Super Pixel Racers

Genre: Top-Down Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

Super Pixel Racers is a Top-Down Racing game released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2018, ported to PC in 2019, and then brought to Nintendo Switch in 2020. As the name suggests, this game presents players with single-screen races in a pixel art style vaguely reminiscent of classic games in the genre like Super Sprint.

The art style in this game is a mix of good and bad. On the one hand, the courses themselves have a fair amount of detail, and there’s even some nice visual touches here and there – drifting leaves streaks on the ground, riding through dirt will kick up clouds that can partly obscure the screen, and there are even lens flares that add a nice verisimilitude onto the old-school presentation. In addition, this game’s chiptune soundtrack is reasonably catchy, and pairs well with the visuals. However, the cars themselves don’t have the same level of detail as the courses, and could have done with more animations, especially to make their turns look more fluid.

The gameplay itself here is good, albeit with caveats. The game utilizes a drift-boost system that works well for the arcadey nature of the game, and there’s a nice progression system to purchase new cars and upgrade your old ones. The tracks here vary well enough, and you unlock them at a fairly steady clip.

Unfortunately, this game has an issue with its controls. Players are offered two control scheme – one relative to your car’s orientation, and another relative to the screen. Unfortunately, neither control scheme allows players to independently control their car’s acceleration – one has it always-on, and the other requires you to keep pushing in a direction to make the car go in that direction. Removing this control option from the player really mars what would otherwise be an excellent retro-style experience.

That’s not to say it’s the only flaw. You’ll note that I do not list this game as being online, even though the game itself claims to be. That is because trying to enter online games only resulted in an error message from me. If you want to play this game in multiplayer, expect to do so only with other players in the same room as you.

Overall, Super Pixel Racers does so much right and it could have been an amazing Top-Down Racing game, but its control issues, lack of usable online play, and poorly-animated cars detract from the excellent qualities found in the rest of the game. It may still be worth looking into for fans of the genre, but overall I feel like this is a game that failed to live up to its potential.

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tl;dr – Super Pixel Racers is a Top-Down Racing game with a retro aesthetic. The presentation is mostly quite good, and there’s a decent amount of content here. Unfortunately, the controls have issues, the online play doesn’t work, and the cars animate poorly in a way that clashes with the rest of the game. In the end, it’s not a terrible game by any means,but it’s definitely one that fails to meet its potential.

Grade: C

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