(note: I have an archived version of this game so I've played this for longer than the 99 minutes I have logged via Steam)
Review and guide:
It's a mobile game port of one of those endless runners, only difference is that you're driving a vehicle. That's about all there is to this. Avoid some things, run into others, grab stuff...
Actually, of all the endless runners I've played, this is the only one where power-ups and non-game-ending collisions exist, so I guess there is that, but the whole thing doesn't make any sense beyond being a one-screw-up death game with a driving game skin on top of it.
Also, the music, is likely royalty-free toss-away dubstep that is not really engaging, nor is it distracting, at least, not too much, but having it be a thirty to forty second loop of the same thing rather than ten minutes of thematically different BGM on loop, is just poor in taste.
It's not a racer by any means, but I'll save my gripes for the 'How I would improve this' section.
Guide:
This game uses some sort of procedural generation, and it's not good. The way the power-ups appear, the traffic, and even the 'opponents' behavior (just traffic that moves at the same pace as you do and is rubberbanded to you) are all randomized. The 'opponents' do appear at set intervals (distance markers), but it would appear otherwise because it most certainly is possible to have one opponent on screen indefinitely, and even if you get ahead of them, they always catch up. So, it's best to not let them remain too long, because as you move further on, you slowly gain speed (it caps around 200 km/h or something like that), and unless you get lucky with the procedural generation sparsely generating traffic, it will get difficult quickly to do much of anything.
So, my main points are to do the following:
Save power-ups for impassable obstacles OR for power-up stacking (when you use one power-up before grabbing another to use on top of the previous power-up and chaining that if possible) OR for the 'opponents' (but the first one is almost guaranteed a one-shot knockdown so don't bother) OR go after those unfairly indestructible blue freighter trucks with Rockets and Bombs (Boosts won't help against those).
Grab the 'Bonush' Cash and Points (spinning [?] boxes) as well as the squares which give you both cash and points (though the 'Bonush' boxes often give you a lot more of either one and both are indiscernible from one another), and the coins too. In fact, the coins are more valuable than power-ups in a pinch situation where the power-up is not going to help, and are the primary source of cash.
Bonus Magnets, Double Score, get these as often as possible. Bonus Magnets attract most bonus icons to you (coins are unaffected as are a few bonus icons), but this wears off fairly quickly. Double score doubles your accumulation of points over a short period of time, but it's only really valuable when lots of stuff goes BOOM all at once.
Bonus Shower: This will drop a bunch of power-ups ahead of you, but delays the next cycle of power-ups. Grabbing one of these whilst in dense traffic is a bad idea. Avoid these unless you've got a power-up at the ready or are still Boosting, since Boosting renders you invulnerable with the exception of those freighter trucks...
Okay, stuff I'd improve:
Hitbox and Collision Detection: One big problem is that one can corner-bump or side-swipe parallel traffic and have that count against the player, leading to the end of a run. Normally, this adds points. I'd also make it so that the freighter trucks are not immune to being corner bumped or side-swiped because that's just nonsense.
Vehicle Durability: For a game like this, since 'opponents' have this, the player should as well. IT MAKES NO DAMN SENSE THAT A LARGE VEHICLE CANNOT TAKE ANY HITS FROM ANYTHING ESPECIALLY NOT A HEAVY AMBULANCE, FIRETRUCK, OR A MASSIVE SCHOOL/PRISON BUS.
Suggested Durability For All Vehicles:
Player and Opponent Vehicles: 1 hit plus 1 more for the first three vehicles, plus 2 for the fourth vehicle, plus 3 for the AMBULANCE, and plus 4 for the FIRETRUCK and the SCHOOL/PRISON BUS.
For Traffic: One hit for the sedan and the taxi, two for the pickup truck and SUV, four for the freighter truck.
Tying in with durability:
Repair Power-ups: +1 hit, +2 hits, FULL (no explanation needed for these)
Upgrades:
Make the improvements to the three score bonuses leveled (player level increases these once purchased).
Bugfixes I would make:
Make it so that all the purchasable items are set to 0 for cost once purchased for the first time.
Make the player invulnerable after taking down an opponent for ten seconds so that post-takedown things like the run ending due to some collision glitch that is unavoidable due to the camera not being focused on the player and the player not being able to control the vehicle for a few seconds no longer occur.
Get rid of collision glitches that can also occur when triggering bombs.
Never allow all four lanes to be populated with impassable traffic.
Get rid of rubberbanding and have all available player vehicles appear as 'opponents'.
Make the brakes more efficient and get rid of the delay.
Add keyboard support, allow separate volume controls for music and sound effects, and allow one to use their own music if they so wish.
Final Thoughts:
The game art is great, though the name 'Crash and Burn Racing' doesn't quite fit, since it's not a racing game and it looks more like a case of Road Rage-inducing nonsense...
I would call this 'Road Rage-the Runner'.
Is this worth the price asked? Ehhh...
For what you get, it may as well be a demo of a full game, because that's what the overall feel of this is. A demo, alpha-pre-release, not a full game of any sort. So, for that, at $3, no. Grab this on sale for $.60 like I did, or, you know, do the 'try before you buy' thing like I did (damn I miss those days of going to a rental store and doing that very thing).
Do I recommend this game?
Yes, but the audience for such a game is going to be very limited. Obviously, if you need a time-killer whilst waiting for something, this would be okay for that; it's not highly engaging and won't sucker you in for long periods. However, if you're looking for something for more in-depth and are looking for something to do with friends or on stream, this is probably not it. I dunno; it might make a good meme stream video on YouBoobP0rnTubeHub, lolz
