Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

Go to Kindafunny.com/XREAL, Amazon, or Best Buy to grab yours now!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FDPGHVCB?maas=maas_adg_94D809319DE2358E49DA54BC8B880A40_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas Best Buy: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/xreal-one-pro-ar-glasses-w-x1-chip-171-fhd-120hz-display-w-sound-by-bose-for-iphone16-15-steam-rog-mac-pc-android-ios-57-66mm-ipd/CZTVG22GYF Thank you for the support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, August 25th, 2025. That's not right. Tuesday, August 26th, 2025. Of course, I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm doing today by Roger Percorney. Get you head in the game. Got to get you, get you, get you, get you head in the game. Blessing Adioia, Jr. Why don't you point at me like there's another. No, I want you to, I want you to do another song. There's the next part. Yeah. I'm going to put Shrek in the conversation for the conversation you were just having that we don't need to rehash. Yeah. So I want you to understand how much you're arguing against your point that Titanic is one of the top five.

most iconic movies of the last 30 years 30 years chat again listen to what he just said he's saying that like that's a crazy thing but you're now naming Shrek you're naming more than five things already no if I'm limiting it to five I'm saying Titanic

I'm saying one of them Avengers movies I'm saying I'll put out there dark night this all stemmed from do the kids know about high school musical yeah that's my question bait of that the kids currently know about high school That was one of the ones I said. Avatar.

Avatar's number one for sure. Okay. You name it a lot of things. And I love Titanic. I know how much money it made. I've seen Titanic many times and so has the most of the world. You have not blessed.

No, I'm not. It will change that. I've not, yeah. It will change your goddamn life. Again, Titanic and Avatar exist in the same category for me where I've not seen it, but I acknowledge the greatness.

I put my ones in the air. I got to acknowledge it that hard. Okay. The Matrix. The Matrix. Yes, chat. Yes, chat. Yes, chat.

Yes, chat. Continue to prove the point. Remember, this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday. We get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics of video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Little housekeeping for you.

We're an 11-person business. all about live talk shows. Today, Games Daily was all about PlayStation making big changes because of Concord's failure. Then the stream after this is going to be Greg hanging out with Erica Ishi. That's pretty cool. What's that all about? It's a little return. We have cool friends. Why not? They said, do you want to interview Eric? I said, sure, we'll bring her out. Let's just do a stream. We'll hang on chit chat. I've talked to Eric in a long time.

Very, very cool. If you're kind of funny member, today's Greg, weighs 17 minutes answering the question, will Nintendo ever get third party support? It's looking bad, isn't it? Yep. More and more and more. They don't need it. They're fucking it all up, man. Who cares? Me. Deeply.

No, all you think you care, you don't care. You're just hung up because your wife's cousins, boyfriend's husband, wife, worker who does the thing at corporate has a switch. And that's all they have. And that's the only thing they can play. That person comes up many times. That person comes up many times in the Greg way. You can catch right now on Patreon, YouTube, or Spotify or Apple.

Nintendo could be dominating so much more than they are. And they could be saving the video game industry. There's a great point. If I got in shape right now, who dominate the NFL, who cares? I'm doing great at my own. Let's let everyone else die then. Let's just not care about the industry around us.

Cool. Today we're brought to you by X-Rail. Thank you to our page. I'm talking about it. I'm going to make a buster and Delaney the Somme. We're fighting for now. Let's start with the topic of the show. I went to a concert.

I saw the classic blessing late night's story. I thought it was going to be some sporty was playing. God, I was at the clips concert. Let me tell you. I've never been, I've never been at a play. place so loud. I've never felt so

washed. Because like, I'm there in like three minutes in this concert, I was like fuck, dude. I don't want to go home. It's so loud. I love the clips. I love how much they love rapping about cocaine. But like, man, is it loud in here? But let me tell you, that's my first time in the GA section of Warfield.

I was on the first floor. Hell yeah. It's popping off down there. Yeah, no, it's great. We played it. Sonic Gracie and Roger, Bless, Greg, and Ben Miller. Ben Miller. Ben had his first ever preview event, which is very, very cool. I can't wait to hear all about what he had to say about Sonic Racing Crossroads. But first, I want to start with Blessing Adioje Jr. You are a big Sonic fan. I don't know if you're a Sonic Racing fan. Not really. Like, I liked Sega All Stars Racing Transform. But it was never the one that I owned. That was one that would go to a friend's house and play a little bit. Not Addison. I think it was Stevie this time. Stevie.

And I would have a lot of fun playing it, but it was never an obsessive one for me. And I remember years ago, during one of the streams that we've done here, we pulled it up and started playing a bit of Sega Racing Transform. I was like, this is fun. This is a really fun video game, but I've never been yet an obsessive

over the Sonic Racing stuff. So, uh, Raj, what's your history with the franchise? Uh, I adored Sonic All-Stars Racing Transforms, specifically on the Vita. That was probably my most played Vita game of all time. I actually probably played more of this racing Sonic thing than any other Sonic game ever. So I was just purely a Sonic racing fan. And now you've become a full on sicker. Yeah.

Now I'm now I'm back into the whole all of Sonic. And now I'm coming back to Sonic with Sonic racing specifically. And I imagine, Greg, you have very limited experience with the Sonic racing games. No, I mean, more than you'd expect, right? I mean, back in IGN with, yeah, team Sonic racing. That was the switch one. Yeah, yeah, okay. We had done stuff back there with it, unless I'm way wrong.

I think you're wrong about that. And IGN, I guess it was the Sega. It was probably All-Stars, yeah. And then, yeah, when the trailer for this one, when did this trailer for Cross Worlds drop? The first one. When they announced it? Game Wars, is that right?

