising title. SKIP

Super-deformed F1 race stars waving goodbye to their short-lived kart-racing careers.

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My cousin has a saying: “Speed is your friend.” Though this mantra has led him into countless crashes and broken bones while mountain biking, he still swears by it. It’s something I kept thinking about while playing LittleBigPlanet Karting, where reckless driving is a requirement. Otherwise, you couldn’t go fast enough to launch off a ramp, swing through the air with your grappling hook, and pull off a few tricks before you (hopefully) land.

Developer United Front Games is no stranger to kart racing: It released ModNation Racers in 2010 for the PlayStation 3. It’s also a game that espouses a “Play, Create, Share” philosophy of user-generated levels similar to LittleBigPlanet’s ethos. Out today for the PS3, LittleBigPlanet Karting expands what UFG started with ModNation Racers with even more tools and options for budding level designers to experiment with.

Factor in the whimsical story mode and a seemingly endless level of customization and you’re looking at one of the most entertaining kart racers ever made.

What you’ll like

It might as well be LittleBigPlanet 3
United Front Games not only replicates the charming look of LittleBigPlanet but it also nails its feel. The playful sense of humor ripples throughout all corners of the Craftworld (the universe that all LittleBigPlanet characters inhabit), where the arrival of the Hoard — a special breed of Sack people who look like they crawled out of a Tim Burton film — causes chaos as they mysteriously start looting everything they see.

The driving controls are tight and responsive, so much so that I’m convinced LittleBigPlanet is far better suited as a kart racing game rather than a platformer. Even the sound of your wheels hitting the digital pavement (assuming you’re not using any hovercraft karts) is satisfying; it lends a sense of weight to your vehicle, and you do feel like you have full control as you drift through tricky curves or attempt to do a 720-degree aerial spin. It only takes a few seconds for these mechanics to click, and you never feel like the game gets in the way of your driving.

And then we’ve got the vocals of English actor and comedian Stephen Fry. The franchises’s narrator lends his voice again to intros of story levels or teaching the fundamentals of Create mode. His words are dripping with enthusiasm and affection, and I can’t help but feel smarter after listening to many of his educational speeches in the game. If I could, I’d pay an obscene amount of money to have Fry read me a bedtime story every night for the rest of my life.

Dizzying level of customization
Just like your Sackboy (who you can outfit with costume pieces, materials, and objects), your kart is open to a wide assortment of customization options. Feel like flying around inside the mouth of a dinosaur? Slap the hovercraft suspension to your vehicle and off you go. Want to drive a tank instead? You can instantly replace the wheels of any of the kart models — gradually unlocked from playing the story mode — with some serious treads. It’s up to you.

Game design 101
The deceptively simple Create mode is more than a track designer: You can build levels that have nothing to do with kart racing. Since the LittleBigPlanet Karting servers aren’t live until release, United Front Games provided a small sample of user-created levels from its team. And the variety is crazy: One level is a top-down tank battle where you must capture nodes to earn points. Another is a card-flipping memory test. And one creative person managed to make a simple tower defense game, complete with a handful of enemy waves and different towers.

I have no idea how they did it. But I’m sure you can find the answer by watching all 57 of the short tutorial videos explaining the various functions possible in Create mode. You can modify A.I. behavior, cutscenes, music, animated objects, and much more with a few button presses. United Front Games used these very same tools to design the levels in the story mode, so Create mode is definitely powerful, if somewhat overwhelming.

But you can create a basic no-frills racing track in a few minutes. You do this by “painting” over an area with giant rollers and brushes, an intuitive mechanic that makes it easy to understand.

Inventive weapons and strategies
LittleBigPlanet Karting has a few unique power-ups that mix up the flow of a race. One of my favorites is the flying boxing glove, which is helpful if you’re trailing behind, catapulting your kart through the track with incredible speed. And the Paintinator Gun is ideal for hitting multiple targets … and really annoying for any friends or strangers you’re playing with online.

Traditional staples like speed boosts (represented here with jet packs) and tricks also get a shiny coat of LBP paint. They add interesting dimensions to your overall strategy: Do you keep your weapons to shield yourself from other attacks — achieved by firing it backward at the right time — or do you just chance it and let it fly? This is especially important in the last leg of a race, as the wrong decision could cost you your lead.

What you won’t like

It feels a little too familiar
Parts of LittleBigPlanet Karting can feel like you’re playing through a “greatest hits” selection of levels from previous LBP games. Some familiar faces, along with song choices, make a repeat performance. As you progress from planet to planet, you’ll also notice a consistent layout of races, battles, and objective-based minigames (such as boss fights). The number of these levels vary, but it makes the game feel predictable after a short amount of time.

The on-disc content is a little anemic. Once you blow through the campaign, the only reason to go back is to collect prize bubbles: the “VS.” battles that unlock from finishing these tracks are only useful if you plan on playing with other people (online or off). You’ll have to wait until the community gets a hold of LBP Karting to play some new content — that, however, shouldn’t take long.

