Sonic and Tails Racers on mysterious UFOs on wheels

Remember this early concept art found on Impact Innovations website ages ago? Well it turns out two more projects from that lot have been released as I found them in Debenhams, who had a 25% off sale on them. They also had some of those classic Sonic carrying bags that you may of seen on GAME. I picked them up figuring they were even cheaper at the moment and if they're anything like that track set they'll all be gone by Christmas. The remote controlled 'racers' look far better than in those old prototypes, thankfully.



Both are in a running pose and are attached to big black lumps of plastic with wheels on them. I can understand that designing Sonic toys like this is more difficult than Mario kart, but why not make the wheels their legs like in the artwork? Oh well.

The Sonic one is really nice. The face is a great design especially. I'd almost go as far as to say it looks even better than the First4Figures vinyl toy that was in the same pose, though the paint work isn't as good, but then this is a toy first and foremost, unlike the vinyl toy collectible.

The Tails one looks a little off. I think it's mainly to do with his eyes, they appear to be far too small and give the impression that he has a large cranium. Also, was it really wise to paint the part that connects the figure to the base in-between his legs like that? Er...no comment. XD

The remote control is interesting: they've gone for a Sonic & Knuckles like silhouette of the characters with two simple buttons. A re-creation of the Mega Drive controller would have been awesome, but this is still a decent design.

These toys are £12 RRP, though due to the sale I got them a bit cheaper, so they're not bad at all. The quality of Sonic toys and figures in the last year or two has been far better than we've been used to I think: after years of wonky Sonic X rubbish and even a lot of the old 90's merchandise wasn't all that well designed. I remember the Sonic RC car just being a cruddy purple car with Sonic stickers on it, for example. Perhaps this is all in preparation for project Needlemouse? I doubt it, but wouldn't that be ace?