That sounds too, the most recent GameWords? Sounds like Summer Game Fest would make more sense because I showed it to Ben, who is a Sonic Sica, and he was like, oh my God, I want that, I want that. And I was like, well, you know, this is the sequel to one. And we immediately downloaded that one. We've played a bunch of the original. Sonic racer, not the original, but the 2019 Sonic Racing one, right? So I'm well versed in that one from playing with him and watching him play and doing it to that

degree. I thought that one was a cool game. I think, you know, load times are bad. It's like one of those things where it hasn't kept up with the times, but I liked what they were laying down. This announced trailer is from six months ago. Okay, then it must have been some other thing. I showed him that I was like, there's a Sonic racing game you could play right now. So, Bless. Yes. What did you get to play and what did you think about it? So me and Roger went to the event together. We shared a station. And we were past the controller.

And you're not, you're not bitter about it at all. No, not at all. Not at all. So we passed the controller back and forth. And so I think we split that evenly. So I got to play 30 minutes. Roger got to play 30 minutes.

For me, that was about like maybe a grand prix in a half, which was for me enough to make me go, okay, cool, I want to play this. I'm actually very excited for this. I think off the bat, the thing that jumps out of me from this game is that it feels, it's funny,

it feels like it's in line with some of the ideas of Mario Kart World, but at the same time, it's so different in all the ways that I want it to be different, right? Like, it's kind of the antithesis

as far as how customization heavy it is, how I think fresh it is and some of the ideas. And also how it takes things like, you know, in Mario Kart World, how you're going from one cart to the next cart and doing the interstitial track to get there, right? And Mario Kart World feels like it's about

kind of making the experience of experiencing these different tracks more seamless. Sonic Racing Crossroads does that same thing. And I think in some ways does it even better where they take the idea of like, you know how in the Sonic movies. And I guess in some Sonic games as well, you have the rings that are more of these like they're going to, yeah, service portals take you from one location to the next location. That's how Sonic Racing Crossworlds kind of approaches getting you from one location to the other as far as having.

having these mid-race moments where you go from being on, let's say you're on the mall track, you're driving through the Sonic Mall, you get to lap two, and you get to a moment in the race where whoever's in first place sees the options of two different portals that you can go to. And that first-place player gets to choose, oh, we're going to go to this separate location that is in the clouds that has, like, you know, air balloons that are flying. We're going to fly through this location. or we're going to go to this mystery location or we're going to go to this water location or whatever, right?

These mid-track decisions that is dictated by the first place player and it feels so fucking cool to get to do that. Hell yeah, it's seamless. It reminded me so much of Ratchet and Clank, right? We're talking about switching between what universe you're in. Yeah, exactly. So for me, I was like, damn, that's a really cool way to do this. And I think taking that even beyond.

One of the things that I think delighted both me and Roger was getting to the last track for the Grand Prix. and usually in a typical cart racer when you're doing the Grand Prix you have four races. Here we have three races but then the last race is the combination of all three

where you do the first lap of all three tracks and you're using these portals to essentially train for you from track to track and so it's almost like the all right how well did you do your homework here

of how to navigate these tracks well that was fucking cool there's a lot of customization stuff that I think we should talk about but we can get into the meat of that later but I really enjoyed my time here. Raj, what about you? Yeah, it

It was a really great time. I played as my two goats, Hatsune Miku and Ichibon. I played Hatsunemiku throughout the Grand Prix. And I was just smiling the entire time. It was a really, really great experience to be back and to feel like the times when I was playing All-Stars transformed on my Vita. Hell yeah. It feels like the way that I remembered it. It is fun.

It had some difficulty there. I think we were playing on not like the highest of C-C-C-C. were playing like the way before. But there's a little bit of difficulty there. There was a lot of interesting customization when it comes to the vehicles and the ways that you can build out your perks and your loadouts that I can see myself

kind of getting into and it was fun with me and blessing actually sharing a station even though I kind of wish that we can kind of play to get our full hour. But it's fine. But either way, us sharing the station was fun because I built out a loadout and he built out a load out and then he started using his own load out and he's like,

you know what, let me try out yours. And we were kind of switching back and forth and figuring out the different ways that you can customize these vehicles and to really go forward. So there's a lot there and it was a lot meatier than I expected. And yeah, the whole cross world's element of it. I had no idea. It was funny. Like I think, I think you and I, we both didn't know going into it. For some reason. Yeah. At least how exactly it works. Exactly. So it is so seamless. It is really, really fun. And there's, I figured, do you know the number of cross worlds that they said? I think it was like seven. Seven. Okay. Yeah. So there's seven that are going in between your matches so you don't know which one you're going to.

gets. Yeah, it was a really fun experience. And honestly, somebody who, somebody who didn't really love Mario Kart World, or at least it didn't live up to the promise of like a cart racer for me this year that, that gravitated with me. This one is looking to that. It's going to fill that void for me. And definitely very excited for the full release. I should look at this. The seven I saw was for the, I saw a trailer today for the closed network or open network. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's definitely more than that. Yeah. I would have a sure. I would have say, and again, I can't remember exactly what I say it was like 20 something, but I want

to look it up. Yeah, we got to find that number, but it was, the number they said to me seemed good. Yeah, I didn't remember the number. What did you guys play on? PS5. Very cool. Very cool. Greg. Hi. What did you think? I was really impressed again, as somebody so versed

in the first game. And immediately I jumped in, I was like, this is prettier, obviously, as it should be right, but I mean, this is pretty, or it's gorgeous. I think it's faster. I think there's more going on on screen. I think there's more to do, which we're going to talk about

with customization. We're going to talk about item pickups. And then, yeah, most importantly for me, if you're still playing the first one, it loads so much faster. That's one of those things

of when Ben does boot Sonic Racing. I'm like, all right, you know what I mean? Like, there's so many load screens to keep him entertained through or try to explain what's going on. It was snappy.

