AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for racing

racing

Yearning For Some Slot Car Action

By

It’s very dangerous to go trawling online when you are predisposed to nostalgia.

There are some things that we may have long forgotten, but when you see them, they instantly trigger that fuzzy nostalgic feeling. Once such “thing” is slot car racing! As kids, we loved playing on our friend’s Scalextric F1 set – pushing that plunger and watching our car whizzing around was so much fun.

We had always wanted our own slot car racing set, but alas, money wasn’t growing on trees back then, so we had to make do with playing once in a while on our friend’s set.

So how does all this have anything to do about trawling online? Well, while doom scrolling through that marketplace that shall remain nameless, we stumbled upon a cool Carrera Digital 132 slot car set. The fact that the seller created the huge track (2,500mm x 1,300mm) by combining 2 tracks and then added the scenery, makes this even more desirable for nostalgia freaks like us!

Now, to find a spare 1.9K Aussie dollaroos………

image source: Facebook Marketplace



Formula Bit Racing DX – Review

By

With the explosion in popularity of Formula 1 (Ed: thanks to Drive to Survive), it is great timing to have a game like Formula Bit Racing DX hit our gaming consoles!

So why is Formula Bit Racing DX great? Well, firstly it is a lot of fun to play! Secondly, we love its influence from classic arcade racing games from the 80s and early 90s, so if you enjoyed games like Super Sprint, RC Pro-Am, Super Skidmarks, Micro Machines, Super Off-Road Racing, to name just a few, then you will absolutely love this game from 2Awesome Studio!

The charm of this game is its low-poly HD graphics and top-down/isometric point of view of the race track, coupled with great control and the challenges thrown at the racer before they cross the finishing line.

Borrowing elements from iconic arcade racing games, Formula Bit Racing DX builds on this pedigree with a few modern twists, including the aforementioned gorgeously crisp low-polygon HD grx, catchy retro soundtrack and of course, the 20 fun circuits to race on with one of 10 unique cars! The exciting gameplay that the genre is known for is perfectly captured by Formula Bit Racing DX – lots of high speed action and skill series which are quite easy to get into, but mastering the control to turn, drift on the racing track is what keeps you coming back to it. The only thing we wish this game had was the ability to play against your friends, but the game is still solid playing solo.

At well under AU$10.00, this game is absolutely and totally worth grabbing, no matter your console – Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch. So go ahead, start your engines and prepare for the craziest and most addictive racing you’ll experience today!



RiMS Racing – Xbox Series X|S Review

By

Title: RiMS Racing
Platform: PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch™ and PC
Reviewed on: Xbox Series S

We have always loved racing games, be it in a car or motorbike. When it comes to motorbike racing games, we have enjoyed them all across each generation, with Super Hang-on, Super Burnout and Manx TT being some of our favourites. Fast forward to 2021 and racing games are so realistic, with the simulation being as close to lifelike as you can get without the danger and fear of breaking your bones.

Playing RiMS Racing on our Xbox Series S, we finally have a motorbike racing game where we can actually stay on two wheels to enjoy the action, thanks to its quick free play mode. We don’t mind simulations having lifelike handling, but recent racing games have been quite unforgiving in this aspect, which have turned us off them quite quickly.

RiMS Racing has the player covered with a choice of eight (8) of the fastest motorbikes in the world to choose from, one from each of the big manufacturers: Kawasaki, Aprilia, BMW, Ducati, Honda, MV Augusta, Suzuki and Yamaha. The lack of additional models may irk some players, but the attention to detail of each motorbike model is exceptionally good and realistic, right down to the scratches on your fairing when you stack your bike! The opportunity to earn credits to maintain and upgrade your motorbike from 500+ licensed parts sounds cool, but it can get quite overwhelming, where the player spends a lot of time dialling in their steed to keep it fresh and racing. We thought the mechanical aspect would be fun, and to some extent it is, but constantly working on your bike to make it handle better and go faster turned into a laborious exercise with the effort to reward ratio feeling quite low.

For players that want longevity in their racing games, RiMS Racing has you covered! The game has a career mode which comprises 70 events in each season, which is enough to keep you riding for some time yet! But wait, there is more! Racing against AI riders is fun, but there’s nothing like racing against other real peeps in multiplayer mode, adding another layer to RiMS Racing that will keep you coming back to beat your racing competition. The devil is in the detail, where RiMS Racing rewards riders that dial in their motorbike and hone in their riding skills, which almost guarantees the player being in contention for a podium finish.

There are a few gremlins in the overall RiMS Racing package, like the horrible pop-in of trees and other background elements, like the distinct lack of spectators in the stands. The game does run smoothly on the Xbox Series S, but graphically, MotoGP 21 is superior. We also got a bit frustrated in navigating its menus, which made us exit out from them more often than we would like to admit.

RiMS Racing’s saving grace is its option for free play mode which gets you on two wheels and rolling the throttle without the full-on sim fluff. While RiMS Racing has a fun and enjoyable racing mode, we can see casual players getting overwhelmed quite quickly of the motorcycle maintenance part of the game, which can lead them to give up. If this portion of the game could be tweaked and the other kinks ironed out, RiMS Racing has the potential to be a pretty decent racing game.


source: Nacon North America



Disclaimer: The Xbox Series X|S review code for RiMS Racing was provided by Homerun PR.