I pride myself on giving games I buy a good go, and I personally don't refund (although I absolutely support gamer's rights to do so) So I really tried to like this game even though it's first impressions were not good, but I fear it will attract a lot of refunds for the less patient.
I fought hard in this difficult (and as the description says chaotic) karter to get past the first two courses and was finding enjoyment eventually, but also a lot of frustration. But on unlocking the 3rd course, the game defaulted to 2p even though I was playing in 1p, and in any case the race would not start. A bug, I guess.
So I'm left to tell you what isn't right with this game and why I think that even if course 3 would start, what you might not like about it. And it's not just that it's hard to start with (LTP git gud etc) but it's the unfair kind of hard...like if you're dumped off at the start you are not gonna win hard.
It takes far too many clicks to get from the menu into an actual race. And when you are in a race, and want to restart, why on earth does it not just restart but instead takes you back through several menu option choices? I wanna restart THIS race, so please just let me restart this race with one click! When you do win the next track the game doesnt just take you there with your current settings, you are forced back to the main menu.
Why, once I have decided my race options, do I need to click on the screen with a mouse when the game itself doesn't use the mouse? Can't I just click a key instead?
You can read into the above my biggest problem... no controller support. I'm not sure if this is some dogmatic decision to throwback to the days where two players shared a keyboard to play a vs game, but I think it's faintly ridiculous to not have a controller option these days even for local multiplayer, and it's not like it is difficult to deploy standard controller support to Unity games. The dev should be aware that there are accessibility reasons why gamepads suit some people as well.
There are plenty of other issues as well (SBEs - IYKYK) like why can I only change the graphics options from the in-race menu not the start menu options screen? Why does the shield not always shield?
I wanted to try to like this game as I'm not averse to throwback gameplay but just too many things are wrong for me to be able to recommend it. But it does have charm, I think there are some original track and asset designs (although stock is certainly also deployed) and the game principles are kinda likeable. But even at the cheap price I think a lot more work needs to go in to make it a viable purchase for most.