It was easy to get around. I also truly appreciated the level of design. This is something I was talking to PR about there while, of course, Ben was playing, is that, you know, Ben, by no means is as good at video games as his father.

But he can hold his own. But it was that idea that the levels themselves are so designed to keep you going. And I think not only keep you going, but keep you going fast, right, to give you that speed of a Sonic game, but not give you that friction of running off the course, falling off the thing, slamming into something, getting turned around. Like Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 is another Ben favorite game. And so many times with that, I see him. He knows how to do it now. but him having to reset himself on the track, right?

In the old days it was, Daddy help, Daddy help. Now he can do it himself, but he's still doing it so much of missing a turn, doing stuff. As we watch his tails footage, you see, like, the track has the walls up there. So it's got, and there wasn't a driving assist on as well. But it was that idea that he wasn't getting turned around. He wasn't getting frustrated. It is keeping you barreling down this path. But I think it's going to open it up, especially when we get into customization, we get into weapons,

when you get into playing with hardcore folks of what's going to go on and how you play it. But I was really impressed. This is one that I was like, okay, cool. For Sonic racing, I usually just leave Ben to his own devices. Occasionally now, you know, Mario Kart World. He'll want me to play with him and I'll want to play with him too. I got to, you know, eventually it turns to me. Can I win?

I'm like, yeah. And I, you know, fall back of the pack. I kick the shit out of this kid. Participation trophies. We ain't going to be. You want to win? Yeah, you're going to have to earn you. You three and a half year old?

Yeah, but I really liked what I saw to me. What did Ben think? Well, I'm glad you asked him. Of course, Ben can. be here because he's in school. That's that's the that's the gig. All right. He's got to go to preschool. But I interviewed Ben before, during, and after. And then I pieced it all together into this audio video package. Okay, man, we've just watched the Sonic Racing Crossworld's two trailers. The United States 5 minutes before. How excited to play this game are you today?

I'm so sad. Excited. Yeah. What do you, what's the first character you want to be? Um, Shadow. Why do you like Shadow so much? Um, because... Um, he's a... Um, he's... Um, he's... Um, he's... He, um, can run very fast. Right. And... You know, Sonic can run fast, too.

Yeah, but I don't want... Oh, you don't like Sonic, but... And I want Shadow now. Yeah, because Shadow's cool. Yeah. Yeah. What, what, uh, vehicle, you want to use in the demo today?

The one that the shadow it wasn't. He's just, yeah. The hoverboards they kind of look cool to me. Yeah, I like the hoverboards. And what question you want to ask the developers? How do you get the form

to get one of those monster trucks? How do you unlock a monster truck? That's a good question. How to form in the monster truck. How to form in the monster truck? Okay, that we will tell you. Are you going to be upset if you can't play

a shadow today in the demo? No, you're going to be okay. I'm just going to play at Tails if they have it. That makes sense, yeah. If Tails is not there, I'll play with us knuckles, if knuckles is not there, I'll play a star. He's got the back of it.

Wow, Sonic really low on the list here. That's really, really low in the list for Sonic. Do you like Sonic at all, or do you just like all us friends more? I just like all his friends more. Wow, wow. Okay, but you like Sonic. Yeah. Okay, there's a baseline enjoyment of Sonic.

I also like tails. How was it? Good. What did you think of it compared to the last Sonic again? Good. Yeah? Good. It's cool.

It loads so much faster. It's gorgeous. I love the customization. As a car racing guy, that's really cool. Can I do the next race? And then you do one after that? I'm going to do. You want to do one more than I can play one?

Okay, sounds like. He's like, no. He's like, no, I'm not passing the controller today. Yeah, I'm not passing the controller today. Okay, Ben, two races in. You put down the controller to let me play finally. What do you think? Good.

Yeah? How is it rank against the other racers you play? Um, cool. Cool. Okay. Do you think it's your favorite one so far? Why is that? Because it's so cool. But Benny, what did you think of Sonic Racing Cross Worlds? It was cool. What was the coolest part about it?

When I was Shadow. Yeah. Did you like when Shadow was on a gold or when he used in the Battle? It's just like me. When he was in the Batmobile. Yeah. What was your favorite item to use? Um, the boxing. The boxing glove? I thought it would have been the monster truck.

But I like the boxing. What was great about the boxing glove? Um, I was aiming at people. Yeah. Do you think it's better than the first Sonic racing game? Why? Because, um, it has more sonic characters. That's true.

It does have more Sonic characters. It's also, I think it looks better. I personally think it runs better. I think it loads a lot faster, which has always been a big complaint of mine when you play. Because it takes forever to load the races, doesn't it? In the old Sonic racing? Yeah. But this one, no way.

This one wasn't really fast, right? Are you gonna play a lot of this when it comes out? And then who's better at this game, me or you? Um, but daddy. Yeah. Um, is the Sonic, um, Hitch-Haw game. Um, um, Is it going to be on on Switch 2?

I don't know. We have to check the fact sheet. It's definitely on PlayStation. It's probably going to be on Switch. Yeah. Well, it's definitely on Switch. Is it on Switch 2? I don't know.

So you can play it on the Go, though, yeah. Why? Do you want to play that in your handheld? You don't play that on plane rides? On plane rides. So, Benny, as you know, we only score reviews, not previews. But since this is your first preview, out of 10, what would you score that? game? One being the worst, 10 being the best.

