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Review - Joy Ride Turbo
17:45, 28th May 2012
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Can we just forget about Kinect Joy Ride? I mean, sure, the Kinect needed to prove that it could lend itself to pretty much any genre and yes, pretending to drive a car as you would in real life was a fun idea for all of about five minutes, but did it work? No, not really. And that meant that no matter how lovely it looked, how accessible it was or how much content it had packed in it, Kinect Joy Ride was always doomed to be crap; a hulking albatross around the neck of whatever developer BigPark tried to come up with next.
But then, that's why we need to forget about Kinect Joy Ride and instead focus entirely on Joy Ride Turbo. If we didn't, we wouldn't notice that BigPark has learnt plenty of lessons about how racing games should be done (for instance, like using a control scheme that actually gives you control over the car). We wouldn't notice all the polish or nice little touches that have been crammed in to add a healthy dose of longevity to the experience. And, most importantly, we wouldn't notice that Joy Ride Turbo is actually a pretty good little racing game.
Going from retail product to Xbox Live Arcade download has benefitted Joy Ride Turbo greatly, if only because it actually feels like it's in the right place now. The lightweight racing - essentially Mario Kart in nature with all the sideways drifting, weapon boxes and turbo boosting you'd expect from a Nintendo driving clone – makes for easy pick-up-and-play fodder, allowing pretty much anyone to dive right in with some semblance of success. That the game helps along the way doesn't hurt either; turbo pads pull your car into line with where they're pointing, meaning you can't go flying into a wall upon hitting them, while vehicles automatically right themselves from stunts once you let go of the stick.
Thankfully, most of the joy doesn't come from throwing your car around corners and being all-but-guaranteed victory until you move into the higher speed brackets. No, that's to be found in the added extras that you have to keep your eyes out for – the hidden (or not so hidden) shortcuts that could either put you in front of the pack or send you round the houses, as well as the spinning crates (usually positioned on the short/longcuts) that have to be collected in order to increase your collection of usable vehicles. It gets to the point that you're spending less time watching the road and more keeping your peripheral vision on high alert, trying to spot gaps in the walls, breakable fences or a glimpse of a crate peeking out from behind a roadside obstacle.
With only ten tracks to clear out though, it won't be long until that little vein of fun runs dry and you're left scrabbling for championship trophies; something that's fine for 100 and 200 HP, but then jumps into ridiculous 'cheating AI' territory when you hit the top 300 level. Luckily, BigPark's thrown in something else to keep you going instead: stunt parks. Two of them, to be precise – massive expanses of space packed with ramps, boost pads, loops and launch cannons, as well as yet more spinning crates tucked away and shiny golden trophies hanging precariously overhead, waiting to be grabbed.
Surprisingly, it's here that Joy Ride Turbo really comes into its own and having the freedom to race around, snatching trophies out of the sky and finding how to access those hard-to-reach spots is actually a whole lot of fun. Almost more so than the main racing bit, in fact. And with 80 trophies to collect across the two parks, you'll probably find yourself touring each one for a while (presuming you want the achievements for getting them all, that is).
While the stunt park kind of fudges over Joy Ride Turbo's cracks by being openly ridiculous about the game's willingness to throw cars around though, there's no denying that there are still problems to be found. The physics, for example, are as spongey as you'd expect from a non-realistic racer, but that means you'll often find yourself clipping the edge of a wall and getting tossed into the air, landing on your roof or facing the wrong way – a problem exacerbated by the AI approaching races as demolition derbies rather than sprints to the finish, meaning they've no qualms in crashing into you. AI issues also pop up in the rubber banding, which sees opponents catch up and sprint past you, even if they're using the same car as you and you're taking all the genuine shortcuts. It also doesn't help that turbos and boost pads seem to do little when you use them (use a turbo when you're alongside an opponent and they'll usually manage to keep up regardless), while AI turbos see them flying into the distance. And as for the leap in challenge between 200 and 300 HP… well, they might as well have labelled the difficulty levels Very Easy, Easy and Ridiculous.
Still, when clearing out the interesting bit of the race section - namely, the part crates that unlock more cars - can be done on the lowest difficulty and you'll see all ten tracks by the end of the 200 HP cup, it's still easy to have fun without attempting the joypad-hurling bits. That isn't to say the other flaws don't hinder the game because they do, to the point of it being the difference between the mark it gets here and something higher. But it's still fun, dammit, and when you're talking about a game that's trying to make up for its predecessors mistakes, that's pretty high praise indeed. Kinect Joy what now?
