TEAM SONIC RACING

Homework ✅ Exercise ✅ Chores ✅

Ok I guess my kids have time now to play a video game SEGA sent us to try out. The twins are having a great time playing this kart-style video game Team Sonic Racing on our family's Xbox One. It lets players speed through the arcade world of Sonic the Hedgehog in fast-paced racing action. Team Sonic Racing incorporates a lot of the features that has made Mario Kart a popular video game but goes beyond Nintendo's go karts with players able to have their favorite characters from the Sonic Universe zoom around in Grand Prix inspired race cars.

Pick your favorite Sonic the Hedgehog character, customize the color scheme of its car and get racing! As you accomplish goals and win races, players can then enhance their cars to power them up by adding different performance parts. The more a car is tinkered with the faster it will go and better it will handle helping you zoom through courses.

While you may want to select a character to race just because he or she may be a favorite of yours, it is also important to understand each of the fifteen characters available to play all have one of 3 racing attributes. These are SPEED, TECHNIQUE or POWER. A character's attribute can give the driver an edge in different circumstances as they race through the video game's 21 different tracks. For example, technique drivers can drive off-road over rough surfaces like grass without slowing down which can be a real benefit for players who have a hard time navigating curves and turns on tracks. 

You can get up to twelve friends together to race at the same time through the video game's online capabilities or up to four players can join in from the same console or PC with its split screen feature. Developed by Sumo Digital, Team Sonic Racing is available to play via Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and STEAM. There are a variety of game modes providing different ways to play Team Sonic Racing. These include Grand Prix where racers compete to earn points, Time Trial where the fastest time wins, and Exhibition which allows players to actually customize race rules. There is also a story-driven mode called Team Adventure.

What really differentiates Team Sonic Racing from other kart-style racing video games though is that there is a focus on cooperative play. Team is a very important element of Team Sonic Racing. Participants in races are divided into teams of three (which can be either live or AI driven cars) and instead of winning races by simply finishing first, teams earn victories based upon how they worked together. Bump opponents cars or help a teammate achieve a task to get ahead.

So there can be up to four teams of three with there being 12 cars in each race. We've played with my wife, son, daughter and I each having our own team complimented with AI cars. The kids have played together on one team with the third car AI as well as those in the competing teams. They also have played against one another with the other two cars in each of  their teams AI driven. I've also played with them on the same team so that all the cars were controlled by people racing against AI opponents. There are lots of different ways for people to team up as well as compete against one another in this fun racing game.

Thanks again to SEGA for sending this free video game our way to play! My family has had such an exciting and enjoyable time Team Sonic Racing absolutely gets A Geek Daddy nod of approval. For more information about the video game go to sonicthehedgehog.com/teamsonicracing

Team Sonic Racing is available from Best Buy for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. If you purchase the game utilizing an affinity link within this post ageekdaddy.com will receive a small commission at no additional expense to you. This dad blogger appreciates your support!

PixARK

My kids have been off school this week for Spring Break and are having a great time being some of the first people to play the new open world voxel-based sandbox survival video game PixARK on our Xbox One. Thanks Snail Games for sending a free early access pass our way! In PixArk,  players find themselves on a mysterious island filled with dinosaurs and mythical creatures where everything is built out of three-dimensional voxel cubes.  To survive you must hunt, grow crops, build shelters and craft items to overcome vicious creatures and natural hazards.

Being a sandbox style game there isn't a structured script to play through; but rather players make their way through open worlds tackling randomly generated landscapes and challenges which makes every time someone plays unique. You start off the game with just an animal skin to wear and your wits to rely on. By developing resources and skills though, players can learn to build high tech and magical tools as well as design structures they can build that can range from basic shelters to avoid the elements to magnificent fortresses to serve as a home base. Plus there are over 100 dinosaurs and other creatures that can be tames, trained and ridden.  PixARK can be played either as a single player game or in online multi-player mode where you can work cooperatively as a team to take on opposing tribes of other players to be rulers of an island.



Player characters can be customized to be male or female with different available selections for hair styles, facial features, clothing outfits and more.  My daughter liked pig tails were an option to choose from when creating her character.  As you progress through the game, there are ongoing ways to enhance the functionality and styling of the outfit your character wears.  Acquiring new abilities, clothing and tools allows players to begin crafting their own dream world with infrastructure and structures to civilize a game map's wild environment.

If you are interested in playing the game now it is available for $24.99 on Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview.  Snail Games will be using this early access period to gather feedback for eliminating potential glitches and making additional improvements before the PixARK's final release later in 2018.  The game will eventually be available via retail and digital distribution for PC, Microsoft Xbox One, Sony PlayStation 4 entertainment system and the Nintendo Switch.

Even though it is a pre-release version of the game, PixARK has still been a real hit with our family.  My kids have really been excited to explore the various landscapes that include arctic ice fields, deserts, jungles, mountains and swamps that are filled with amazing animals and monsters to discover.  They've been thrilled about taming dinosaurs and riding them all about.  That is probably their favorite part of the game.  Plus they've been having a lot of fun imagining up and building their own unique castles.  The kids are only in the early stages of the game too so there is much more things to discover and excitement to come!

As a parent, I appreciate that pixARK involves problem-solving, has strategic elements, promotes STEM concepts, and its sandbox format provides a lot of freedom to utilize one's creativity and imagination within its gameplay. You won't achieve success in this game just with brawn, players need to flex their brains to get ahead. Though there is some battling and dueling that takes place as part of the action in the game's adventures too.  In the end though this game isn't about winning or losing but rather having fun exploring and building your own fantasy world.    

For more information about this new video game from Snail Games, head over to pixark.snail.com or follow the video game's Twitter feed @OfficalpixARK