Codemasters wish to apologise to all coffee addicts for the current
mass worldwide shortage of the beany caffeine-abundant lifeforce.
Why? Well, the commentator they employed for this reincarnation
of classic 1990s racer Micro Machines had it all. All the
coffee. Every last bean. Just listen to the guy – yipes!
This
shortage may also explain the lack of beans in the game. We’re
talking a top-down view racer based on a license of teensy toy cars
that’s set in everyday situations. Pool rooms, coffee tables – a
racing game that was, rather appropriately, mega on the Mega Drive.
Surely it must be ultra-hyper-whoa-mama-mega with all the techy
whiz-bangery of the now-gen consoles, yeah? Nah.
The key to
the original being so utterly bloody enjoyable was that it was pure
fun – eminently playable, it left you itching for one more go. So,
what happened here?
You can opt for standard racing, or
various battles on tracks that just annoy until you invest time
enough to memorise every last death spot. You can brave fiercely
accurate AI, or be braver and hope that you’ll get yourself
connected to the way too overly-favoured online multiplayer before
falling asleep (damn that dearth of coffee!) You can choose from a
handful of vehicles, each imbued with abilities that make this seem
like this is trying to be Overwatch on wheels.
No!
No-no-noey-no no-no-no!
We want copious single player options, fuckloads of
different cars, and - as long as they have wheels and can be raced
against each other on a reasonable handful of FUN tracks - we’d be
happy. But no, they had to complicate matters.
Meanwhile,
handling’s too over-correcty – it’s like it’s on a time delay. We
fired up our Mega Drive version to see if we’d gone all
rose-coloured spectacles on it, but hours later we had to drag
ourselves off that to write this.
If you have a top-down
racing itch requiring a good scratch, then we’ve three words:
Mantis, Burn and Racing.