Huh? Being the best. Oh, so you think it's a 10 out of 10? Yeah. If you filled out of your dreams is a Sonic fan. Yeah. Is there anything else the game should do? Make a 7 and 100. Make a 7 out of 100? Huh. I don't know if the game could do that, but I appreciate it. Trying. So overall positive experience, your first video game preview? Yep. Do you think when you grow up, you're going to do what daddy does and talk about it? games for a living or are you to do what mommy does and help make games for a living um help make games for a living oh that's a harder job for you so good luck i mean i'm talking about oh no it's too late you chose i'm kidding you can do whatever you want buddy i love you

oh i could do both you could do well yeah you could do both there's people who do that yeah that's wonderful wonderful oh yeah yeah that's cute great job then much for that. Yeah, you know, again, one of the ones where he's like, it's good, like he didn't breathe while he played. And the photos I sent Jen, she's like, look at him with a little stiff-ass legs, because he's just like, ah,

locked in, trying to play and do all this stuff. He did a great job out there. Sega was great. They gave him a little care package for being a kid. They brought him a hat and a new shirt and little slippers and stuff. He was very stoked about it. And then he rewarded me by all that when we signed off there, and I said, okay, I packed up his snack bag,

and he trotted around a pillar in the Marriott Marquis and then got lost. It was the first time I ever lost bed. Oh no. There was a good 45 seconds to a minute of panic of like, where the fucking is my child? It was like screaming and like it was great. It was a great time. It was a good old time.

That's awesome. So off camera stuff like did you talk to him more about it? Like did he have any any other dynamite insights? It's very cool. And he like shadow a lot. He asked me all the time if it's out. Yeah. Yeah.

I was surprised he wasn't more into the hoverboards. If you're unfamiliar so, the trailer, that, well, I guess we watched both trailers, so I can even tell you that we're out before this, there is a section in it where you turn into a monster truck in it. And Ben obviously obsessed with Monster Jam and Monster Trucks thought that was the coolest thing.

And so when we get into talking about your customization, your build, you can start with an item in the game. And so, of course, Ben chose to start with the item that was the monster truck. So you can use it, you know, right away or whatever. But every time the, you know, you'd go, Ben would immediately hit the button, turn into a monster truck and drive the start of the monster

truck that, or the race that way. So real into the monster truck, real into Shadow, really into the game in general, keeps asking about it. And I do think it maybe reawakened isn't the right because it hasn't been that long. Thank you very much, Barry. Great job on the B-roll. But this, I have seen an uptick in him playing more Mario Kart World since we did the demo. I feel like Mario Kart World had cooled, Bananza had risen, Pokemon had risen. Now we're seeing a return to world.

I think he craves that car racing experience. Love this for everybody involved, especially me because I love car racers. and I want to play more games with Ben. But I also want to hear more deep thoughts from the boys. And we're going to do that after a quick word from our sponsor. This episode's brought to you by XREL. As of August 25th, XREL 1 Pro is finally available on Amazon and Best Buy.com. Plus, it's back in stock now on XREL.com.

A few months ago, my life changed forever when I brought a pair of XREL1 Pro AR glasses on a incredibly long flight to New York City. I legit could not believe how easy it was to use and how high quality my experience was playing games with my Steam Deck and watching movies with my phone on the plane on a theater-sized OLED screen right in front of my eyes without too much extra stuff or a giant goofy headset involved. No joke, this is my favorite new piece of tech in years and it has earned a permanent spot in my travel bag. It's only hard to believe it works as well as I'm saying until you try extra. AR glasses for yourself. And then you will see that the tech is here.

Connect X-R-1 Pro glasses to whatever you're playing, like a handheld console, PC, phone, or home console, and get a massive 150-inch virtual screen anywhere, any time for any game. Gaming on the go, like a long flight, you need X-Ril 1. Next, starting to hurt from staring down at your handheld, you need X-Rill 1. It's plug-and-play with all your devices via USBC, built-in audio with sound by foes, anchoring your screen literally anywhere in space, 1080p, full HD, and you can make it bigger, smaller, farther, closer,

ultra-wide, or regular widescreen, horizontal, vertical, even 3D if you have a 3D movie. It's all built in and can be controlled by pressing a few buttons on the glasses. These are what make X-Real 1 Pro a must have. X-Rill 1 Pro is now available on Amazon and Best Buy.com, and from August 25th through September 1st, you can get $50 off if you bundled the X-Rill 1 Pro with the X-Rill Beam Pro.

A.R. mobile device on Amazon or Xreal.com. There is nothing better than when a sponsor of Kind of Funny is something we are legitimately obsessed with. So get yours today at kindofuny.com slash Xreal. That's Kindofuny.com slash XREL. And we're back. Bless, where do you want to take me on this journey? Ooh, I mean, I guess we should talk about customization.

I think for me, that was the other big thing where I was like, damn, there's a lot here, right? From the amount of shit you can do with different kind of cards and different parts, right the first race that I did I was using I always forget the name of it I was using the fucking snowboard looking thing the fucking skateboard looking thing that I know has a fancy name is it a gear

I think it's like a gear or something chat you played Sonic riders let me know but I was using that which seems like the more difficult way to go but also yeah they're warning you beforehand they're like hey this is hard and you're like I got this I was like but it's cool so I did that first but you have all those different

like cart things that you can edit but then also you have extreme gear the chat's popping on Extreme gear. Thank you so much. But then you have these like customization things that you can do that like, I forget the name of it. I think they might be called gadgets or something, but they look like a license plate, right, that you like customize parts into and they have different slots. And so I think Greg mentioned that you can like turn that into a thing where you can start off as with a certain item. There was an option there that I saw of like, I think magnetizing rings. There's another one where it's like if you hit somebody, you can boost off of them.

