Jet Ski Mania Aqua Rush

Genre: Watercraft Racing

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Midnight Works

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Review:

Jet Ski Mania is a Watercraft Racing game released in 2023 on PlayStation 4 with the additional words tacked on the end, “Aquatic Adrenaline Rush”, while the Nintendo Switch release of the game got the added words “Aqua Rush”. If this seems to you like an odd choice to create two similar names for two simultaneous releases of the same game, hold on to your hats because we’re just getting started.

The Nintendo Switch release of the game is published by a company going by the name Success Games, while the PlayStation 4 release is published by Midnight Works, and at this point, alarm bells should be going off in your head. Midnight Works, for those unaware, is a publisher who has garnered a reputation for creating numerous “scam games” on the Nintendo Switch eShop, as well as creating numerous shell companies to publish their games under so they’re harder for attentive consumers to keep track of. And it seems that they’re up to their old tricks once again in Jet Ski Mania

First and foremost, the title. Jet Ski is not a generic term, it is an official trademark term owned by Kawasaki, whose name and license information does not appear to be anywhere in this game, making it pretty apparent that this game is guilty of infringement before you even fire it up. The official generic term for this sort of vehicle is “personal watercraft”. However, while you might dismiss that as an honest mistake, what follows certainly isn’t.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this page – that was taken by me on my Nintendo Switch during actual gameplay. Now, let’s have a look at just one of the photos on the game’s Nintendo.com page:

Let’s just try to count the number of things that are wrong in this image, shall we? Firstly, the actual game has no first-person view. As such, the steering panel area of the watercraft is not rendered in that degree of detail. Speaking of detail, the mountains in the background have wayyyy too much – those textures are much blurrier in the actual game. Unlike the fake screenshot, the game has no hang gliders, no wind surfers, no fish in the water, and as far as I can recall seeing, no colorful houses on stilts. Speaking of color, this image appears to be way more colorful than the actual game, which is still pretty colorful but looks washed-out compared to this. Also, while it’s not as easy to see in this screenshot as it is in some of the other fake screens on Nintendo.com, but water spray and wake that the watercraft create doesn’t look anywhere near so fine and detailed as what’s seen in the images. In fact, it often looks low-resolution and trashy.

That is a lot of lies for just one image!

As you can see in the screenshot above, it’s not like the way the actual game looks is complete garbage, either… though it definitely has its problems. As mentioned, blurry textures and ugly-looking splash effects, ugly character models, low-poly terrain at times, pop-in, aliasing, and an odd speckled mess appears onscreen whenever you’re looking at anything in the shade. What’s more, the game’s locales all look visually identical, and only seem to differ due to the actual route you’re taking rather than a change in scenery. And these visuals are joined by pretty terrible watercraft noises and backed by a repetitive synthesized music track that continuously play behind both the gameplay and menus.

However, not to sell this game’s visuals short, there are a few nice elements too! The water’s surface animates nicely, though there are no waves in this game, nor changes in weather or time of day. Also, the way the water distorts the terrain under the surface is lovely. And the game does have some good lighting and real-time shadows, though again, the shadows themselves are often a speckled mess.

Anyway, the point is that there are some elements here that actually look good, but as you can tell, they’re clearly buried under so much that is absolutely terrible.

Unfortunately, there’s not anything I can really applaud in the gameplay. Players gradually unlock races in three different categories: Amateur, Championship, and Events, with each containing a few different types of races: Sprint, Circuit, Time, and Elimination. What does all of that mean? Don’t even worry about it – no matter which one you select, no matter what type of race it is, everything will be mindlessly simple and painfully easy.

Players only have turning controls, acceleration, and a button to reset your craft if you get stuck, and that is it. There are no waves, so no wave physics to account for. And oddly, you get a speed boost whenever you get a little out of the water, whether that’s because you hit a ramp, briefly landed your craft on an opponent, or got a bit too close to the beach and brushed against the sand.

No matter what type of race you’re competing in, you’ll be driving your watercraft through a sequence of large rings, something that seems like an odd choice as they usually take up most of the designated path anyway, so why not just… do without them?

When you’re racing against AI-controlled opponents (there’s no actual multiplayer), they’re so slow and inept that any player of even moderate skill will quickly pass all of them before the first turn, and never see them again. If you think that the Time courses might at least provide a challenge, I’ve got bad news for you – you’re given such an abundance of time to complete these challenges that you’ll easily coast through the finish line (er, ring) with roughly half your time left on the clock.

The game gives players multiple ways to outfit their racer and upgrade their watercraft in-between races, but what’s the point? Right from the start you’ll be effortlessly coasting your way to victory after victory, so why even bother with upgrades?

Sadly, Jet Ski Mania appears to be yet another result of Midnight Works doing their usual thing. The screenshots on Nintendo.com are lies, the game is simple and dull, the challenge is nonexistent, and the presentation is a disaster, minus a few genuinely nice elements that get drowned out by all the bad. There aren’t exactly many great choices for personal Watercraft Racing games on Nintendo Switch, but both Riptide GP: Renegade and Aqua Moto Racing Utopia are far better than this.

tl;dr – Jet Ski Mania is a Watercraft Racing game that appears to be infringing on a trademark with its name, features a Nintendo.com page with screenshots that look nothing like the actual game, has all sorts of graphical and presentation issues, and features dull, simple gameplay that provides absolutely no challenge whatsoever. Even with so few options for Watercraft Racing games on Nintendo Switch, you have better alternatives than this.

Grade: D

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Monetization / Scam

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