Earlier this month, we highlighted the partnership between Sega and OpenFeint in the upcoming iOS racing title Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. Now, the game is out on both the iPad and iPhone and since its June 23rd release, has risen rapidly up both respective paid app charts reaching #21 on iPhone and topping the iPad lists at #1.

Running $4.99, the game is, for all intents and purposes, a Sega-branded rendition of the popular Mario Kart franchise, hosting the same core go-kart racing mechanics. However, it replaces generic carts with vehicles that show off a little bit of each character’s personality. From Sonic to Super Monkey Ball, the game places users into original courses from around the various Sega franchises.

There is no real rhyme or reason behind the premise of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing other than the fact that it’s an over-the-top racer with various characters from the Sega universe.

From Sonic to Ryo Hazuki, players race through courses epitomizing the styles of distinct Sega franchises. From the loops of Sonic the Hedgehog to the beats of Jet Set Radio, long time players of Sega’s past games ought to find themselves within a sea of nostalgia.

The gameplay is a bit nostalgic too. Because Sonic & SEGA plays almost identically to the old Nintendo title, Mario Kart 64, the controls are familiar and work extraordinarily well.

Each character’s vehicle comes with different abilities in terms of control, acceleration and speed. Acceleration is all automatic, and other than tilting to steer, players only need worry about braking and drifting. While breaking is self-explanatory, drifting works similarly to how it did in Mario Kart 64. It’s controlled here with a button press while turning. As players drift, they earn a temporary speed boost upon coming out of it successfully; with more speed for a longer drift.

As for items, which are picked up around the track, there’s a mix of unique and not-so-unique elements to take about. Players can utilize defensive elements such as shields (which can be deployed when offensive weapons are fired at the player), to more creative ones such as a rainbow wall that covers the eyes of drivers behind the user with rainbow goo, obscuring their vision. Unfortunately, for every original weapon, there is one that is not so original, consisting of things like an item that fires three green boxing gloves that ricochet around the course identically to the triple green turtle shells in Mario Kart.

The courses themselves are very unique and fun to drive on. Bright and colorful, they’re not only nice to look at (keep in mind that since it is a 3D iOS game, the visuals are about the level of PlayStation or Nintendo 64) , they also have interesting designs that are not overly difficult to navigate. In some cases, environmental hazards are basic — such as a giant egg moving about the road — while others are more disorienting, such as massive loops in Sonic levels.

The sound design for Sonic & SEGA stands out as well. Be it the banter from the racers (in both English and Japanese) or the upbeat Latin music from Samba De Amigo levels, it is one of the few iOS titles — that isn’t a rhythm game — that has put as much effort into sound quality as the rest of the game.

For $4.99, players get quite a bit of content too. Aside from the single-player “Grand Prix” series of races, players can also participate in single quick races, time trials, and an interesting “Mission” mode in which they have to finish a race track while completing stated objectives (e.g. collect all of X in a level). Other than this, there are also leaderboards in which players can take part in through the above noted OpenFeint and Game Center. To add to all of this, players also earn an in-game currency called “Miles” for their profile which can then be used to unlock new characters and courses to use.

Sonic & SEGA also hosts a multiplayer mode as well in which users can play either locally or online with other players. There are two modes of play which consist of a standard race (with or without power-ups and weapons) as well as a “Battle” mode that is, once again, like Mario Kart 64. In this mode, players drive around an arena-style map and attempt to hit the opponent(s) three times in order to remove them from the battle. Unfortunately, the multiplayer for this game is rather disappointing.

Though it appears that multiplayer can support up to four players, every quick game joined only consisted of two. Moreover, the Battle mode was actually extraordinarily boring. In all the Battle games we tried, the power-ups were always manually aimed weaponry which — and Mario Kart players will be the first to tell you — are very, very hard to hit anything with. As such, battles often consist of driving circles around one another for 10 minutes until someone gets a lucky shot.

Overall, Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing is a decent game for what it is, but it isn’t exactly original from a conceptual point-of-view. It’s the same game as the Mario Kart of yesteryear, with many of the mechanics and items emulating the original. Nevertheless, with a multitude of game modes and unique and interesting race tracks, this Sega title is still fun to play.