The Bottom Line
Pros
- Simple and fun gameplay
- Decent graphics and sound
Cons
- You run out of stuff to do fairly quickly
Description
- Simple gameplay. Gas. Brake. Shoot weapons. Very accessible for everyone.
- The graphics are at the same time simple, but nice looking. Real time reflections in such a small game are pretty cool.
- Varied lineup of events, from races to full on battles.
- There isn't all that much to do and you can beat everything in less than 30 mins. Replay value is questionable.
Guide Review - Mad Tracks Review (XBLA)
Mad Tracks, at its core, is a kart racer similar to Mario Kart. Simple controls. Simple tracks. Lots of weapons. Lots of carnage. It is a fairly easy formula to replicate, and Mad Tracks does a good job with these basic elements. Mad Tracks mixes things up a bit by having you play as little toy cars in a normal sized world, which is by no means original, but it is well done here and still pretty cool.The gameplay is basically what you expect from a kart game. The twist in Mad Tracks is that your car is governed by a little spring that slowly loses its energy throughout a race. It recharges if you let go of the accelerator, though, so it doesn't really change too much from other racers. The cars handle fairly well, and the racing is pretty fun overall. In addition to standard racing, there are deathmatch-style battles as well as more unique modes that have you playing fooseball, pool, or knocking all of the items off of a table.
The single-player modes will only take you about 30 minutes to play through. Thankfully, Mad Tracks also has a full featured online mode as well that lets you play all of the game types with your buddies. Games like this are always more fun to play with other real people, and Mad Tracks is no exception. The fun wears off rather quickly, though, and after you take a few laps in any given mode it starts to lose its charm a bit.
Overall, Mad Tracks is a decent game, but it seems a bit too unambitious. For 800pts ($10), there should be more cars, more tracks, more events, etc. to really keep us interested. Instead, you can just blast through the single-player and play a few races online and you have seen and done it all in 45 mins. For what you get at this price, I can't really give it a solid recommendation, but I do suggest at least trying the demo and seeing for yourself if it is worth the points.
