SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Horizon Chase Turbo’s retro arcade fun eventually goes stale thanks to frustrating AI and a repetitive gameplay loop.
Full disclosure, I’m not a big fan of racing games, but for a few hours, I did find myself enjoying Horizon Chase Turbo. While the fun didn’t last, for a little while I was reminded of playing an old-school racing game in an arcade. And since it’s not as easy as it once was to find an actual arcade, I was more than happy to let a game like this dish out some nostalgia. But once the nostalgia passes (and boy does it pass quickly), glaring technical issues mean that this game is close to running on empty.
Forget the cutting-edge graphics and licensed vehicles of modern racing games like Forza or Gran Turismo. Horizon Chase Turbo is a game designed to replicate the old-school racing games you might find in an arcade. Classic modes like World Tour and Tournaments are included, alongside the new Playground mode, where the developers rotate new map challenges in and out on a frequent basis, allowing the online community to compete for the best lap times. It’s a fun way to introduce modernity to a game otherwise set on recreating an old-school racing experience. That being said, part of the fun is playing with friends. While Chase Turbo has couch co-op, which is a rare feature in itself, the lack of online multiplayer sticks out like a sore thumb. Racing with a friend’s ghost just isn’t the same, and the lack of an online mode really gets on your nerves considering the quality of the single-player experience.
However, if there’s one thing to be said about this game, it’s that the developers knew exactly what kind of game they wanted to make. Chase Turbo is stripped back to basics, which is refreshing in itself. The game gives you a variety of different cars to choose from, all of which have different stats; some will be slower but easier to drive, while others have the speed of space rockets and handle about as well. Your task is to race a number of AI opponents over a number of laps, picking up fuel canisters and collectible tokens strewn across the race courses. The former ensures that you can keep driving without running out of fuel, while the latter allows you to unlock new tracks and cars. You can also top-up your car’s supply of nitrous for a quick speed boost. It’s rare to find an experience so simple and satisfying.
It’s only satisfying in the short-term however. Keep playing for long enough, and problems start to crop up. The AI is wonky, the result of design that wants to ensure that it poses a serious challenge at every level. It’s manageable up until about a third of the way through the game, at which point the difficulty spikes. Many racing games use a mechanic known as rubber band AI, which prevents the player from getting too far ahead of their opponents by granting the AI advantages. Chase Turbo bends the rules in the AI’s favour to a ridiculous degree. The car in front of you always inexplicably has a nitro boost or four to spare without fail. You start from last place as well, so you might waste valuable time trying to fight your way through a back field crowded with cars busy jostling with each other for 12th and 13th place.
The AI is highly aggressive and willing to drive dirty in later stages, deliberately changing lanes to block your attempts at overtaking, blocking off the entire road, and even bumping you into road signs. At points, the game feels more like racing in the Matrix against HAL9000, who’s using 19 different cars in concert to foil your plans, rather than racing against 19 different individual opponents.The game’s collision only makes things worse. Rear-ending another car not only cuts your speed but gives them a speed boost as well. It’s rage-inducing. The end result: you spend too much time trying to get your collectibles, and the game descends into a repetitive grind where you’re robbed of driving a Lamborghini to victory by a Mini Cooper analogue shooting past you at the final corner at a speed somehow exceeding your own.
All of this is a shame because the game’s presentation is fantastic. The stages, which take place in a variety of countries from Iceland to Japan, feature vibrant colours and impressive environmental design. There’s a wonderfully retro NES vibe to the game’s sharp-angled polygonal models. The update to current-gen resolution textures is a big difference, but subtle enough that the game retains that valuable vibe. The soundtrack by Barry Leitch, who scored the Top Gear game which inspired Chase Turbo in the first place, only adds to that feeling. It has a strangely familiar Nintendo-in-the-early-90s feel to it, which is more than welcome. Play for long enough though and you’ll want to turn the music down so it stops burrowing through your eardrums.
Still, this game has plenty of value, especially if you’re a hardcore fan of racing games looking to re-capture the good old days of racing on the NES and at the machines at the local arcade. Other than that, it can be a little too easy to get bored and frustrated with a game with fantastic presentation, whose lack of online multiplayer pushes players towards a single-player experience that’s largely dependent on overly aggressive AI opponents. The chance to race against a friend alone online would have alleviated this game’s main issues since co-op is already a much better experience. Otherwise, this is a game best played in the same way as one of those arcade machines: playing a race or two before putting it down until the following week.
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