ONM Interview Craig Duncan On ASR

Official Nintendo Magazine UK has posted up an interview they’ve had with Craig Duncan, development director at Sumo Digital, to talk about Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing. The interview discusses how the game came to be, Sumo’s relationship with SEGA, comparisons to Mario Kart, favourite characters and Gilius from Golden Axe.

ONM are quite interested in the game’s depth compared to Mario Kart such as the drifting mechanic –

ONM: It is a lot easier to drift around corners in Sonic & Sega Racing than in Mario Kart Wii. Was that because you wanted to remove the barriers for novices?

Craig Duncan: I think we have the same level of depth but I think our drift system is a lot more accessible than Mario Kart so I think you can learn and get drift by playing either a tutorial or a race mission. But it takes a lot longer to master drift so we do have depth for the hardcore racers. It’s got to be accessible and it’s got to have depth.

ONM also liken the game’s commentator to classic cartoon Wacky Races –

ONM: Were you inspired by anything else? The commentary is very Wacky Races?

Craig Duncan: Yeah it is maybe a bit Wacky Races. It’s a game system as much as anything else. So if one of the characters behind gets an All-Star move the commentator will say “Amy Rose has just got her All-Star move!” You’ll know that someone behind you has a certain move so it’s a helpful system for the player. It informs you of what’s going on.

Or if people fire certain weapons the commentator will tell you so. He’ll also chide and goad you if you’re doing badly. He’ll say “that’s not great driving from Sonic” if you bounce off a few corners so it’s really helping you experience the game and how it plays much better.

You can check out the interview in full at ONM’s website.