To be this good takes....

I downloaded the demo for Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing as a recent flourish of online Mario Kart Wii left me hungry for more karting action.

Turns out while it's relatively easy to make a Karting game and especially so if you've got a roster of well loved characters to fill it with there's a reason why there's still only one really good Karting game in existence.

The demo instantly annoyed me with the absence of an option to turn the music off. Nevermind the annoying voice over guy who shouts continually.

Still, I swallowed my pride, turned the TV down, Peter Gabriels new album up (Although it turns out a covers album rendered almost entirely in strings and orchestral arrangements probably isn't the best accompanyment to SEGA's day glo world) and got down to business.

Now I know Sumo Digital have a strong tradition of converting SEGA IP to home console but in this instance they seemed to have lost the plot.

All the classic ingredients are there. The demo gives you one track based on Sonic's Green Hill Zone. There's a roster of fairly well know SEGA characters and much like Dantes Inferno has been 'inspired' by God of War only someone whose been in prison for the last 20 years would fail to spot the inspiration here. There's homing red rockets. Green rockets that fire straight ahead and bounce and even a blue rocket that homes in on the leader.

Just like in Mario Kart you can press the bumper button to hop in the air and begin a drift. But where as in Mario Kart this leads to a precise test of skill as you balance the drift and earn a boost for completing one here the kart turns through almost 90 degrees taking all the subtly out of it.

It's also proper hard. Even when I'd managed to get a boost start I only managed to finish fourth. I got as high as second before a red she.. sorry I mean rocket sent me spinning and I was down to eight. Now one of the joys of Mario Kart is that you can go from first to last and vice versa within a lap. Here though it's almost impossible to claw your way back. Even when I earned sonics super star power up (he actually leaps out of his Kart and you hammer the 'A' button to turbo him along) I only managed to make up one place, over taking Ryu (sadly not in his trademark forklift truck in the demo) only for him to over take me on the very next corner. You're constantly being over taken by faster AI and pummeled with rockets and bombs.. the frustration factor was high.

Suffice to say I'll be waiting for either reviews or bargain bins before I pick this up.

Still while I was playing that Yazuka 3, also a SEGA game, was downloading and installing on my PS3.

Now this is more like it. I should say that while I'm aware of the previous two games on PS2 I've never played one. I was instantly impressed with the game. The visuals are hardly state of the art. The character models are reasonable but the city itself looks a bit meh. Especially given how close in the camera is meaning it's not even having to render a huge draw distance. But it more than makes up for that in atmosphere. It's night in the demo and the city is lit up in lots of gaudy neon and full of hussle.. Just like I'd imagine Tokyo is.

I'd imagine the full game breaks you in a bit more gently and perhaps has some on screen tutorials that help you learn the combat? Here after a conversation with some rival gangsters you're straight into a fight with multiple bad guys. I was soon knocking some heads together and using bar stools and what ever else I could find to kick some ass.

Like GTA IV the main character uses his mobile to get information and access e.mails and the like and I was then off to find a singing joint and meet a young lady. The rhythmn action singing and clapping was tough but again really captured that kind of cheesy japanese enthusiasm.. there's a kind of Hard Boiled feel to it all.

Another battle and it's all over.. but it certainly left me intrigued and wanting to explore some more. I'm assuming that there's a lot of slow exploring and chatting mixed in with bouts of intense violence?

So a tail of two halfs really.