Driving World: Nordic Challenge

Genre: Driving / Racing Game

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the Driving World Collection bundle, along with Driving World: Aspen)

Driving World: Nordic Challenge, released on Nintendo Switch in 2021, is a game that has players driving various vehicles in a Simulation-style game that tasks you with getting through a series of checkpoints and then parking in a designated spot as fast as you can without colliding with too many obstacles (or sometimes simply getting to a finish line).

(Note: This game shares a lot in common with the trio of games that were in Speedster’s Collection, including this game having many of the same assets. As such, I have copied my review for those games here, changing it based on what is different this time)

The presentation here is decent but unspectacular, with sufficient 3D visuals that get the job done, and there are even some small bits of visual flair here that are kinda’ nice, such as shadows from clouds overhead. On the other hand, there’s plenty of nasty pop-in and repeated slowdown too, and just overall this game is not very visually-appealing.

As for the gameplay, Driving World: Nordic Challenge is an odd halfway point between a Driving Simulation and a Racing game. There aren’t any other racers here – your only real enemy is the ticking clock and a damage meter that depletes with each collision. There are other cars on the roads in this game, but they act as obstacles rather than opponents.

The game’s missions all seem to take place in and around a rural town in a mountainous area. In a typical level of the game, you’ll be going through one of various routes through this area, guided in how you’re expecting to navigate by the presence of translucent green gates.

You will find occasional moments where you can cut loose and put your pedal to the medal here, although those moments are very brief, and you’ll usually find you’ll have more success taking things slow and be careful not to bump into anything. In other words, this game does still definitely lean in favor of the Driving Simulation side of things, so Racing Game fans will likely be disappointed here.

Unfortunately, this game’s controls are just terrible. Your vehicles’ turning radius is restrictive, the brakes take far too long to kick in, and just overall everything here is far too stiff and clunky to be enjoyable. Also, this game makes the odd choice to make players manually switch to reverse instead of just making it tied to brake. This can make three-point turns particularly annoying.

This game can also get a bit repetitive. Follow the gates through a different path in the same area, then park or sometimes cross a finish line. Wash, rinse, repeat. At the very least this game does offer a bit of variety in boats you can use in some levels, and to the game’s credit they control noticeably differently.

Another frustrating element here is that the traffic in these levels isn’t scripted, meaning that you could end up getting a worse time in a level simply because the traffic was different in this run than it was in the last one.

Finally, this game’s $14 standard price is a joke, because this doesn’t even feel like a full game. It’s far too repetitive and simple, there’s no multiplayer, and I just cannot see most players enjoying this game for more than a few minutes before putting it down forever. Of course, we all know that $14 price tag is just a placeholder to make the game seem like a really good deal when it frequently goes on sale, but the bottom-of-the-barrel $2 price tag really seems like it should have been this game’s normal price, especially since this developer is re-using assets across multiple games.

In the end, while Driving World: Nordic Challenge had some potential, it just has far too many problems to be worthwhile. The controls are bad, the graphics aren’t super impressive, and the price tag is far too high for what’s on offer. This is one of the better games to use this template, and maybe you’ll enjoy this game just enough to make it worthwhile if you get it on sale for $2, but mostly this is a just going to be a frustrating disappointment.

tl;dr – Driving World: Nordic Challenge is a game that mixes elements of Driving Simulation and Racing games, with a focus mainly on the Driving Simulation side of things. Unfortunately, the cars here do not handle well, and it is far too lacking in options and contents for its price. This is one of the better takes on this formula, but that’s not saying much.

Grade: C-

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