This year, I’ve fallen into the 25th anniversary nostalgia of the original Xbox, and I’ve felt the desire to play some more games from that system. I picked up this game chiefly because it has the unique distinction of being, as far as I can tell, the only game released two weeks before the console itself. I don’t know if that’s true, but the novelty of it made it worth a try. This one turned out to be surprisingly fun! It’s a cart racer, even if the characters are technically on foot. The gameplay is not enough that anyone is going to give up Double Dash!! or Crash Team Racing (picturing college dorm rooms of that era), but it’s definitely good enough to hold your attention. I didn’t play any multiplayer, only the solo adventure mode which is actually quite deep. The levels are branching and intricate, and because they are only one lap, you are not redoing them constantly. But because there are multiple paths, it does inspire a want to go back and run some of the levels again. Speaking of replay-ability, there are medals to earn for finishing levels with each character, finding hidden medals (of which I found zero), and doing attacks and stunts, which gives plenty of satisfying reasons to want to go back. It’s also worth mentioning this game has insane rubber-banding, meaning no one is truly ever out of a race. There were plenty of times where I had a comfortable lead the entire race and lost at the end. Frustrating. But there were just as many times where I would get stuck in a wall for several seconds at a time (this is a launch game, after all), turn the wrong way after exiting, only to be in 1st place within a minute. Exhilarating. As such, there is not much reason to restart in the middle of a race. Fully competent racer, well worth playing again and again.
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