評論

• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2018

  Tried it for a solid 25 minutes. Literally unplayable. Countless of bugs and SO not ready to be released. Given the devs postponed the game countless of times as well you should expect at least a game where the menu navigating and singleplayer should work properly. This is not the case. I do not recommend anyone buying this game.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2018

  **Contrary to the "Early Access Review" tag, this review was written on the day of its "proper" release before it went BACK into Early Access. It has likely been tagged as that because I have made some edits such as this one. I will continue to update it as the game's development goes on.** Never have I had to write a review about a more painfully disappointing game. The Karters, on paper and in beta, is a solid idea - it takes inspiration from one of the karting kings, and puts it on Steam. What should have been a simple translation from the Playstation One to 2018 has been disastrous, despite my strong faith in the Closed Beta phases. However, its storied development history is the cause of much cynicism; the game has been delayed numerous times, opting out of the Early Access programme to instead deliver two limited Closed Betas. When it eventually dribbled onto Steam to its jaded yet excited playerbase, the game has been dogpiled for its evident bugs, some being in the game as early as the first Closed Beta. Upon starting the game, you're greeted with the same UI as in the beta, only without a working Options menu. Should you get into it, adjusting the controls is inconsistently functional. Sometimes mapping controls works, and sometimes they reset the moment you leave the menu. The Adventure Mode allows you to play as any character within the game, with an "upgrade" at certain milestones in the campaign. One good thing I can say about this is that the Adventure Mode progress is not shared amongst characters, increasing what little replay value you might find. It's also an attempt to stay loyal to Crash Team Racing's influence, which in all aspects it does very well. But it is a video game in its own right, and with that come certain other expectations. From what little I've seen of the powerups (that have been removed in order to be fixed), there's approximately eight but I only have two; Boosters, which are self explanatory, and the Toxic Jar akin to CTR's test tube voodoo placed powerup. I've not seen the effects of the jar because the AI doesn't drive into it. It's quite clever, and tricky, but often will it bug out by simply driving into walls and being unable to reverse out of them, or find itself stuck in a surface. [The AI & Trophy mode have been removed in order to be fixed] Two other modes exist within the Adventure mode besides standard races; time attack and letter mode, the latter once again being similar to CTR's CTR mode. No, that's not a typo. Again, very well done in terms of its loyalty to Crash, but as a video game on its own merits it has its flaws with hit detection when touching crates for items and letters. The controls are just as smooth as they once were, though without boosting the karts are incredibly slow. Given how they are go-karts, that's to be expected, and it encourages what Crash Team Racing once did - there's just no way you're going to win if you're a powerslide pariah. Besides the animations, there's no impact felt from falling or making a jump, which could be greatly improved with the simple enabling of vibration or a slider for it. The Steam controller would be ideal if such a thing is to be implemented. Alas, many more things need to be implemented and I'm not sure if they ever will be. Tracks for one thing - while they are OK, they rely on competitive players with powerups galore to keep them exciting. The Karters and Meow Motors could do with swapping out their powerup frequency, then you'd have a pretty wild ride in both games. Visually, the game looks OK if I'm being generous with the excuse of "it's an indie game", ignoring the myriad of wonderful, beautiful kart racers that exist (All-Star Fruit Racing, Bears can't Drift?!, Toybox Turbos, I could go on....), but it hardly stands out amongst the others. Truly, its biggest selling point and the best thing it does is the CTR stuff, but brought down by the rocky foundations it's built upon. The sound design is the only unique thing I can comment on positively, as the soundtrack is upbeat and joyous, the karts grumbling and roaring is beautiful and other miscellaneous sound effects are pretty nice all 'round. I cannot recommend this game, not even to die-hard Crash Team Racing fans. It's not that it's a bad kart racer; like Garfield Kart it's one of the best on Steam, but like GK it's a bad product. There's bugs galore from pause menus not working to progress being wrongly calculated, from being unable to find matches to being unable to find resolution settings. I can't fault the devs if they give up on this given the feedback, but if they want to soldier on, it's going to be an up-hill battle all the way. Then again, their company logo seems to suggest they're prepared. I certainly hope so. Perhaps it would've been better if Nitrous Oxide turned the whole planet into a concrete parking lot after all. Need a second opinion from me? Check out the ("FINAL" RELEASE) video below! https://youtu.be/6AFCKGq3Koo
• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2018

  I had extremely high hopes for this. Seeing this game made me feel somewhat nostalgic since its based off Crash Team Racing I thoroughly enjoyed. The developer team is new and to my assumption haven't been in the game developing scene for that long which is very apparent. There was a release date announced quite a long time ago and has been postponed several times and had a beta as well to ensure we got a quality game without bugs, however, upon launching the game it was clear the developers were not ready. It is bug-riddled and unplayable and I'd suggest you wait out your purchase until the game actually works.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2018