Difficulty spikes
To progress through the story, you have to end up somewhere on the top three at the end of a race or battle. While challenging, you can easily pass them on the first try. But about halfway through the game, the A.I. felt a lot more aggressive as they kept knocking me off of my coveted spot only seconds before finishing a level. I replayed one race four times with the same result before I finally scraped by with a win.

Part of the blame is with the power-ups: If you’re falling behind, you (and the A.I.) have a greater chance of earning speed-boosting weapons, like the flying boxing glove, to help you catch up. It’s a good idea in theory. But when you see the entire bottom third of racers all activate the glove at the same time as you do, it looks a little ridiculous. You just end up in the same place as before.

Conclusion

LittleBigPlanet Karting is in a weird place. It’s technically a spin-off, but it has enough features to rival the first two LBP platforming games. United Front Games has done a phenomenal job of re-creating the look and feel of the Craftworld while applying its kart racing expertise with imaginative tracks and responsive controls. And the Create mode is nothing short of stunning, even if I don’t have the patience for it. Depending on how the community of players respond, it might be the only kart racing game you’ll ever need.

Score:  79/100

LittleBigPlanet Karting is available Nov. 6, 2012, for the PlayStation 3. Sony provided GamesBeat with a copy of the game for the purpose of this review. 

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It’s beginning to look a lot like your respective non-denominational gift-giving holiday … or just October. Although for many businesses, that is the first month of the “season.” Likewise, many customers are bracing themselves for a merry December by preparing their gift-receiving wish lists.

In regards to video games, consumer-tracking firm Nielsen determined customers’ most anticipated titles for holiday 2012.

Let’s break this down by console.

Most anticipated Xbox 360 titles:

1. Halo 4
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
3. Assassin’s Creed III
4. Resident Evil 6
5. NBA 2K13
6. Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
7. Medal of Honor: Warfighter
8. WWE ’13
9. Hitman: Absolution
10. Fable: The Journey

Most anticipated PlayStation 3 titles:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II
2. Assassin’s Creed III
3. Resident Evil 6
4. NBA 2K13
5. WWE ’13
6. Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
7. Hitman: Absolution
8. 007: Legends
9. Medal of Honor: Warfighter
10. LittleBigPlanet Karting

Most anticipated Wii titles:

1. Just Dance 4
2. Zumba Fitness Core
3. Lego The Lord of the Rings
4. Just Dance: Disney Party
5. Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
6. NBA 2K13
7. WWE ’13
8. Transformers Prime: The Game
9. Skylanders Giants
10. Nickelodeon Dance 2

Most notable about this data is just how similar the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 lists are. In fact, they’re nearly identical except for Microsoft’s pair of exclusives (Halo 4, Fable: The Journey) and Sony’s one exclusive (LittleBitPlanet Karting.) It’s possible that the companies reallocated the bulk of their first-party resources to next-generation systems, which many expect the manufacturers will debut next year, and third-party publishers are hesitant to restrict any of their big games to a single console.

Every single game on each list is either a sequel or part of an existing franchise. Again, we’re at the end of a generation. That’s when publishers tend to withhold new franchises so they can prep them to ride the hype of a new console launch.

Nielsen did note that Bethesda’s Dishonored, a new property, only narrowly missed the top 10 most anticipated games on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The Wii’s list is the most depressing, but Nintendo has the Wii U due out in November. Nielsen did not provide a most-anticipated list of Wii U games.

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Full disclosure: I’m a LittleBigPlanet fan. I’ve played both LBP entries on the PlayStation 3 as well as the PSP version, and I’ve most recently played LittleBigPlanet Karting for a preview. I enjoy the platforming style (just a little bit floaty) and the joyous, warm, cuddly vibe of the LBP universe. My children and I thrill to the local multiplayer in LBP 2, and I frequently find my son searching through the community tags to find some odd “versus” level that he can jump around in, even to this day.

It’s with that in mind that I say that LittleBigPlanet Vita may be the best version of the game yet. Of course, the flip side is that it isn’t any great leap forward in LBP gaming design, but rather a strong iteration that makes use of the Sony PlayStation Vita hardware in brilliant and definitive ways.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

The Story
Similar to LittleBigPlanet 2, the Vita version has a distinct storyline that helps shape the point of the running all around, bounding off of things, and the like. In summary, the Imagiverse is in danger yet again; this time from the evil Puppeteer, who is stealing the joy from the universe, using his Hollow Men creations to do his bidding, and just generally making life miserable for the planet sponsors, each of whom have unique and fully-voiced cutscenes and roles to play at the beginning of each level set within their realm. The final denouement is at once charming and clever, tying all the characters together with the LittleBigPlanet concepts of creation and joy. Well done, indeed.

The Platforming
The fun of LBP is the soft, floating, toy-like feel of it all. The jumping is less than precise, and the hazards are both forgiving and burtal at times. It’s all great fun, though, as Sackboy swoops, runs, hops, and grapples his way through each level. In several spots, I realized that I was grinning while engaged with a rapt Zen-like concentration, tapping into the flow of button presses and timed jumps, hurling my little cloth person through tubes, across chasms, and into more and more tactile environments.

