Midtown Crazy Race

Game Info

 

Midtown Crazy Race for the Wii u has a lot of potential.  The game reminds me a lot of the racing games from the 90’s but unfortunately, I feel like it comes up pretty short.  MCR has 3 race types: Practice, countdown, and be the first.  The game also has unlockable cars and tracks to race.  The controls are not much that I would brag about at all.  The graphics on the on the other had are phenomenal.

The actual races have a few race choices,  first one being practice, is basically driving your car in an open world to learn how to control your vehicle.  The next race is countdown and it is a race against time.  As you drive to beat the clock, you have to drive forward through the checkpoints.  I say drive forward because if you lose control and pass it, reversing through it doesn’t set it off.  Finally, the last race is called be the first.  It is a race against 3 other A.I. cars but its like a quick drag race but very difficult.

 

MCR has unlockable tracks and cars but to unlock each track you must beat one to unlock the next and you must win a certain amount of tracks to unlock each vehicle.  There are a total of 25 tracks and 7 cars available for unlock.  The tracks are named track 1 through track 25.  The cars don’t have the names on them either but they look like just like cars you would see on the street.  For instance, the first car you can use looks like a mini cooper and there are a few more known cars.  The only special thing that happens as you unlock each vehicle is that the next one is faster than the last.

The controls in the game are pretty rough.  I am sure there are people that like the tilt controlling to steer their car but I personally do not like it at all.  This game is no different, the tilting is not very smooth and it feels like the littlest movement will make you lose control of your vehicle.  And to regain control, you have to keep turning back and forth in ridiculous amounts of turns to start getting it back in to some regularity.  I feel the game should have the option of tilt steering or using the left stick or d-pad.  The biggest positive of the game is the graphics.  The cars look life like and the city is beautiful looking.  If you crash the car a few times, you will see some smoke that looks pretty realistic coming out of the hood.  Another negative to the game is that the settings aren’t random so basically before each race, you can choose to play in the day or night.  I think it should have been put to random or given the choice to be random.  The music somewhat goes with the game but I am not really into the techno type of sound so I wasn’t really a big fan.

 

I liked the game at first because it starts off easy to control because the mini cooper is simple with speed and control.  But as I got further along in the game it got a lot more difficult and more frustrating with the faster cars.  Also, another annoying thing is that when you hit random cars just driving they get stuck on your car and you can’t get by them or you are stuck behind them and can’t move so you have to reverse and get past them.  The problem with that is the reverse is slow to move and getting back on track took too much of your time and end up losing due to time limit.  Also, the slightest movement on the game pad would send your car off to the sides and lose control easily.

The Recommendation

Midtown Crazy Race falls short of being a victory.  The graphics of a game can not save a game and make it worth buying.  The controls are very unstable and are not comfortable at all.  The cars and levels are great but nothing special.  Again I don’t like techno music so that was another negative in my opinion.  If you like the tilt controls in racing games then you might like this but there isn’t much to it but frustration and aggravation.  The only thing crazy about this race would be buying it.