A lot of shit there. And yeah, for the passing back the controller back and forth thing with me and Roger, it was cool because we could have different loadouts to where I was like, okay, I'm going to have this one. Hey, Roger, make one in case I want to pass the controller to you and you want to change your thing like mid-Gran Prix or whatever. That shit seemed deep in a way where I was like, damn, I really, really like this. Yeah, and it has, correct me from a wrong blessing or Greg, if you remember this one. I remember they had one where it was like, I think it was you could have a second item already there. Like basically like the Mario Kart world thing, but that is locked behind like a perk. So now you have to go in there

And you can customize it And kind of make it however you want But yeah the different like the one where you can have multiple items that takes up two slots So you kind of have to be strategic with the amount of Space that you have and what you're picking up and what you're using there Yeah, it's him to try to lay this out in a complicated thing without the visuals of what they were able to do for you I like I took screenshots of the gadget sets because they had pre-built things so you could really see Their whole idea here Tim is the idea that you can really get into the

weeds with all these different combinations of gadgets. And so like they had one here, they called the early earner combo set. Start in the monster truck, mow others down, earn rings. Also lets you collect items for the stock increase, right? And then there's one that you go further on. The collision combo set, which you were kind of talking about a second ago, collide with other racers and get a boost and steal their rings. So they're talking about your item being the collision boost, your item control being the power tuner one, your ring ability being ring theft and mini ring theft, right? Versus jumping back to where you were before with early earner. upgrade is going to be the monster truck starter

item control inventory plus ring gain item attack bounty and again these are of different sizes scale so you can't have you know it's adding into what you can and can't add in that's why there's three here versus the others over there yeah it was dope yeah there was a lot of customization there was a lot of customization when it came to the actual carts themselves where you can replace the wheels you're going to replace like the actual body of the thing no skins for the actual characters yeah that's something that i made sure to ask about because they have hatsunei ku

I mean, she has endless outfits. And I'm like, hey, what's going on with the skins? And they're like, no. There's no skins. The only customization is with the cards, which is very, very robust. But it is interesting to me that you have these characters that have a million and one different outfits. Yeah, it is more surprising than anything. Like, I wonder what that is as far as why they didn't know that way.

I think, yeah, I would imagine a lot of work. Maybe it was the bandwidth thing. But for me a little bit disappointing as far as, yeah, you mentioned Hansen Emiku, but I look at the roster of characters from like the sonic characters and I think how many different ways we've seen Sonic characters. Like I think there's a community there that would like to, you know, play as a certain kind of Sonic or like a supersonic or whatever it is, right? You know, I think I look at that. And then I also look at the guest characters where I know this would probably be a step even beyond. But the idea of like having different outfits for a SpongeBob or like, you know, for a Joker or whoever it is, right, I think would have been fun to do.

And so that was surprising. Y'all jumping into the customization. Let's just start at the top of game feel. You know, car racing, that's such an important part. How's the drifting feel? what are the different mechanics like in terms of how the power up systems and all that stuff works? Yeah, for me, I mean, most of the stuff is exactly how you'd expect it

as far as how the power up system works, as far as how drifting works. As far as how many of the systems work, it's exactly what you'd expect. I think this goes back a bit to what Greg was talking about as far as how this game keeps you going. There's an arcade aspect to it that feels, I think, more to the arcade side than you'd imagine based off of like a Mario Kart, for example, right? Where it is, go, go, go. it feels like the action is constantly making you move forward,

which I like for this game. It definitely doesn't have like that, I guess, control of a Mario Kart, but I do like how it is, like momentum. We're going to keep you moving forward at all times. Yeah, I think feel-wise,

Tim, it felt great. I felt, I was stuck to the road. I was able to curve and drift the way I'd want to. Like, it felt sticky. It felt responsive. You having the most experience,

it sounds like recently, at least with Team Sonic Racing, do you like the way that game feels? I don't love it. I don't think it stands out to me as like, oh, wow, this is a definitive. Like, this is the way cart racing should feel. And does this? Yes.

Okay. This felt the coming in, felt natural, felt the way. Again, speed felt great. Sticciness felt great. Difting felt great. Let alone mixing in items, mixing in power ups. Yeah. I was just going to say, you stick to the ground.

It feels good there. But then when you're also in air, there's some fun stuff there where you can do some tricks. There's also, I believe there was a jump button. if I'm not, that was one of the things that I was just gonna bring that up of like I couldn't figure out the trick system all the way

and I'm pretty sure it was honestly I think it was just how many things were going on in the first race and like the sheet they gave me for the control. It was a lot. And also I was like asking I was like,

hey, is there a jump button? And I feel like I wasn't getting like as clear instruction. So the left stick is your tricks. Yes. So that's like, and it's just you moving your left stick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gotcha. The way they phrased it out that I was like clicking the left stick and I was like I'm honking. This isn't right? That's a trick, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah. But like, that was one of the things that early on,

I was like, okay, I don't know what's going on here. I'm just going to go. But I'm sure, as I'm watching the video, I am seeing them pull off these tricks. Oh, bro, I was flicking that stick, bro. I was going crazy. Yeah, Broch was flicking that stick. I was going crazy.

I was going crazy doing tricks. Relicious 2595 in the chat says, what's annoying is that lots of previews you're going to be saying that this is great and the game's still going to get a seven. Do you think from your experience that that is true? Is this going to be one of the ones that kind of like, bucks the trend and it's like, no, no, no, actually this one's legit good. It's not just like a fun game.

I think it's, I think it's tough to say. I mean, I think that, I think it's going to be sevens. I, in my, in my heart of hearts, but it's also going to be for us. The sevens that we love like eight. Seven. Seven doesn't have to be. Yeah. I was to say seven doesn't have to be inherently bad. In fact, inherently seven, many skills means good. And I don't think, I don't know. I think if you wanted to make a 10 out of 10 Sonic Racing Cross Worlds CartRacer. There's a lot you would have to do to make it even worth doing with that. I feel like for this the mission is let's make a car racer that Sega fans and Mario, sorry, I'm not Mario, Sonic fans, fuck with them like and enjoy, right? And I don't think that needs to be something that's beyond like, you know, the cream of the crop

in terms of polishing quality and all that stuff. It just needs to be fun. And it just needs to give, I think, the fan service that that audience wants, right? And so I think for all the words we're saying, as far as how good it feels, as far as like the robust customization stuff they're giving you as far as like, you know, even getting to use the extreme gear that I know people who play Sonic riders,

they fuck with that, right? I think those are all the things that that audience wants and needs and as long as you're catering to the audience, who goes to fuck if it's a 9 out of 10? I don't have any problem with swimming at 7s and 7s being good and yety. And I remember so not,

I need your help here because what is the Sonic racing game that came out when we worked at IGN? It would have been All-Stars. Okay, and I remember that was the one that shocked people because it was a seven or above, whatever it was, but it was good. It wasn't, you know, set your hair on fire, but you're like, holy shit, this is actually a good car racing game. And I feel like Team Sonic Racing had that vibe too, even though it wasn't, again, a nine out of ten or whatever, for the time. Yeah, but it didn't. Like, the thing was there, like the Sonic racing games started back on the Saturn with Sonic R where they were on foot and they're just running around stuff.