Use of Vita Hardware
Here’s where the Vita shines: with a touchscreen, a touch-sensitive back, and a camera, Sony’s handheld hardware is the perfect complement to the game itself. Players will need to make good use of the front touchscreen to move gears, slide floating platforms, and tap buttons along the way. The rear touchpad is also significantly utilized, similar to that of Escape Plan. Little round shapes appear on the screen wherever fingers tap the rear of the Vita, creating even more of a three dimensional feel when pushing out hidden platforms to jump onto, or popping gears into place.

The Vita’s built-in camera is the killer feature here, as PlayStation 3 fans needed to have purchased the EyeToy camera to ever take photos for the console versions of LittleBigPlanet. And seriously, how much variety do you find in your TV room to take photos of? With the portable nature of the Vita hardware, pictures can be snapped and brought into the game with no problem at all. What better way to decorate your Pod, the spot where you begin your adventures, than with pictures of your friends, pets, and family members?

Create and Share
The tools to make your own levels have been a main feature of every LittleBigPlanet game since the original installment. LittleBigPlanet 2 improved on some of the kludge involved in optimizing the creation tools for a video game controller. The Vita version of the game adds touch, and boy is it a winner. Having the ability to tap on the screen to move things around, select items with a tap, or draw a photo-editing-style lasso around several objects is the best thing since the tools to create levels themselves.

I spent my time with LittleBigPlanet Vita before its general release, so there were very few Community levels to speak of  (mostly just worlds named “Test”). I look forward, however, to the exceedingly talented group of LBP world creators getting their hands on this game.

The Mini Games
While many of these truly seem like simple tech demos, it’s clear that the developers had a lot of fun coming up with new ways to challenge the Vita hardware while adding some fun little single and multiplayer challenges along the way. Many of them require you to re-orient the portable device to a portrait layout and ask that a second person play on the opposite end of the screen. It’s welcoming, inviting play that fits in extremely well with the overall universe design and thematic elements.

Stephen Fry & The Soundtrack
The loquacious and charming narrator is back. Fry brings a wit and diction to the LittleBigPlanet universe that continue to bring a smile to my face. The experience wouldn’t be the same, to its detriment, if he wasn’t the voice behind the tutorials or the introductory movie. The music, while not as specifically recognizable as the first LittleBigPlanet soundtrack was, keeps up its quirky and eclectic pace throughout with some stellar pieces set as backdrops to the fine visual goings-on.

WHAT YOU WON’T LIKE

Inconsistent Difficulty
The pedagogy of LittleBigPlanet remains in full force here; the Vita version takes players by the hand at first, teaches them all they need to know, and then lets them practice those skills in ever less supported ways. Each major world section has a boss to get past at the end, and these are all fairly straightforward but for a couple of significantly difficult passages. To go from “relatively easy with practice” to “fiendishly difficult with excessive re-tries” is a harrowing experience, and it may discourage some players from their efforts to complete the story. While this isn’t a deal-breaker — there’s still plenty of fun to be had in multiplayer and Community levels, not to mention the creation tools — cleaning up the difficulty spike in these couple of spots would have fit in better with the game as an inviting place to play.

The Little Screen
For a game that encourages sharing and creating, it would be fantastic to have the ability to get the small screen up on a big screen in some way. I like to show my kids what I am creating and make a social event of a speed run through a difficult section on the console version of the game, and with the added functionality the touch screen brings to level creation, I wished I had the ability to display the onscreen goings on up on a larger screen for some same-room sharing. I can only hope for some sort of Cross-Play functionality to come to the title soon.

CONCLUSION

Bottom line: I thoroughly enjoyed my time with LittleBigPlanet Vita. Being able to use my fingers to manage items onscreen in both story and creation environments is a significant upgrade in the playability of the title. The story is enjoyable and unique, the characters, including the narrator, are quirky, and the toolset for creating and sharing new experiences continues to mature. I sorely wish I could project this up to the big screen to allow others to watch and help the process, and some of the tougher sections were more tough than necessary as compared to the rest of the game, but these are small, niggling criticisms. LittleBigPlanet Vita is my favorite iteration on an already fantastic universe which was built in no small part by the community that loves it.

Score: 93/100

LittleBigPlanet Vita was released for the PlayStation Vita on September 12, 2012. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a downloadable copy of the game for the purpose of this review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Move over, Mario Kart: It’s Sackboy’s turn on the track. The official PlayStation Blog announced today that the beta signups are now live for the upcoming user-content racer LittleBigPlanet Karting. Interested? Head here for the application.

In development by United Front Games with series creator Media Molecule, LittleBigPlanet Karting sends the adorable Sackboy and his friends onto the asphalt in go-kart races spanning several modes, such as Waypoint, and Time Attack. Karting also incorporates the franchise-staple user-generated content, giving players tools to craft, modify, and share their own tracks, weapons, karts, and rules.

LittleBigPlanet Karting releases later this year at an yet-unspecified date for the PlayStation 3.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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