Awkward analogue input sensitivity meant that over- and under-steering were far more common than taking corners with a decent racing line, even with hours of play under my belt. It’s also really frustrating because of unreliable controls that seem impossible to really come to grips with no matter how much I play. That all amounts to the racing modes of the game being lifeless, tedious, and feeling like an afterthought in a game that wants to be a car-based arena shooter. Nor did it help that, as far as I could tell, every car was identical even on basic statistics like speed and acceleration if there is any different, it’s subtle enough that I couldn’t find it. It didn’t help that none of the weapons are particularly memorable or impactful, really living up to the Nerf branding. This is the standard approach for kart racers – which Micro Machines World Series essentially is – but after a tutorial that introduced different roles and mechanical identities, reverting to a more traditional kart racer setup felt like a step back. That’s where I discovered that the roles and unique abilities of each vehicle are exclusively for battle mode in races, weapons are picked up by driving through markers on the track, and everyone has the same pool. Still, I wasn’t ready to jump straight into multiplayer and expose myself to humiliation just yet, so I spent some time with the limited single-player options to better acquaint myself. For those who want to play alone, individual races or battles against AI opponents are the only option there’s no story mode, not even an equivalent of a fighting game’s Arcade Mode. This is a multiplayer-focused game, and though there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I couldn’t help but be disappointed after how much I enjoyed the arcade-like Challenge mode in the original game. When the tutorial ends and you see the main menu for the first time, it’s immediately clear that single-player modes are almost entirely non-existent. It’s a wave of nostalgia and modernity all rolled into one very sharp training level.īut after that, everything starts to fall apart. It certainly looks the part too, with this tutorial playing out across a tabletop arena made up of books, pens, and other pieces of stationery. Each car has its own set of abilities based around a particular play style – the ambulance is a healer, for example – and a special ability that charges with time and kills. There’s a modern control scheme with acceleration and brakes on the shoulder buttons, and a role-based approach to car design that’s no doubt inspired by MOBAs and character-focused shooters like Overwatch. The first time you boot up the game, you load straight into a brief tutorial to get you up to speed. The game actually starts off quite strong. After years spent slipping further and further off the radar, and being passed around between different studios to middling results, Micro Machines looked set for a comeback. It’s not a game that I played extensively, granted, and I didn’t really discover it until long after its initial release, but I still have vivid memories of that first Micro Machines and its sequel, Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament.Īlso like a lot of people, I was very much looking forward to Micro Machines World Series, because – at least prior to release – it looked set to deliver everything that made those early games great, but in a modernised way. Then Micro Machines came along, and as limited as it was, given the technology of the day, it still managed to bring those games to life in a way that only a videogame can. I used to play with the Micro Machines toys as a kid, building make-believe cities out of whatever I had at hand and then driving these little tiny cars around. Like a lot of people, I have fond childhood memories of playing Micro Machines.
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