And there was the Sonic, the extreme games, right? where they're actually on the Extreme Gears, Sonic riders, and there was two of those. And those were, those are kind of like cult classic-y, just because of like how different they were. And then when they really went on full on, this is a cart racer, it was Sonic All-Stars Racing. And then it was

All-Stars Racing transformed that the ones that really stood above the pack and it was like, yo, this is legit good. That was like Wii U-era. And then when Team Sonic Racing came out on Switch, it was kind of like, ah, didn't reach the highs of the last one. Like, that was kind of the overall takeaway of it and they changed a lot of things for the worse. Okay.

So then to enter back into this one, and to the comment of every saying how great it is and it's going to get sevens, I believe there's an excellent chance. This one gets higher than a seven. I would say there's an excellent chance this one ends in the eight. Or ends in the eights. The problem and why it's harder to read into that

and give you an answer as I saw it go by earlier of like, when we're talking about how good it felt and sticking. Yeah. How do the different characters feel? I don't know. We're, you have an hour with it. I'm splitting my time with band. We're jumping around.

Yeah. And so you get into, Are the character is going to feel unique? All this stuff we're talking about of the customization. When it's hour five of the game, does it still feel like a deep, and this is a robust system, and my package is different than Rogers package?

Or are we all just sitting there going like, all, it's pretty much the same? What are the modes? What are the depths of those? That's what you get. This is why I think people will miss the, they were so hot on previews, but they're not in reviews of like,

preview is a billboard, it's a stop, it's a commercial, it's a marketing beat. We get to see something, and it is fresh, new, exciting and it is faster. It is loading better. It does look better. The rings and the different worlds are an awesome

idea. But five hours in, how does that all melt together and mesh together? And that's where I still think this looks, feels deeper and more fun than the last one that I played with Ben on PlayStation. So I'm excited on that front. But does that mean 8.5 or does that 8.75?

I don't know. It's also different ways that you tackle the whole, the game, right? For me, I'm looking for this to just be the pickup and play for maybe 30 minutes every other day or something like that for a week or a month. I'm not looking for this game to take over my entire life. And if it does that, if it gets me back into the Sonic Racing excitement and fandom with playing Hatsuneamiku, it does its job, right?

And it has the cross-world element. It has enough of those gimmicks. It has enough depth already that I'm seeing. Now I'm going to enjoy this. When I start to look at, you know, maybe the other modes that we looked at where I was like, I could take it or leave it. but that's also kind of what these cart racers have. They have to have these like side, you know, side things that are just not as exciting as just the main Grand Prix.

I mean, we played one of the side things that, again, it was so chaotic. It was like co-op thing, yeah. Yeah, it was so chaotic that I didn't even get the sense of like what the strategy or what the actual point was. But like, yeah, we played a co-op team race where we're all kind of like tethered to each other. And though, like, there was like moments where we could like jump forward based on like where your teammate is at and stuff like that. Like it seems like they're offering. a lot here in the package. And when we're talking about the

billboard of a preview versus what you might want out of the final product, I think a lot of that comes from what is the depth of the final product, right? Where I'll say similarly from Mario Car World, we came off hot off the preview, right? We were like, yo, this is fucking the truth. And that's because we got to play knockout tour, which was the perfect billboard for

hey, there's a new mode and this new mode fucks, right? And like, that game came out, and guess what? Knockout tour fucked. And like, there's so many good things about Mario Car World. there's also things that are lacking that you don't really get to experience until you get to see the depth of the full game and you might like that or you might not like that, right?

I think we're in the same place as on across worlds as far as, all right, what is it going to be like past that? But I will say for what I am seeing out of the hints of the depth there, right? Like, again, can't tell, I can't speak to the full quality, but even things like the rival system which you've not talked about,

that seems cool, right? Where every Grand Prix, you get a specified rival and is randomized and you'll see like, where like the level indicator is of like how tough that rival is and so you start and it is hey you're beefing with big the cat this grand prix and big the cat is your rival but that's also the thing i was a little bit confused with the way that they implemented it because i was asking questions and i believe one of the questions asked was is this randomized and they said no like it's

it's like based off the characters and i couldn't i just couldn't oh i thought it was randomized because they talked about being in mind they talked about there being matchups you wouldn't normally see yeah i thought that that was uh whatever maybe i'm just getting confused here i i just couldn't find the flow there because I thought at least when I initially played the whole rival system, right? Is that you go in there that says, hey, here's your rival for the Grand Prix, right? And then you beat that rival. And then I thought it was going to like upgrade that rival to make them stronger so then you can keep on going back to them.

But then no, it just, that person stays and you move on to another rival. It was just a little confusing. I assumed it was like a level system where like it's random every time, but like the meter goes up as far as how tough the rival is. See, that's the issue with playing this game for, you know, 30 minutes at a time, right? Yeah, if I sit down. I was just a little, not put off by it, but I was like, oh, this isn't the way that I would have expected this to go. Yeah.

