With the exception of Ghostrunner, which is exclusive to PS5 subscribers, all the games will be available to claim on both PS4 and PS5. GTA Online, on the other hand, is a bonus game that will be available to download starting March 15th, while the others will be available to download starting March 1st. Subscribers who haven’t claimed the games for February are advised to do so quickly.

All in all, March 2022’s offerings seem to be heavily focused towards multiplayer, but it is certainly a marked improvement over February’s PS Plus offerings, both in terms of number and quality.

Sony is also reportedly hard at work on a competitor to Xbox Game Pass codenamed Project Spartacus, set for a Spring reveal- read more on that through here.

In a message posted on the site’s forums, the user strongly hints that two of the games to be offered for free to PS Plus subscribers next month will be Studio Wildcard’s survival title Ark: Survival Evolved and Sega and Sumo Digital’s 2019 kart racing game Team Sonic Racing.

Since the PS5’s launch, Sony has been offering three games with PS Plus each month, with at least one of them being a native PS5 title, so it’s likely that there’s another game in next month’s lineup that we don’t yet know about.

Either way, there isn’t long left until Sony officially unveils what next month’s lineup for the subscription service will be, so we’ll have more concrete details soon enough. Stay tuned for more updates.

It’s a pretty typical week for video game sales in the UK. According to the latest charts by Gfk for the week ending February 22nd, FIFA 20 is still in first place, followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in second and Grand Theft Auto 5 in third. However, there’s one new entry in the Bayonetta and Vanquish 10th Anniversary Bundle which just managed to hit 10th place.

The bundle is available physically for Xbox One and PS4, and features both classic action titles playable at 4K resolution and 60 FPS. Though it may not sustain its spot, this is still a great achievement. Interestingly, it wasn’t the only Sega release in the top ten. According to GamesIndustry.biz, Team Sonic Racing is in 7th with a 99 percent sales increase week-over-week thanks to deals at Smyths.

Other interesting figures include Forza Horizon 4 at eighth place with a 229 percent increase in sales. As for Media Molecule’s Dreams, it fell from eighth to 15th place despite a 20 percent drop in sales. Check out the top ten best-selling titles at UK retail for the week ending February 22nd below:

1. FIFA 20
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
3. Grand Theft Auto V
4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
5. Minecraft (Switch)
6.  Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
7. Team Sonic Racing
8. Forza Horizon 4
9. Luigi’s Mansion 3
10. Bayonetta & Vanquish Tenth Anniversary Bundle

SIE Lodon Studio’s latest major PlayStation VR release, first person shooter Blood and Truth, has topped the UKIE/Gfk Chart-Track weekly charts for video game boxed sales in the UK for the week ending June 1 (via GamesIndustry). In doing so, it has become the first ever VR game to top the UK charts.

FIFA 19, however, almost beat it to the punch, trailing behind in second place with a gap of just 400 copies. Meanwhile, Team Sonic Racing, which debuted on top of the sales charts last week, has seen a 46 per cent drop and fallen to third place, but still continues to sell well, and continues to outpace its predecessors.

RAGE 2, which topped the charts a couple weeks ago, and fell down to fourth place last week, has completely fallen out of the top 10 this week. Big Ant Studio’s Cricket 19 is another new debutant in the top 10, occupying sixth place. Days Gone is in fourth place, while Red Dead Redemption 2 occupies fifth place.

You can check out the full top 10 below.

1. Blood and Truth
2. FIFA 19
3. Team Sonic Racing
4. Days Gone
5. Red Dead Redemption 2
6. Cricket 19
7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
8. Grand Theft Auto 5
9. Forza Horizon 4
10. Mortal Kombat 11

UKIE/GfK Chart-Track’s data for boxed video game sales in the UK for the week ending May 25 are in, and Sega’s iconic blue hedgehog has raced right to the top of the charts (via GamesIndustry). Team Sonic Racing takes the pole position, and it has sold more than twice as much as its predecessor, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, did in 2012 upon its launch.

RAGE 2, which debuted on top of the charts last week, has been pushed down. It sees a week-over-week drop in sales of 73 per cent, and falls to fourth position. Meanwhile, there’s Days Gone, which had been topping the charts consistently before RAGE 2 launched, when it fell down to second place- where it remains even now. FIFA 19, which was in third place last week, also retains its position, as does Red Dead Redemption 2 in fifth place.

