Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

[Zork Nemesis]

If ultra-hard-mode is too hard, don't forget that there are lower difficulty settings too for casual play. I find that B-class is right about my level - the AI doesn't cheat, but still provides a fairly good challenge. There are a few courses where I can gain a monster lead and hold it for the entire race, but even on those ones I don't always win. After finally managing tonight to grind the last 25 stars I needed to unlock AGES, I don't think I will be subjecting myself to A or S-class again anytime soon.

Casual play doesn't unlock characters...
I can do A-Class races just fine, I've yet to lose a grand-prix first-place podium spot in A and I almost always beat the Hard (A-level) staff ghosts on my first lap, it's just once you go beyond that they really stop playing fair (or in the case of Expert ghosts, those require a crap ton of perfection, I've yet to come within 2 seconds of beating one, closest I've come is the one in Dream Valley).

For some reason, unlocking AGES didn't trigger the all-characters achievement/sticker, even though I have all 21 chars... anyone else have this issue?

It unlocked for me the moment I finished another race, doesn't award stickers until it's time to award them. Run a quick time trial.

[Will T.]

Update was sent to Sega today, which should fix voice chat, crashes, and "game no longer available" nonsense. Hopefully it ships soon!
The patch evidently includes a push-to-talk option for mic chat, which is very much needed. Hopefully there's a way to bind that to a convenient key on a 360 pad.

I know it was probably pure coincidence, but in a SP race yesterday I happened to notice NiGHTS and Reala in the middle of the pack singling each other out and trying to shove each other off the track. I'm sure it wasn't scripted that way, but I still thought it was kinda neat to see two characters who are rivals in their shared franchise duking it out and ignoring the rest of the racers in order to do so. Kinda gives the characters some added life and personality, plus reminds you that they all come from different worlds and many share histories within those worlds.

[Zork Nemesis]

Update was sent to Sega today, which should fix voice chat, crashes, and "game no longer available" nonsense. Hopefully it ships soon!
The patch evidently includes a push-to-talk option for mic chat, which is very much needed. Hopefully there's a way to bind that to a convenient key on a 360 pad.

Concerning Push-to-Talk, the developer in contact with the Steam discussion boards put his screenshot of the upcoming audio options surrounding it. New options include a push-to-talk key, which the binding is probably going to be able to be set on the controller, the ability to adjust the volume of in-game voice chat, and the ability to outright turn it off if you just don't want to hear it and race.

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They're also looking at potentially implementing Valve Anti-Cheat in the near future for online play, though I've yet to see anyone actually cheat so I don't know how necessary that is, if at all. The INTZ fixes are down the road as well, but they're taking a bit longer due to "the complexity surrounding the issue".

[ShiftyDevil]

I'm going to use a completed save file for all the characters as soon as I find one. This whole stuff with the rubber banding AI is not fun at all.

I have 160-something stars (unlocked AGES), I could probably give you my save.

[abiscuit]

I'm going to use a completed save file for all the characters as soon as I find one. This whole stuff with the rubber banding AI is not fun at all.

I have 160-something stars (unlocked AGES), I could probably give you my save.

The other question is if it will accept it. I don't care about the Steam achievements.

[ShiftyDevil]

No idea

[Will T.]

Everyone who hasn't done so already should go to the Options screen and try adjusting the voice and crowd volume sliders up and down. Quite funny, especially the Voice slider.

[Zork Nemesis]

I managed to fall out of Dream Valley during the boating section.

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I got a bit beneath that space-y area (never played NiGHTs, don't know what that area is supposed to be) before it realized I was boating through a flight area/the skybox and dumped me back on the river.

Vyse always said he wanted to sail the world, I don't think this is quite what he meant.

On a semi-related note, I found out that the game will not let you drive a course in reverse. You get the "wrong way" sign when you first spin around, but if you don't get back in the right direction within five seconds or so, it'll reset you as if you fell off the track and face you in the right direction.

[abiscuit]

Everyone who hasn't done so already should go to the Options screen and try adjusting the voice and crowd volume sliders up and down. Quite funny, especially the Voice slider.

The announcer voice is so bad, though it was funny what he was saying before I muted him forever...except for the intro...

[Zork Nemesis]

For reference, if you don't intend to get a save file to just straight up unlock everything, beyond AGES' 200 star gate: A boost race on Curien Mansion Mirror and a normal race on Race of Ages Mirror. Past Race of Ages is the 232 star AGES "console" mod. Nothing beyond that.

Race of Ages is ridiculously easy on Expert by the way, the AI can't stay on the track, and they screw up royally if you're in first place and choose the flight section at the fork instead of the boats.

[Zork Nemesis]

I might complain about the absurdity of the AI or how some modes are really dumb (looking at you Traffic Attack), but this feels like quite an accomplishment in the face of all that.