I do hope that is a fun carrot on the stick to the thing to chase of, oh, I'm going to go all the way through the rival system. Like I want to beat whoever the final rival is. Now, granted, I think the randomization does take a little bit out of that if that's the case where it's like, all right, well, if the last person on this list is just going to be whoever, right? Then like, I don't care. But if it's mecha sonic or if it's supersonic god, you know, I think that would be fun as far as building up that hype to like. like face the final boss sort of thing. Our preview embargo syncs up with obviously everybody else's, but mainly people at Gamescom.

Over the gamer, Rionan has a couple paragraphs on the rival system, I think might clarify some stuff. The rival mechanic is by far the best thing Crossworlds has in its corner. Even more so than the titular Crossworlds itself, but I'll touch on that in a bit. As I played, I noticed that many characters had unique dialogue if they were each other's rivals.

And I'd wager Sonic fans will fall in love with this, parentheses, others perhaps less so, no rival dialogue for DLC. characters. I didn't know I needed Shadow and Metal Sonic beef in my life, but now I need both of Sonic's rivals to duke it out, or, like, race it out on the track. Even putting the writing aside, the rivals

really don't hold back. My main gripe with the beta version of the game was that it was far too easy. But here, as soon as I was on a winning streak, I was put up against a higher level rival, and they managed to nab the place ahead of me more times than I would care to admit. Sorry, I've got a thing there. So that's a cool, again, addition to make it

harder to make it more challenging, you're beating through your rival, they'll give you somebody else. I want to shout out the tracks as well. They had a few new tracks for this build. One of them, I know Roger got excited about. Oh, big pop for me. Big pop for me when they showed the white void from generations. Oh, yeah.

I've been here. I've grown up here last year. There was that. There was a. The superstars level. Metal Harbor. Oh, yeah, the superstars level. Is that Metal Harbor?

No. Or is what's metal harbor? Metal Harbor is just from the other, from, oh, gotcha. Yeah, the new one was superstars, right? That was the new one that they showed up. And then in Kronos, they had North Star. Kronos was the one I was thinking of as well,

where Kronos is from Sonic Frontiers. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And then I don't know if this is a new one, but like there was a mall level that I really like, every car racer was just a mall. Put a mall in it. Yeah, yeah. I think you asked you were like, is this from a game? Like, nah, it's just a ball.

Yeah, I was like, you know what? I like malls and car racers. That's a coconut mall. In terms of the, the tracks splits, are you so far? Do you feel fulfilled with the variety of them? And like, what we're seeing here, it seems all right, cool kind of part for the course. Yeah, I mean, I mean, It seems like you have returning tracks that you've seen in previous stuff, right?

But I think what you do here is, yeah, what are the latest games that have come out? And how do we turn some of those levels into tracks? And they've done a good job, you know, the ones that we just mentioned. Also, is this Oceanside from Sonic Heroes? Yeah, let me know. No, this transition is something else. But yeah, like from the tracks we just mentioned, right? Sonic Generations Cross Shadow.

Sonic Superstarries, like we just mentioned, Sonic Frontiers, right? For all those tracks that we experienced, I felt good about it. Yeah, I'm having fun time. And then also, yeah, the cross-world stuff feels really cool implemented in the middle of those as well. And that's honestly where my highlight was where the cross-worlds are such a smaller experience that are designed to be small.

But I was left wanting more. Like I looked at them like, is this going to be like there's a casino level which I thought was so fun. It was so cool. Remind me almost of like Psychonauts too. Like it was so dope. And I was like, hey,

is this going to be like a main level? And they're like, no. The cross-world stuff is its own stuff. And it makes sense because, you know, maybe if you expand these smaller things, it would just kind of lose its luster, but it honestly made me want an entire level, like these cool levels.

And I saw somebody earlier in chat, I'll forget it this, but they said there was like 20-something actual tracks and then nine cross worlds. Okay. Interesting. How's the music? Music's good.

Honestly, it didn't stand out to me. I wasn't like, oh damn, this is the jam right here, but like, it takes time for that. Yeah, I think it takes time for that. But like from what we heard, what we played out, that was fine. Toss one in that we went by,

we got off of it, but I saw somebody asked, in there, like, how is it compared in terms of this is from Ben's perspective, I assume, but also just being somebody who plays both a lot, Hot Wheels Unleashed, and then somebody asked, is it more more Hot Wheels Unleashed or more Mario Card?

It's way more Mario Kart than Hot Wheels Unleashed. And again, how is Unleashed? Have you played Hot Wheels Unleashed? Yeah. I think like... I feel like it's a bit more... Like Mario Kart is a bit more... I didn't know, everybody had an opinion about the Hot Wheels were right. I was right.

I fuck it with both, but I feel like the controls for Mario Kart are a bit more simple and tight, whereas you really got to focus in on, I don't know, there's something more loose about, the way I would make it sound, yeah, or is that like

as you watch this, you know how it feels because it's Mario Kart, Sonic, if you've raised it before. How is I always feel like, feels like I'm controlling a toy? It doesn't feel like I'm in a car, doesn't feel like I'm sitting there with hefty. It feels like I'm racing around in the Dolorean or whatever weird ass hot wheel

Ben made me buy for two bucks. Like I feel like they're flipping more, they're off track more, crashing more as part of it, losing control of the car is more part of it. Yeah. And I think also the goofy tracks, you know,

them coming on the ground again, like even Mario Kart, even with the new Mario Kart being open world, I feel like it's way easier to get off the track and Hot Wheels because that's part of playing with Hot Wheels on your floor, right,

as you hit them through the thing, take them through the loops and they fly off if they go left and right. Bless and I fell a few times. Yeah. I'm not saying you never fall. Especially here. We got fucked up.