That’s not the only Rockstar-developed game in the top 10, though. Grand Theft Auto 5 is still in the charts, dropping down from seventh place to ninth. Forza Horizon 4 has re-entered the top 10 at tenth place, moving up from the eleventh spot last week. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 moves up from eighth to sixth, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe goes the other way, moving down from sixth to eighth. Finally, Mortal Kombat 11 takes the seventh spot to round out the top 10.

You can take a look at the full top 10 below.

1. Team Sonic Racing
2. Days Gone
3. FIFA 19
4. RAGE 2
5. Red Dead Redemption 2
6. The Division 2
7. Mortal Kombat 11
8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
9. Grand Theft Auto 5
10. Forza Horizon 4

"Unlike your average kart racer, Team Sonic Racing continues to extend its sensory stimulation through a suite of teamwork mechanics."

That didn’t happen. But what did happen is that I had a lot of fun even when I sucked, and the game’s learning curve isn’t so steep that it alienates people like me. The more time I spent with Team Sonic Racing the more it rewarded me, and I was improving and consistently winning in no time. But I wasn’t kidding when I said the game is complicated. While I don’t mean that it’s inaccessible, there is substantially more to keep up with than the kart racers of yore. It was at least a few hours in before I began consistently remembering to do tricks during jumps to grant myself a boost upon landing – a feature that initially seemed like too much to keep up with in the midst of flying projectiles, ever-changing course obstacles, and the already hectic sense of speed.

Unlike your average kart racer, Team Sonic Racing continues to extend its sensory stimulation through a suite of teamwork mechanics. While normal races can be sought out if one should wish, the game highlights its team races in every way. Rather than a player going up against 11 other racers, teams are broken into 4 trios. Working together isn’t just a gimmick either – it’s often paramount to winning races. You can drift off teammates for slingshot moves that send you zooming by, give them a helpful boost by driving past them after they’ve crashed, or trade each other various item pickups in times of need. All of these actions fill up a meter that allows for a full team ultimate ability that grants a generous speed boost and invincibility for barreling through your opposition. It’s a short-lived but endlessly helpful option that helped me recapture first place or make up for lost time due to obstacle damage.

The courses are all spectacular both aesthetically and mechanically. From simple, straightforward courses with easy to understand layouts to courses that require pinpoint drifts around tight turns and perfect memory of its geography, I didn’t find a single course in Team Sonic Racing that I didn’t like. An assortment of obstacles such as rolling blocks, saws, clock hands, and crabs makes each location feel unique and begs for you to learn their movement patterns to improve navigation times on courses.

"The addition of Team Adventure mode will offer something of value to Sonic enthusiasts looking for a narrative, but the story itself was mundane window dressing for me."

A familiar collection of jumps, boost pads, and item boxes are complimented by rings to collect that improve your top speed. The speed change is virtually unnoticeable thanks to the game’s already frantic pace, but every millisecond counts since Team Sonic Racing isn’t impervious to the genre’s dreadful rubber band AI feature. One second you can have a substantial lead and the next second be in fourth place simply because the game felt that your success should be punished with an unfair feature. I’d be angrier if I wasn’t used to it by now, but there’s still no excuse for this archaic game balancing shortcut in 2019.

The presentation is rounded out by an absolutely jamming soundtrack full of upbeat tunes ranging from its metal-esque theme music to the multitude of punk, rock, and electronic songs layered throughout its menus and courses. Unlike most games of its ilk, Team Sonic Racing manages to speed past the concept of music as just background noise and instead allows its beats to imbue its frantic gameplay with a further sense of energy and speed. I never expected to be humming a Sonic racing game’s soundtrack around my house, but here we are, and this is life now.

The addition of Team Adventure mode will offer something of value to Sonic enthusiasts looking for a narrative, but the story itself was mundane window dressing for me. Bland dialogue delivered alongside still images of Sonic and friends did nothing for someone like me who hasn’t ever been heavily invested in the core franchise, but it’s an inoffensive offering and easily skippable if you’re not interested. Thankfully, the remainder of the mode is a nice compilation of single races, grand prix, and some unconventional game types of varying quality. Survival mode is probably the most sound of the bunch and plays out almost identically to normal races except that the bottom three racers are eliminated at the end of each lap.