  This game is pretty bad. The driving itself feels like CTR and the level design and music are ok. But the actual gameplay is terrible. Racing against the computer is no different than a time trial, they dissapear and you see other racers for maybe 5-10% of the course. In the 5 or so races I went through I only ever got 2 different power-ups, the toxic jar and the speed boost, that's it - and I must have picked up 50+ power-ups over that time (in positions from 2nd - last). There are no satisfying sounds or feebacks when you hit something, and when you finish the race your position isn't even shown, just your time. If someone take the power up box in front of you it doesn't vanish so everyone can grab the same box. The pause menu is a disaster as noted by others as is the main menu. In the main menu, in the adventure mode there are things that appear unlocked but you can't click them. This game was enjoyable for about 30 seconds in the same way street view on Google Maps is enjoyable, you can look around and see some neat stuff but that's it. Definitely don't waste your time or money on this game. I can't believe this is what was released after all those delays...
• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2018

  It's bad, like really bad. The core mechanics are there, it tries to emulate CTR's gameplay, but it fails miserably. It's incredible buggy and flawed by design, bugged/non existant collisions, bugged pause menu and controlls, sliding on place works, no start boosts, etc. Only 6 tracks, switching between jungle/beach/desert motif, so it's all very samey, they are very large and quite boring, tracks are large and the karts are small so there's a lot of unnecessary space. All in all, I don't recommend it, and it's very unlikely to improve.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2018

  I hope the developers are reading these comments and realise that releasing this game in this unfinished state is causing players to ask for refunds (I can't speak for anyone else but I certainly did). While this is a good béta this product isn't finished at all and 10Ants Hill, you know it! Clearly their heart is in the right place during development because the basics are really good. The level design is good, the racing is good and very similar to CTR (although the driftboosting feels awkward to me), the graphics on par with what they need to be and the style of the tracks and characters really give a CTR vibe. So all the elements are there. Now on to the bad. How could I possibly recommend a game that doesn't even have fully functional menu's? For instance, after completing a track in the adventure mode, I can't click "resume" because nothing happens when I do. You have to go back to the main menu and start the next challenge. The same goes for the settings menu, I can't go from audio directly to the control settings even though the button is there. Go back to the main menu and open settings again. That could be forgiven, but the settings you change aren't even saved! I wanted to change the controls and I like that the option is there, but it never saves. So the only way to do it right now is to start a race, press pause and change it there. You have to do this every single time. Okay, so after navigating the settings menu, I want to start racing. So I start racing and it plays decent enough, but I notice not one of the AI opponents is shooting at me or laying traps! Then after a few more rounds I notice that the only two power-ups that I get or the toxic jar and a booster. Their seem to be more power-ups but I never get them. Do I need to unlock them? That would be a terrible decision in a party game like this! I can imagine a lot of players don't even want to play single player adventure mode and just want to start enjoying the game with friends. But you can't really do that with just these two power-ups. These are all things that you might overcome if you're a real fan. You can work around the unfinished menu and settings and you can just unlock everything in the game by completing the adventure mode (I think, the game doesn't say). If I put in this effort, would it not be a good karting game to play with friends? Frankly: no. Because even when you work around all that there's still the fact that there are a lot of minor bugs and design decisions that need to be ironed out. The collision detection for example has been improved but there are still to many objects that you just drive through in stead of bumping into them. And even when you do bump into something, the effect it has is still not what it needs to be. At one point there's a big fan you have to drive through. If you don't time correctly you might bump into one of the blades. But, when you keep giving gas and the blade goes into the ground your momentum doesn't stop. Normally when you bump into something there should be an impact and a moments hesitation because your cart would stand completely still, but that's not what happens here. Then there's the fact that the speed doesn't feel exactly right just yet. CTR wasn't the fastest paced racer around and The Karters isn't either, but in CTR you could get a lot of momentum out of hitting all the booster pads around the track. The Karters tries to do the same thing but doesn't get the flow exactly right, the cart loses speed a bit too soon before getting to the next booster and sometimes there are no boosters for a longer period. Maybe I just need to get used to it but it feels a bit off to me. That's definitely not the biggest problem this game has though it worth mentioning. I believe rumble functionality (as I believe most of us would play it with a controller, definitely when playing split screen) could add a lot to the feel of speed and bumps you take from power-ups and such. Speaking of bumps, there are no animations for hitting a toxic jar (the only power-up besides the booster I could test). In CTR your car would bump upside down or there would be a rainy cloud above you, in other cart games there are other animations. These animations are a big part of why kart-racers are so much fun to play! In the Karters though, when you hit a toxic jar, the car just stops for a second. That's it! Let's be positive though and assume the developers iron all of that out. You would get a pretty fine karting game, I believe. But even then this game would need more tracks, more power-ups and more characters to stay relevant for a long time. I don't see that happening at this price but DLC would be a very good way to add more. At this point, the game is in what feels like a 0.8 or 0.9 version at best and I can't recommend this to anyone, no matter how big your love is for Crash Team Racing or other similar games. No matter how much you're yearning for a decent cart racer on PC (I feel your pain, I really do). But I do beg the developers no to give up. You've come so far and the basics really are here. There's a skeleton of a really good cart racer here.