HomeReviewsMantis Burn Racing Snowbound and Elite Class DLC Review

Mantis Burn Racing Snowbound and Elite Class DLC Review

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When additional downloadable content arrives for one of the best racers of recent times, it goes without saying that you should be interested in checking it out. When that same DLC comes in with just a £1.99 price tag, delivering new cars and a whole new environment at the same time, then well, it’s all a bit of a no-brainer.

So that’s what we’ve got with Mantis Burn Racing, as VooFoo Studios have dropped a couple of new content packs into the game; one which costs that small outlay, whilst the other, remarkably, comes for free.

Price-wise, all seems great, but is the content included in the Snowbound pack and Elite Class DLC pack worth the bother? Well, that all depends on how far you’ve taken your Mantis Burn Racing experience to date. And whether or not you wish to continue building it.

First up is the free to download, Snowbound Pack. Now this delivers a rather impressive 34 extra events to the game, but unless you have previously hammered Mantis Burn for everything it has got, you will find much of it locked down. As the name suggests, the new environment it brings is snow themed, and will give you the chance to race alongside the usual competitors through the most wintry of landscapes. Your skills will need to be on point should you wish to complete the usual races, knockouts, hot laps and more that Mantis Burn will have you competing in, as the events found in Snowbound extend the Veteran Class career with a couple of new seasons.

This is great for those of us who have already unlocked the testing Veteran seasons, and the more racing we can partake in with VooFoo’s racer, the better, but should you not have already earnt the required 380 or 485 Gears from previous events which are needed in order to race in Vet Seasons 2 and 3, much of Snowbound will seem to be inaccessible.

In fact, unless you also purchase the Elite Class DLC which has arrived alongside it, then Snowbound is pretty much off limits to all but the most experienced drivers. Of course, you could just head back into the Rookie and Pro seasons in order to max out your Gear collections by partaking in previous events over and over again, but it would have been nice to see a bit more of Snowbound instantly available.

But hey, at least the Elite Class DLC will let us have a bit of fun in the snow. Won’t it?

Well again, that all depends on how far you’ve previously progressed. The paid for Elite Class (although at just £1.99, I’m loath to use the words ‘paid for’), brings an extra Season once more – that of Elite Season 1 – and no matter how good your driving is, will find it ready to bring you some fun. Or at least half of it will be available for your entertainment as yet again, you’ll need to have earnt a huge amount of Gears in earlier Seasons in order to check it all out. Basically put, if you haven’t yet collected more than 300 Gears, then well, you’re going to be left disappointed.

Edit: I just wanted to add to this to avoid any confusion. Whilst it is obviously highly recommended that Gears have been earnt previously (if only because the base game is great), the Elite Season isn’t locked down to newcomers. Instead, the entire season is accessible and unlocked from the get-go, with shortcuts in place to help out. 

Should you have though, then the Elite Class vehicles which have been included are great. Doing away with wheels, these futuristic Elite machines provide the ultimate driving test, hovering above the ground and using powerful turbines to power them along. They are fast, and the racing is stupidly frantic when you are aboard either the Hardy, the Griffin or the beast that is known as the Manticore. Drifting is key and because the new class of vehicle hover above the ground, the bumps in the track surface are pretty much ironed out, allowing for some serious speed to be gathered.

Not only are they fast, but they look the part too and aside from being super twitchy and very easy to nail into the nearest wall, are a great little addition to the usual Mantis Burn garage. I mean, who the hell wants to trundle round in the boxy truck-like Maverick when you can tear it up in a machine from the future? Answer – No-one!

The Snowbound pack and the Elite Class DLC vehicles can also be utilised in both the local race events and those found in the online multiplayer scene, so should you be struggling to gather the required Gears in order to open up the career events, then at least you can get to mess around with everything the content packs bring. Just be aware, like the vast majority of smaller games that require the Xbox Live service to power their multiplayer scenes, Mantis Burn Racing is pretty quiet nowadays. That’s a bit of a shame, but it shouldn’t be seen as a slight on either Mantis Burn or VooFoo themselves – that’s just the way of the online world. If you can get some mates together to blast through the tracks and machines that are included in these two content packs though, then well, you’re in for a bit of a fast paced treat.

So, is it worth investing your money and time in either the Snowbound or Elite Class DLC packs for Mantis Burn Racing? Well, if you’ve found yourself maxing out everything that the standard career brings, then it’s a bit of a no-brainer and you’ll want to get yourself involved asap. The cheap price and free-ness of Snowbound warrant that at the very least.

But should you only be dropping in to Mantis Burn every now and then, then it may be best to just grab the free download – if only because it’ll cost you nothing, and will give you some time to consider whether you can do without a coffee for the morning before grabbing some Elite Class action.

Neil Watton
Neil Wattonhttps://www.thexboxhub.com/
An Xbox gamer since 2002, I bought the big black box just to play Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. I have since loved every second of the 360's life and am now just as obsessed with the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S - mostly with the brilliant indie scene that has come to the fore. Gamertag is neil363, feel free to add me to your list.
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