Micro Pico Racers

Hey, I like this game. It's a simple game that demands a lot from you. The mechanics are easy enough to get the hang of, but don't think it will just come to you. The handling takes a lot to get used to, and in my case, I like controllers for racing anyway, and this game is one I need a controller for. I tried to use keyboard, but I didn't like it. You're going to race, time trial, drift and demo other cars. It's easy to pick up, but going to take a lot of attempts. This is very arcade and that is why I like it. I haven't tried the online multi-player, but I can't imagine it's going to be packed. What this game does need, is a restart button at the game over screen.

This game have a good potential, but right now it is frustrating. -The black screen when starting/finishing a race takes long enough to be nuisance. It's very annoying when I fail a race and have to wait and go through the menus again just to retry the same track. -Absence of any in-game hint or tutorial. Take for example the race 4: it took me several tries until I started to understand the drift mechanics. A few more to realise I was using a car with a terrible drift factor. -The A.I. clearly cheats. -Local multiplayer limited to 2 players. No bots. Also no way to change the controls. -No direct connect option for online play. -Did I mention how annoying the music from the menu is?

A fun 2D/Pseudo 3D racer in a similar vein to Codemaster's Micro Machines. Fast and responsive, as you'd expect. The drifting round corners works really well, takes time to master and very satisfying when you do. The pseudo 3D view (original Mario Kart style) works very well and shows none of the familiar distortion associated with this technique. As well as the race career mode and a (mostly) dead on-line mode you also get a split-screen 2-player mode. As well as the usual races and time-runs you can play a destruction derby style game and a soccer style game. Both a lot of fun with friends. I got a lot of fun from this game and well worth the price.

Micro Pico Racers is a quaint 2D top down racer with simple game-modes and somewhat challenging features. The game naturally progresses forcing the Player to think intelligently and trial cars to see their weaknesses and strengths to use them to their fullest potential later on.

My time with this has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Firstly I really like the graphics and top down racing games in general so this looked perfect for me. I started playing and the handling was terrible and I could win anything, some cars flat out stand no chance against the competition, I nearly refunded, but as it was so cheap I carried on, I'm glad I did as changing the view to the behind car one made a world of difference, the game is best played from this view in my opinion. I've now completed the first cup, but can't for the life of me get any further, the music and sounds are fine, apart from the "Go, Go, Go!" Bit as thats something that really grates on me, oh and the "drift failed" and "drift". Ok the verdict is the game is ok, its not amazing, but I have had some fun so far. Graphics 7/10 Sound 4/10 (mainly due to the fact you can't turn the annoying voiceovers off) Gameplay 6/10 it's got handle that is tough to get used too, but it can still be fun. Overall 6.5/10 On sale it's worth grabbing as its so cheap.

It's o ok game