Corner Driver

Genre: Top-Down Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Corner Driver is a Top-Down Arcade-style game released in 2022 on Nintendo Switch. And from the game’s description, it’s clear that there’s no attempt to veil what this game is – a Pac-Man clone where you play as a red car running through a maze of streets picking up coins while evading cop cars. Of course, as I often say, it’s not necessarily bad if a game is a copycat so long as it’s a good copycat, so is this game any good?

At the very least, the presentation is. This game uses a colorful 2D art style that’s not quite pixel-based, instead using a splotchy look that still hits the same general area of nostalgia. This is backed by a surprisingly loud electric guitar techno beat soundtrack that’s not bad, but doesn’t quite seem to fit the rest of this game’s presentation.

When it comes to gameplay, this is indeed a Pac-Man clone, complete with temporary power-ups that let you plow through enemies for a bit instead of evading them. However, I noticed multiple issues that detracted from the experience.

For starters, the roads that serve as your pathways are often obscured by buildings in front of them, making it harder to see paths, as well as hiding enemies and coins. At the very least, the last of these you can reveal by holding down X, but this feels like slapping a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem.

Cop cars appear out of thin air, sometimes right in front of you, and when you slam into one, you’ll respawn in the same place, even if you’re cornered in an area swarming with enemies. Those enemies, meanwhile, move seemingly at random, sometimes doubling back on their own path for seemingly no reason. This makes it virtually impossible to predict them, so you’re better off just giving them a wide berth if you can.

That will prove hard, as you cannot see the entire map on one screen, and you may find yourself unintentionally running into an enemy that was off-screen because the view is too close to the action. You can’t count on the power-ups to save you either, as they don’t warn you when their limited time is about to run out, and their placement on the game’s maps is at times seemingly random. Oh, and on that note, the level design in this game is overall pretty terrible, with nonsensical routes without turn-offs for a long stretch, and others with frequent dead ends.

In the end, even though when you first look at it, Corner Driver seems like it could be a pretty decent Pac-Man clone, it’s unfortunately riddled with poor design decisions that make this a needlessly frustrating experience. You’re better off just getting a Pac-Man game instead.

tl;dr – Corner Driver is an Arcade-style game that’s not shy about the fact that it’s basically Pac-Man with cars. The presentation here is good, but this game makes so many poor design choices that it makes this game into an exercise in frustration. If you want a game like this, just get Pac-Man instead.

Grade: D+

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