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[Zork Nemesis]

So anyone else drive a boat on land?

Nope, but I drove a car through the water!


Failed so hard it gave me a pity respawn.

[Will T.]

Patch is coming tomorrow, according to the devs:

Hello,

Just a quick update, had a chat with SEGA today and all being well we'll have an initial update out for you tomorrow. The testing has proceeded well though a few minor issues have had to be corrected.

This will fix the majority of issues, but not the INTZ one. That's actually quite a major chunk of work that is now underway, but it needs testing on a number of affected devices and since it requires a special version of all the shaders in the game too, it's not a quick or simple job to test either.

Once we've addressed the INTZ issue here, I'll get some screens done showing the WIP and we'll give you an estimate of when it will hit too. I appreciate this is taking some time, but we'd rather do it right once, than rush it and do it not quite right a couple of times...!

Right now they're focusing on the multiplayer issues and the crashes. Hopefully we can get some more Villun games going once this patch hits!
The "INTZ issue" he mentions is a rendering problem with older video cards which causes the game's shadows to render, but nothing else. It has to do with the GPU routines through which objects are rendered, which apparently involve methods that weren't standard on GPUs until a couple years ago, unbeknownst to the devs.


And now, for your potential amusement, I bring you a fascinating story of love, betrayal, and a truly Crazy Taxi:

I was in the middle of an S-class GP race (which seem to me to be a bit less nasty than the single S-class races in World Tour, especially since you can fail a couple races and still win the GP) on Graffiti City as B.D. Joe. I reached third place and received an All-Star, which obviously I thought I would use to attempt to reach first. Unfortunately the thrust provided by Joe's turbofied plane form was too much for one of the course's ramps, and Joe overshot the track, crashing into a collision-less portion of a building that branched over the course. He sped up to near-supersonic speeds through several towers, then was slingshotted backwards even faster, passing through several skyscrapers before finally spinning like a top and landing pointed backwards on the course about a quarter-mile behind where this had all started, perhaps a little nauseous but none the worse for wear.

That All-Star pushed me all the way back to 8th place. I finished in 5th, but still managed to win the GP by a couple points. Even through it screwed me out of victory in the race, it was pretty darn hilarious to watch it all go down in the span of about 4 seconds. Doubt I could do it again reliably.

[Zork Nemesis]

Patch is in open beta, they caught an issue last second that will take another day to fix, so rather than breaking a promise, it's currently an opt-in situation.
From S0l concerning the patch:

============
Update 12th Feb
============

Evening!

So... Today we've had to fix a problem that SEGA spotted and whilst we've confirmed it's fixed here, they want to spend some time testing it down there. I had a good chat with our Producer on their end and we both agreed we still wanted to get the update out to you guys today, we really don't like to break promises we've made.

But... We also were wary that whilst we're happy it's fixed, we don't have the kind of test resource they do. The fix would usually take a day to test. Neither of us wanted to push an update out to everyone with such a small amount of testing on it.

Which put us in a weird spot...

Thankfully, she's much cleverer than me and already had a solution. We'd make it available as a Beta to people who already own the game and whilst we confirm it is fixed in the way we expect, you're also welcome to give it a test before it hits general release.

There is a catch (isn't there always!) - if you're using this Beta branch version, you won't be able to play players who are on the 'official' live version. We do this to ensure any testing ongoing doesn't affect anyone playing the game outside of us and SEGA. So if you want to play multiplayer it means you can only play people who have opted into the Beta...

'Stop all this babble!' I hear you cry 'Just tell me how I access the Beta!'

Fair enough...

1. Go to the Steam Library Page.
2. Find game in the list!
3. Right click on the game, and choose 'Properties' from the context menu.
4. Click on the BETAS tab.
5. Choose the 'Beta - Beta' branch.
6. It'll want a password. The password for now is 'GottaGoFast'.
7. Click close to exit the Properties page...
8. Watch the game update...!
9. Play game as normal

Note at any time you can opt out of the Beta and back in (well unless we change the password!) by following the above steps and choosing the 'NONE - Opt out of all Betas' option.

When we push the update live to everyone tomorrow, if you're on the Beta, you'll already be up to date if you drop back to the live version. Steam is clever like that.

So what does this address... Pretty all the original issues but the INTZ one. We're making good progress with an INTZ update and now we have the Beta branch available, we will of course make an update available in a similar way to this one once it's ready. That won't be for at least a couple of days though.

I'll also create a new Discussion Topic for anyone using the Beta version for any discussion, just so we've got it all in the one place.

Oh... and one last word, whilst I've seen this in the comments, I've had confirmation from SEGA that the Metal Sonic & OutRun DLC will be made available on Friday. Somehow I forgot that last night!

In addition, this post also confirms Metal Sonic and OutRun Bay for Friday.

[BigBiker05]

Anyone buy the DLC?