Circuit Superstars

Genre: Top-Down Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local), 2-12 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Circuit Superstars is a Top-Down Racing game released in 2022 on PlayStation 4, and then ported in 2023 to PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game has players racing in preliminary races to decide initial placement and then an actual race, with the game’s tracks including both paved and off-road surfaces.

The presentation here is quite good, with detailed 3D vehicles and environments with an art style that makes them look almost like toys racing in a scale model, an effect enhanced by a “tilt-shift” blur effect. This is joined by some surprisingly rough engine noises and some very nice environmental noises that you’ll rarely hear due to the loud sounds of the races, with generic-sounding synthesized music in the game’s menus.

Thile the presentation here is fantastic, I’m less thrilled with the gameplay, which makes turning on the game’s tracks feel like a constant struggle with the controller, with your vehicle often shifting back a bit after you turn, forcing you to turn some more, oops you over-corrected, now turn back… and every minute of every race is like this.

Plus, even though the game only offers acceleration and braking control inputs, it also tacks on other elements like tire wear and body damage that seem better-suited for a game designed like a realistic simulation, which this certainly is not.

In the end, I just didn’t have fun racing in Circuit Superstars. It’s not fun for me to constantly feel like I’m fighting the controls, not fun for even the easiest races to feel challenging to win in a game that looks like it should be far more accessible than this. And as much as I think the presentation here is excellent, I’d rather play a Racing game that’s, you know, fun.

tl;dr – Circuit Superstars is a Top-Down Racing Game with a wonderful presentation that makes its races look like toys competing in a scale model race track, but the gameplay feels like a grueling experience of struggling to get the controls to behave how you want, with gameplay mechanics far too interested in simulating realism for a game with such a simplistic look and simple controls. In the end, racing in this game feels more like an ordeal than a fun time, and as such I can’t really recommend it.

Grade: C-

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