Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds' Metacritic score ties it with the best Sonic racing game ever made, but it still can't overtake Crash and Mario

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds' Metacritic score has tied it as the best Sonic racing game, but it's not quite high enough to take down its rivals.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds' reviews over on Metacritic currently land it a score of 82, which places is right next to 2012's Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which is a game the community (and myself) hold up in high regard as one of the greatest kart racers of all time, so it's definitely not in bad company. That score also puts CrossWorlds ahead of 2019's Team Sonic Racing (72) and 2010's Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (75) with all the Sonic Riders tiles sitting around the 47-56 score range. However, Sonic R doesn't have a Metacritic score but we all know that would hit 100 for the soundtrack alone.

However, that score doesn't quite reach the highs of rival kart racers, with Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled at a still shockingly low 83 for being one of the best racing games ever made (the PS1 original sits at a far more appropriate 88). And of course, Mario still leads the pack with every single game barring Mario Kart Wii (which ties CrossWorlds at 82) and Mario Kart Tour (at 59) having a higher rating, although I'm not sure I trust a website that has Super Circuit as the highest rated entry. What's also notable is that a lot of reviews say it's better than Mario Kart World, but it is still behind that game's score of 86.

The GamesRadar+ Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds review from Justin Towell gives the game four stars out of five, and says: "Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is a slick, ambitious racer with loads of tracks, primed and ready for future, licensed crossovers. At first too slow and then suddenly extremely fast, the racing lacks finesse, but it gets better as you play. A strong offering that's compulsively playable, but a bit grindy in single-player and not quite S-tier on the track."

The highest reviews for the game come from The Gamer's Rhiannon Bevan and IGN's Jada Griffin, who both awarded the game a 9/10 score. On the opposite end, Gamespot's Steve Watts gave the game a 7/10 with TheSixthAxis' Dominic L giving it a 6/10. So even its worst reviews are still fairly positive. The majority of reviews, however, are hovering around the 8/10 mark, giving it a solid head start.

The Mario Kart World shade couldn't be any more obvious as Sega tells you to "leave the open road behind" and play Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds in a throwback to the '90s console wars.