The game is also fairly forgiving. It is. There's some good quality of life stuff. When I veered off track on accident because I'm sometimes a terrible game or like there was a, in like a QTE that was essentially like, hey, you have this item. Use this thing to like boost off of the like grass that you're on. Yeah, that's a great call. Which is yeah, we thought that that was just kind of built in.

It's like no, it's just, yeah, when you hit a dirt patch and you have a boost, it'll tell you, hey, use the boost right now. Super smart stuff. Yeah. Yeah, really interesting. $70 for this one. Yeah, surprising. Again, Mario Kart World, $80.

Should not have been $80. Yeah. This being 70, I understand a bit, but I also think that's crazy when Hot Wheels was $40. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I don't know, man, because I, I mean, I haven't played this one, but I imagine it's going to be a lot closer to Hot Wheels than Mario Kart. I don't know. I think this is, I mean, as far as game style, like, yeah, I think this is unequivocally closer to Mario Kart.

If we're talking about quality, I mean, I'm more excited for this than I think I'm, was for the last Hot Wheels Unleashed and I think I'll probably end up playing more of this than Hot Wheels Unleashed. Like I think there's just a level of at the very least fan service and like, you know, moment to moment action that's happening on screen. That feels a bit more

TLC to it than I felt like I had with Hot Wheels Unleash. How Wheels Unleash was always cool to me because I'm like, oh damn, there's a Hot Wheels game that is cool and I'm doing loop to loops and shit. But here, I think the fact that I am playing is Joker, SpongeBob. Sonic the hedgehog and all these characters. I think it does add a bit more to it that I don't know. That excites me more than A Hot Wheels.

Yeah, I think this brings more to the table than Hot Wheels. Again, we're at a glance. We're just reading bullet points. I do a race across 24 courses and warp to 15 cross worlds. 15, okay. Yeah, I'm definitely interested in this cross world thing. That sounds really cool to break up just the normal, like, lap system. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Yeah, and also, we didn't play any of the DLC characters.

Yeah, that was not there, but I did play as Hudson amico and Ichibon, but those are not deals like characters. Team METT coming. Huge. Getting to Super chats here. Super chats. C.J. Splits on just has a nice shirt, Gregory. Thank you. I'm our number one Disneyland fan and our number one Pokemon fan.

Oh, wow. And everything from me. Team blue. Cabob says, by the first game, does Greg mean the Sonic and Sega, All Stars Racing, Sonic and All Stars Racing transformed or Team Sonic Sonic Racing? Team Sonic Racing, as you were saying. Thought we clarified that. My apologies. Demon Hacker says, do the characters feel unique? That's what we're talking about earlier. Yeah, I think I, that I wouldn't be

ready to wage a guess on. I'd want to feel the difference as you jump in and do time trials and try it all out. Yeah, I didn't feel anything too crazy between Miku and Ijibon. Yeah, I get that the vibe is mostly going to be based off of the carts and the customization

of the carts more so than just the characters, but I imagine, like, I loosely remember there being a stats thing for the characters, but I don't. I think it's mostly based on the carts themselves, right? Like when you were on the gear, the extreme gear, the extreme gear.

Yeah, that's called a board. Exactly, come on grow up. That did feel different than the other card. So I think that is the right question to be asking. And then Resolute says, was there any persona music? Oh, I don't think we had any persona tracks. I don't think we could play as Joker right now, right? No.

Yeah, they were. I don't think they said we couldn't. Yeah, so. And the Resolute also says, I'd love to see some throwback levels like Curry and Mansion from House of the Dead, how it was in All-Stars. Yeah, I mean, we know we're getting some fun, like, crossover levels in this one. And then there's returning tracks from some of the other. racing games too that aren't just like themed after forces or

unleashed or whatever but are actually like I forget what it was called like Dragon Speedway or something that's for Mario Kart but it's some dragon highway or dragon something or other and I saw that that one's in this yeah I said Dragon Deasniz nuts oh yeah yeah yeah yeah sucks to get God huh

it does it does everybody do you have anything else do you want to talk about with Cross Worlds Dragon Road Dragon Road there you go there's five red rings hidden around every level so it's a little bit of a little bit of fun there for fans that want to 100% complete everything uh but yeah i had a i had a really great time i'm excited uh switch it is coming to switch you but i don't think at launch no it is yeah it's holiday a digital and that's a little sad that's a little sad that would be the the preferred way to play this but

i'm very excited to get my hands on it uh i'm gonna do a game night at the house i'm gonna try that out with a few people. So yeah, I'm excited to get back in there and hopefully I can get a few other Sonic Sickos on my side to play this instead of Mario Kart or they're just going to look at me and spit in my face and say, fuck you. Whoa. I hope we can get a few streams out of this. Yeah, it would be great. I'm playing this. Yeah, I'm

anxiously awaiting the call for review code on this one. Are you going to play this? Oh, of course. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Sonic Cart Racer. What I don't know? I don't know. Well, this has been an episode of Gamescast, everybody.

You liked it. If you like Sonic, if you like cart racers, please let us know in the comments below. How excited you are for Sonic Racing Cross Worlds? What levels do you want to see come back? What characters do you hope to see? It's endless possibilities at this point. You know what I mean? Garfield.

Anyone could be in this game. But stay tuned. He's a Nickelodeon character. Well, nobody's got his own car racing game. Yeah, that's what stops them. Yeah. We're like, oh, we can. Sonic and Pac-Man just had a crossover between games.

Why not Garfield? They hate each other, too. Man's game wasn't a car racing game. They have Minecraft Man in this game. Like, Steve. They're not going to keep back. Crazy you didn't know his name. Bless you hearing the people are liking Bubsy 4D.

Dude, I fucking knew it. I fucking knew it. Like, come on. Look at that game. Looks cool. Look at that game, everybody. Hey, we're about to do a super cool interview with Greg Miller and Erica Ishi. You're definitely going to want to check this out.

Until next time, I love you all. Goodbye. Bye.