Sonic Drift 2

Long before Sonic & All-Stars Racing came along and put Sega's mascots into colorful karts, there was a humbler, handheld harbinger of the same idea. Sonic Drift 2 from 1995 is a kart racing game for the Game Gear in which Sonic and his gang first got properly into motorsport - and, surprisingly, it suited them rather well.

Mechanically it is pseudo-3D kart racing seen from behind the vehicle, where you tear along the tracks and compete with other characters from the Sonic universe. Each character has their own vehicle with slightly different properties, so choosing a driver is not just cosmetic. For an eight-bit handheld the pace is pleasantly brisk, and the feeling of drifting into corners gives the game both its name and its zest.

The game is a Game Gear exclusive and came out under Sega's banner, with the studio Aspect regularly collaborating on handheld Sonic titles of that time. Sonic Drift 2 built on the original installment and expanded both the roster and the number of tracks, so it comes across as a more mature and more substantial version of the idea.

Culturally it is above all an interesting curiosity and a period artifact. It shows that already in the mid-nineties Sega was testing how its mascots functioned outside their home genre - exactly what it developed many years later into a full-blooded series of kart racers. Sonic Drift 2 is thus, in a sense, a small ancestor of today's popular Sonic Racing.

Do not expect a technical miracle or the racing depth of modern titles. Expect a fast, undemanding and endearingly retro ride that will please Sonic fans and collectors of handheld curiosities above all.

Why play: Brisk handheld kart racing with the Sonic gang - a historically interesting harbinger of the later Sonic Racing series.