Total Arcade Racing | Nintendo Switch Review
Updated: Nov 19, 2021
When I first watched the trailer for Total Arcade Racing, one game immediately sprang to mind - Super Sprint. Many decades ago, I remember playing Super Sprint in the Arcades, with its steering wheels and spanner collecting - it was such a great game. I then had it on the Atari ST, but somehow it was just never quite the same. Total Arcade Racing in many ways is quite similar in style and gameplay to Super Sprint, with a few familiar looking layouts for the tracks, and it did impress me quite a lot. Total Arcade Racing is developed and published by Pretty Fly Games and is available on Windows PC and Nintendo Switch. For this review I was playing on the Nintendo Switch, with a review key very kindly supplied by the developers.
There are an absolute stack of game modes on offer in Total Arcade Racing. Time Trial was my first port of call and is top of the list on the menu. Here you can get familiar with the cars and the tracks and start to get some stars onto your tally. More cars and tracks are unlocked as you progress, and you can choose the colour of your car prior to racing on each track. The gameplay in Total Arcade Racing is addictive and the tracks are very varied, ranging from a simple oval, to water surrounded tracks, as well as some dirt tracks. There is a variety of obstacles on some of the tracks like gates and jumps, and even a passenger train on one.
The controls are right trigger to accelerate and left trigger to brake, with the X button for the boost, which acts like a sort of ERS equivilent and will recharge for you over time, if you use it all up. After you have spent some time in the Trials, you can move onto Championship, which features a selection of mini championships and allows for 8 players. This can be made up of 8 local multiplayer friends or just using AI cars from the game, or a combination. You can also create custom games with the various settings. Other modes include Survivor which has you in a huge arena and you have to avoid contact with red exploding cars. Elimination is where the car at the back of the pack in the race explodes and you have to try and hold the lead to survive. Endless is a continuous upward scrolling track and you have a health bar to maintain, which means game over if it runs out. Demolition Derby is a free for all in the arena and it's last man standing with the health bar back again from the previous game mode. Car Hockey and Delivery both require 2 players so I was unable to play those modes. Overall, it is quite a varied selection of game modes here to keep you entertained.
In the settings menu, you have options for audio with music and SFX - you can set the ghost cars, vibration and steer assist. There are also options for hall of fame and you can manually select the offline mode, if you prefer your scores and progress to stay locally on the console. Finally there is a country selection here. There is also a help page with various information about the game modes and the stars, boost, hall of fame, and for the pace and ghost cars.
Total Arcade Racing, for the low price that it sells for, will keep you entertained alone or with friends. For me, it was a nostalgic trip back to the days of Super Sprint in the arcades. It is also perfectly suited to the Nintendo Switch, and you could just as easily spend a small amount of time on it as well as losing hours to it, as you drive your way to victory over the various game modes that are included. It is definitely worth picking up and giving it a try. g1a5w3g1an's Rating: 4 spanner boosts out of 5.
For more information on Total Arcade Racing please use the following links...
Pretty Fly Games - Developer | Publisher | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Pretty Fly Games for the Review Key.
Total Arcade Racing | Steam Store | Nintendo eShop
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