But bringing up the bottom of these additional modes is perhaps Team Sonic Racing’s most downright awful feature, Daredevil races. With limited time on the clock, you’re asked to drive past pylons placed throughout a course attempting to trigger a score multiplier by passing its red side or gain bonus points by drifting through its yellow side. The issue is that it’s never explained how to actually achieve the task effectively, and I finally just gave up after repeatedly getting a bronze medal on the first Daredevil race regardless of putting in over an hour of effort. There was seemingly nothing more I could do and no further explanation of how to do it even if there was. It’s easily one of the most infuriating game modes I’ve experienced in years and places a real damper on the Team Adventure experience.

"There’s so much to love here, and it’s even sweeter at the game’s budget launch price."

Not only is there a fantastic selection of classic Sonic heroes and villains to choose for races, but Team Sonic Racing also grants you the ability to upgrade and customize your characters’ cars through various paint jobs, vinyls, and stat-altering parts. These parts are obtained through in-game loot boxes opened by using credits earned through winning races, and I only occasionally found myself annoyed by their addition. Getting yet another single-use bonus item for a race wasn’t nearly as useful as getting a cool upgrade I wanted for one of my vehicles, but I at least applaud the developers for evading the practice of pay-to-play loot box gambling. Earning credits never took long, so I never had to wait more than a few races to see if I got something new, and I spent more time than I probably needed to weighing the pros and cons of the different parts and the stats they altered.

Team Sonic Racing also includes online multiplayer across both team play and solo racing. I found it far more difficult to compete with human opponents, naturally, but not exclusively because of my lack of experience. Truthfully, the game’s core design feels exploited by human players and turns the game into a chaotic mess of 12 players endlessly slamming each other around the course, blasting one another with items incessantly, and generally just wreaking havoc in such a way that the game barely feels like a racer anymore. If that type of unbalanced mayhem appeals to you, or if you feel that you’re good enough to compete in such pandemonium, you’ll find that the servers run fine and lag is nonexistent. But I wasn’t able to hang with the big kids and quickly found my way back to the safety of Team Adventure’s normal and hard difficulties instead.

In conclusion, Sonic Team Racing’s rockin’ soundtrack, beautiful and detailed course designs, and plenty of modes and options to dig into makes it an absolute joy to play. There’s so much to love here, and it’s even sweeter at the game’s budget launch price.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Sega’s Team Sonic Racing, the latest in the blue blur’s karting series, is now available for all platforms. You can pick it up on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PC. A new live action trailer has also been released, and while it doesn’t feature anything as controversial as the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, it’s still quite the sight.

Team Sonic Racing only features Sonic and his franchise pals – no other Sega characters can be found. Unlike Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, there are no transformations either. Players race in teams and must work together to win races.

To that end, there are three types of classes – Speed, Power, and Technique – each serving their own role in a race. Along with drafting behind allies for speed-inducing Slingshots, it’s also possible to share any items obtained. If that sounds interesting to you, then Team Sonic Racing may be worth checking out. Head here for a far more traditional launch trailer. You can also read our review through here.

Sonic is a busy man nowadays. Not only is he racing onto the big screen, he and his friends have a fast paced kart racer coming out tomorrow with Team Sonic Racing. Last week we got a look at the game’s launch trailer, which showed off the various characters, tracks, and customization. Just before the game’s release, Sega has now released a new trailer highlighting the three different archetypes the racers will fall into.

There are three class types in Team Sonic Racing: Speed, Power, and Technique. Speed gives you, as expected, an extra bit of boost to your speed, while also having a blast effect to destroy incoming projectiles. Power has characters that can smash into obstacles without slowing down, and have a temporary boost to offset downgraded speed. Finally, Technique characters allow for more precise cornering and handling while attracting rings more easily and slowing down less on bad terrain. You can check out the trailer below to see the classes in action.

Team Sonic Racing will release May 21^st on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. Here’s some interesting facts you may also need to know about the game before you pick it up.

The big news everyone is talking about in the Sonic world is the upcoming film adaptation of the hedgehog, and, well… feelings are mixed about that, so we’ll leave that alone for now. But the speedster is letting his feet take a rest, as he’s going to be behind the wheel instead in his newest title, Team Sonic Racing. Now, publisher Sega has released a launch trailer ahead of the game’s release next week to get your adrenaline going.

You can check out the trailer below to see the different kind of races Sonic and friends are going to be involved in this time. It highlights the amount of characters, the tracks, and the customization options the game will all have at launch. It has online play with up to 12 players, or offline in split-screen with up to 4. The game this time only focuses on Sonic and characters from his games, as opposed to being a full Sega crossover such as the last few titles.

Team Sonic Racing will launch May 21^st for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. You can check out some interesting facts about the game in the meantime.