But then, that's why we need to forget about Kinect Joy Ride and instead focus entirely on Joy Ride Turbo. If we didn't, we wouldn't notice that BigPark has learnt plenty of lessons about how racing games should be done (for instance, like using a control scheme that actually gives you control over the car). We wouldn't notice all the polish or nice little touches that have been crammed in to add a healthy dose of longevity to the experience. And, most importantly, we wouldn't notice that Joy Ride Turbo is actually a pretty good little racing game.
Going from retail product to Xbox Live Arcade download has benefitted Joy Ride Turbo greatly, if only because it actually feels like it's in the right place now. The lightweight racing - essentially Mario Kart in nature with all the sideways drifting, weapon boxes and turbo boosting you'd expect from a Nintendo driving clone – makes for easy pick-up-and-play fodder, allowing pretty much anyone to dive right in with some semblance of success. That the game helps along the way doesn't hurt either; turbo pads pull your car into line with where they're pointing, meaning you can't go flying into a wall upon hitting them, while vehicles automatically right themselves from stunts once you let go of the stick.
Thankfully, most of the joy doesn't come from throwing your car around corners and being all-but-guaranteed victory until you move into the higher speed brackets. No, that's to be found in the added extras that you have to keep your eyes out for – the hidden (or not so hidden) shortcuts that could either put you in front of the pack or send you round the houses, as well as the spinning crates (usually positioned on the short/longcuts) that have to be collected in order to increase your collection of usable vehicles. It gets to the point that you're spending less time watching the road and more keeping your peripheral vision on high alert, trying to spot gaps in the walls, breakable fences or a glimpse of a crate peeking out from behind a roadside obstacle.
With only ten tracks to clear out though, it won't be long until that little vein of fun runs dry and you're left scrabbling for championship trophies; something that's fine for 100 and 200 HP, but then jumps into ridiculous 'cheating AI' territory when you hit the top 300 level. Luckily, BigPark's thrown in something else to keep you going instead: stunt parks. Two of them, to be precise – massive expanses of space packed with ramps, boost pads, loops and launch cannons, as well as yet more spinning crates tucked away and shiny golden trophies hanging precariously overhead, waiting to be grabbed.
Surprisingly, it's here that Joy Ride Turbo really comes into its own and having the freedom to race around, snatching trophies out of the sky and finding how to access those hard-to-reach spots is actually a whole lot of fun. Almost more so than the main racing bit, in fact. And with 80 trophies to collect across the two parks, you'll probably find yourself touring each one for a while (presuming you want the achievements for getting them all, that is).
While the stunt park kind of fudges over Joy Ride Turbo's cracks by being openly ridiculous about the game's willingness to throw cars around though, there's no denying that there are still problems to be found. The physics, for example, are as spongey as you'd expect from a non-realistic racer, but that means you'll often find yourself clipping the edge of a wall and getting tossed into the air, landing on your roof or facing the wrong way – a problem exacerbated by the AI approaching races as demolition derbies rather than sprints to the finish, meaning they've no qualms in crashing into you. AI issues also pop up in the rubber banding, which sees opponents catch up and sprint past you, even if they're using the same car as you and you're taking all the genuine shortcuts. It also doesn't help that turbos and boost pads seem to do little when you use them (use a turbo when you're alongside an opponent and they'll usually manage to keep up regardless), while AI turbos see them flying into the distance. And as for the leap in challenge between 200 and 300 HP… well, they might as well have labelled the difficulty levels Very Easy, Easy and Ridiculous.
Still, when clearing out the interesting bit of the race section - namely, the part crates that unlock more cars - can be done on the lowest difficulty and you'll see all ten tracks by the end of the 200 HP cup, it's still easy to have fun without attempting the joypad-hurling bits. That isn't to say the other flaws don't hinder the game because they do, to the point of it being the difference between the mark it gets here and something higher. But it's still fun, dammit, and when you're talking about a game that's trying to make up for its predecessors mistakes, that's pretty high praise indeed. Kinect Joy what now?
VERDICT
It has flaws, yes – deep, almost fun-spoiling flaws if you let them get to you too much – and is obviously too light weight for anyone who cares about driving games as opposed to driving games, but that doesn't stop Joy Ride Turbo being a decent amount of fun for such a low price. One for the arcade racing fan in all of us.
7/10
