SRB2Kart, also known as Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, is a standalone modification of Sonic Robo Blast 2 (meaning it doesn't need the original game) that turned this 3D platformer...into a kart racing game!
Publicly released in December 2019, while the current version was built on top of v2.1 (as v2.2 wasn't out yet), it was an incredible mod to see as it used a lot of slopes for the tracks (which weren't used for any SRB2 v2.1 maps), tight looking gameplay, online support, a big selection of tracks, a battle mode, and one of the features that struck to me as amazing: 4-player splitscreen support (SRB2 back then and even today has a maximum of 2 players in splitscreen).
Several maps in the game take advantage of the support for sloped terrain added in SRB2 v2.1 (except that said version didn't ship with any maps that used this, so it was only seen in modded maps until 2.2), giving the game a lot of terrain variation on the tracks after the older versions being reminscent of games like F-Zero on the SNES. While some maps are plain ports or not as visually polished as others, those that are really show the amount of sweat, tears and passion put into building the maps (specially if you know know how they are actually built, as they aren't real 3D-modelled maps and you have to do workarounds to make floating geometry).
The gameplay is similar to Mario Kart but there are some few extra nuances, like three drift levels (the last one, the rainbow drift, takes much longer to obtain but gives you a long-lasting boost), bumping walls and players being bouncier than you'd expect, and one of the funniest (or maddening) touches is the knockback when getting hit by a Spikeball or Jawz, which at best leaves you spinning a while after being bumped off the road, and at worst can send you flying off a map if you happened to be near a cliff or a wall-less section.
While most of the items are similar to Mario Kart function-wise, they all have a distinct appearance and some are either rather different to Mario Kart items or have a interesting spin to it:
- The Jawz (Red Shell) feels more like a homing missile, following exactly the locked-on target but can be avoided due to it being looser on that aspect and also the possibility of outpacing it a bit with a boost.
- The Eggman Monitor acts as the Fake Item Box, posing as a legitimate one (but with an Eggman face instead of a Star) but instead of being an immediate obstacle, it will turn you into a 3-second timed bomb. You can also trigger the explosion earlymanually to grief another competitor nearby you.
- The Thunder Shield is similar to the Super Horn in recent titles, as it can be triggered to cause a shockwave that can hit other players and items nearby. However, it is also a shield that can be kept on for protection.
- The Ballhog is a hectic item which throws 5 bouncing bombs in front of you, which can also bounce off walls. While they may not last as long as Orbinauts (Green Shell) bouncing on walls, they can spell disaster for unlucky players in front of you.
- The Mine is similar to the Eggman Monitor, as it can be thrown forwards or dropped backwards and while its not as subtle as the fake box, driving too close from it (or having it fall in front on someone) triggers a huge explosion.
- The Self-Propelled Bomb is the Blue Shell's more vicious looking BUT less cheap brother, as it will chase anyone in first place but unlike the Blue Shell, you can actually outrun it as long as you drive well enough, acting more like a triggered chase to survive instead of an unavoidable demise.
- The rest of the items are not as crazy but still are your Mario Kart level of either useful or damaging but with some few extra quirks (holding Bananas behind you eventually slows you down so that you don't have them the whole time, Orbinauts are fast and bounce from walls, Hyudoros (Boo) allow you to go offroad on top of the usual turn invisible and steal someone's item, and the Grow and Shrink items act like the Mega Mushroom and Lightning respectively.
One thing that should be mentioned is that, just like its parent game, SRB2Kart supports using 3D models for characters and items in OpenGL mode, which is a nice extra flavor that can be opted for if wanted. A neat touch when doing this is that the characters will appear tilted/slanted when driving on terrain that is not flat sideways. That aside, the game does keep an interesting flair with cars and boosting feeling fast, item throwing having some visible strength (and getting hit showing visible impact), and when the enviroment is all about besting others in a race, it does really set the mood for the crazy Kart competition.
SRB2Kart doesn't only have a race mode, but also includes a battle mode where you have to take everybody else's bumpers and be the last one standing (like in Mario Kart's Balloon Battle). Not only you can steal bumpers with a sneaker boost (just like in MKDS), but also if you happen to lose yours, you can reappear after some seconds as a bomb with wheels and try to mess someone else...or hit a item box to turn into one and give someone an item by touching them. By touching others (as a bomb or as a gift), you can get points to eventually return to the match.
The game has a hefty amount of base content, with over 100 maps between Race and Battle mode, though there are three cups that must be unlocked by getting medals in Record Attack mode. These are basically obtained by finishing under a certain time. The Silver medals are fairly easy for the most part to obtain, but the Gold medals can be either not too bad, fairly challenging or even surprisingly strict to obtain; a feeling that is reinforced by the lead staff ghost from several present in a track representing the Gold medal time that you must beat.
The game's biggest strength lies on the multiplayer: Not only it supports up to 4 players on a single PC as mentioned in the beginning, but also supports up to 16 players in a race through a LAN network or an online server (and 4-player splitscreen is still an option when playing on LAN/online). However, this is also the game's current underlying flaw: Bots aren't implemented yet so your only big source of single player playtime provided by the game is the aforementioned Record Attack, and due to the game being built on top of Doom/SRB2, the game's netcode can add input delay when playing with high ping on a server (for example playing with 220ms of ping to a server can have you experience delay on the controls).
However, under the right conditions, be it that you gathered some friends for a Kart night or can find a server near you (my experience playing on a server at 140-160ms was quite good, so anything below that should be A-OK), SRB2Kart is an absolute blast to play with the amount of hectic items and high speed racing. And while trying to go unprepared into the competition can be quite daunting, the Record Attack mode servers well as your training room for both learning the controls and learning the tracks as you try to improve times.
And of course, while the game provides a good amount of base content (tracks, and 5 default characters + an official bonus character expansion addon included), its roots from SRB2 (and Doom) have opened the doors for the community to make a big amount of custom content, including but not limited to a huge amount of extra characters from many sources, brand new custom tracks (and ports from other games), gameplay-altering mods and new modes...or even something as simple yet silly as being able to honk a horn like in Mario Kart (except these sounds are randomized per race and there's a lot of them). Trying to join a server should prompt you as well to download the needed addons through the game if you didn't have them before.
About my own personal experience with this game, I had been interested on it when I saw a preview of the game in 2019 before the game released, and played it on the first day of release as I experienced multiplayer madness online and spent several weeks grinding away at the Record Attack medals. My preference for the game as well as the ease of use of the mapmaking tools got me soon enough in working in my own maps. While the first maps I made were pretty rough, I still got a good kick out of doing so, and the maps that I made later on would have a good amount of effort poured in it from myself. These would be the ones featured in my mappack named ArcadePak.
While I haven't went back to this for a good while (and still had pending to update the pack for some few extra fixes), it still felt like a big achievement to make something like this (exactly 6 maps in a mappack) and also a pleasure to see people play my own maps after my hardest efforts on figuring out ideas and polish. But of course, there are some custom tracks made by others that are both absolutely stunning in visuals and really fun to race on, and custom characters definitely don't drop the ball in looking good either.
This is a game that I would really recommend checking out if you like racing games (or Mario Kart), and just like its parent game, its completely free to download. Also, there's an update currently in development that not only will add more characters and maps to the base roster, but also is planned to add extra mechanics (like drafting) and even a Grand Prix mode complete with AI bots.