CLASSES

Characters in Team Sonic Racing will fall into one of thee categories: speed, power, or technique, with each of these three having their own characteristics and attributes. Speed class characters will, as their name suggests, be speedier, while power class characters will be able to smash and drive through obstacles on tracks. Meanwhile, technique class characters will be able to drive over rough terrain without slowing down.

CO-OP FOCUS

Why this focus on classes, though? Well, in a big shake-up to the formula, Team Sonic Racing is putting great emphasis on co-op play. Players will be part of a team of racers, who must work together to perform better. Paying attention to the performance and actions of your teammates will be key, while mechanics such as sharing power ups with team members will also come into play.

RACE COMPOSITION

So what’s the composition of the races in light of this focus on co-op? Each race will see twelve competitors in total, who’ll be divided into four teams of three. Any character can be in any team, while players can also choose to have three of a single character being in a single team as well- though of course, given the focus on classes and co-op play, that might not be ideal in most situations.

POINTS-FOCUSED

Here’s another way Team Sonic Racing is setting itself apart from other kart racers, which also ties in with its focus on co-op racing. Races in Team Sonic Racing won’t be won on the basis of your positioning, but rather your team’s total points. As such, working together and performing well as a team will be key to victory.

INSPIRATIONS

Sega and Sumo Digital have looked at quite a few games to serve as inspirations for the co-op-based gameplay of Team Sonic Racing. For starters, the idea came to them from Sonic Heroes, whose team-centric gameplay was used as a point of reference. Meanwhile, the developers have also cited the likes of Splatoon and Overwatch as inspirations.

CARS ONLY

Unlike Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which also allowed players to take control of boats and planes, Sonic Team Racing will focus on cars, and cars only. The developers say they have done so because they felt having vehicles other than cars didn’t fit with the game’s team-based gameplay, which is something that they wanted to emphasize a lot.

ONLY SONIC CHARACTERS

But other vehicle types aren’t the only thing Team Sonic Racing is dropping. No, unlike its predecessors, Team Sonic Racing will only feature characters from Sonic, and not from other Sega franchises. So while previous Sonic kart racers have featured characters from the likes of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio, here, it’s all about Sonic and his friends (or enemies).

ULTIMATE METER

As you and your teammates race through through the courses, depending on your performances, your Ultimate meter will also build up. The better you perform, or the more co-operative stuff you do – such as transferring power ups to one another – the faster it fills up. Activating the Ultimate meter gives you a burst of speed and a short burst of invincibility- if all three teammates active their Ultimate meter at the same time, it can lead to some huge benefits, as you can imagine.

GAME MODES

So what modes will be on offer in the game? There will, of course, be the Grand Prix mode, which will see players competing against one another to achieve the highest points total. Then there’s Time Trial, which is exactly what its name suggests, while another mode, Exhibition, will allow players to race using custom rulesets.

CAMPAIGN

Of course, there will also be a campaign. Dubbed Team Adventure, the campaign will serve as an introduction to the game’s mechanics. It will be divided into multiple missions, which will task players with various missions to complete. Progression in the campaign will also yield unlocks, which can be used in other modes as well.

MULTIPLAYER

Given its focus on co-op, it’s really no surprise at all that there will also be a variety of multiplayer options available in Team Sonic Racing. Up two twelve players will be able to compete in online races, while local multiplayer will support a total of three players. In addition, the campaign will also feature support for up to three total players.

TRACKS

Team Sonic Racing will boast of 21 tracks in total- these will be split across seven zones, and just as it is the case with characters, will be based on locations from Sonic titles, and Sonic titles only. Some tracks from Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will also return.

CUSTOMIZATION

Customization will also have a huge role to play. Playing through its variety of game modes will see players unlock several kart customization options, which will range across cosmetic – such as changing paint jobs – and otherwise. The latter can be used to customize various aspects of your karts, including handling, defense, acceleration, boost, top speed, and more.

SOUNDTRACK

Team Sonic Racing will see Jen Senoue composing the soundtrack, returning to the series for the first time since Sonic Generations in 2011, with the game’s theme song, “Green Light Ride”, having been performed by Senoue’s band, Crush 40. According to producer Takashi Iizuka, Senoue was chosen because, in his words, they wanted the music to sound “cool” and “exciting”.

ENGINE

Team Sonic Racing has been built on the same proprietary engine Sumo Digital used during the development of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed– well, a modified version of it, at any rate. According to the developers, using the engine has allowed them to achieve parity across all system versions of the game.