Hankering for the old days of retro racing, where drifting was aplenty and music was chiptune in nature? Well, look no further than the pure racing of Super Woden GP II.
If you enjoyed the launch of Formula Retro Racing back in 2020, there's a good chance you're going to be excited by the release of the next game in the franchise - Formula Retro Racing: World Tour.
Following on from 2020's Formula Retro Racing is Formula Retro Racing: World Tour; the sequel to a game that has provided plenty of hot racing action over the last couple of years.
With more control over the little tin car, Total Arcade Racing might have achieved its purpose: to be a party game of choice for up to eight players. But it’s an unwieldy, slippery beast. You can train yourself to enjoy it, anticipating the turns and conserving your boost, but when you want a game that eight rivals can pick up and enjoy in seconds, it doesn’t fit the bill.
Does anyone remember those mats that were like a top-down view of a road network that kids used to have? I always wanted one of those. Now though, I don’t need one, as Total Arcade Racing releasing today on Xbox looks like those mats and looks set to provide even more fun than manually driving your cars around the carpet.
Remember Daytona USA? Used to love a bit of Outrun? Curve Digital, Sumo Digital and Lucky Mountain Games are looking to revive those glory days of the arcade racing scene with Hotshot Racing on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC. And judging by the early preview version we’ve been hands-on with, they could well be on to a bit of a winner.
There are two distinct styles of racing game: the simulation type, where tweaking tyre pressure to shave a tenth of a second off your lap time makes lots of sense, and the arcade style where you can be found pulling off outrageous handbrake turns and getting style points for it; games in which you don't care how much pressure is in your tyres as long as the neon under the chassis is working. So, in this article I'm going to embrace the sillier side of the racing games - the arcade racers, the anything goes side of the genre.
Even in this era of gaming where visual clarity is the be-all and end-all, there is still room for a simple retro experience. The likes of Horizon Chase Turbo and the upcoming Hotshot Racing have proven that is no more true than in the racing scene, yet now we find things taking an even more basic route as Formula Retro Racing delivers crisp low-poly racing to the Xbox One landscape.
