Game Review: Super Toy Cars (Xbox One)

Super Toy Cars attempts to mimic the Micro Machines formula of yester-year resulting in a poor & un-interesting arcade racing game.

Selling itself on brightly coloured locations where you weave your way through everyday household objects, the possibilities are pretty open for some imaginative & quality tracks here. Instead what we get are some of the most bland & ugly tracks I’ve ever seen in any racing game. Lacking inventiveness & challenge you’ll barely notice any of the foggy backgrounds as you race around.

The tracks take place across a number of locations with minor obstructions here & there such as a sushi roll or a bunch of nuts & bolts. Some tracks have a minor brief alternative path that normally shaves a second or two of your time.

Don’t even consider going off road though as this game has invisible walls everywhere & a respawning mechanic that is very unfair. Throw in the horrific collision detection that will see you automatically respawn after landing too hard off a jump & suddenly the difficulty increases two-fold.

This respawning mechanic is designed to get you out of a sticky situation as it can be activated manually but it sets you so far down the pack that regaining the lead will suddenly become a struggle. The AI will happily let you win with ease but should you be in the middle of the pack they will do everything in their power to stop you.

There are weapons that can be picked up by driving through floating boxes. These are as uninspired as the rest of the game with only a handful being available & even less actually being useful. The only thing you need to win every time in this game is a fast car with excellent drift ability.

There are a number of cars available to buy using in-game coins you earn by winning events. At first you won’t really notice much difference as you’ll be winning races with ease with the starting car but later it becomes necessary to invest. Save your coins early & get one of the higher performance cars. The rest of the game is a piece of piss…once you’ve got drifting down.

It’s not just standard racing though…time trials, eliminator events, eliminator events with mines on the track & checkpoint racing mix things up a bit.

While there is no online mode there is local 4-player competitive racing as well as quick races against AI opponents.

Finally the soundtrack is made up of pop-punk songs with only 3 or 4 on a loop. It’s strange as it doesn’t work well with the visual style of the games & they will grate on your nerves after hearing them a few times!

Does Nintendo have an agreement in place that states no-one beyond them can make a fun, karting style game?