I like to think I'm an RPG enthusiast, but I haven't played one in a very long time. I just can't bring myself to start a 50+ hour game when I know I won't find time to finish it. These days I'm more into games that don't require a commitment. I'm a sucker for two things: Button masher fighting games, and halfway decent kart racers.
Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of the latter. Of course the best kart racer starts with an "M", and requires a Nintendo system to play. For those of us who don't keep up with the latest Nintendo systems, it's hard to find a kart racer of similar quality. Impossible, actually. But until I break down and buy a Switch, I'm making do with what's out there.
You wouldn't think my needs are hard to meet. All I want is to race vehicles while throwing objects at each other, and the physics need to "feel right". But that's the hard part, apparently. The people who design budget kart racers just don't put the same effort into the physics as the people who design NASCAR/Formula-1 racing simulators. You end up with a lot of games where driving doesn't feel much different than walking in an action game.
But it gets worse. For a kart racer to really stick with us, my wife and I have to agree on the feel. We've been playing Beach Buggy Racing for a couple of years now, and we're really itching for something new. (Shameless plug: Subscribe to KJ's Twitch Channel where we play at least a couple of times a week.) We tried Crash Team Racing a while back, but it didn't click for us.
I never played the first Nickelodeon Kart Racers game, but all the reviews say it was terrible. The recently-released sequel is considered a vast improvement, but it's still not getting stellar reviews.
But here's the thing: The biggest complaint I keep seeing in the reviews? It rips off Mario Kart too much. Seriously, why do reviewers assume that everyone already owns a Nintendo system? I'm desperate for a Mario Kart rip-off. For me, the plagiarism a feature, not a bug.
NKR2 is a solid kart racer, despite what other reviewers are saying. It has more than enough characters and tracks, it's colorful and fun, and you can tell a lot of love went into it. It has unlockables galore, and every race gives you coins you can use to buy items, so it always feels like you're making progress.
The customization is pretty insane. Before you race, you pick a driver, which also determines the shape of the car. Then you pick three members of your pit crew, tires, engine, tailpipes, and paint job. The first crew member determines your car's special weapon, and the other two crew members give you passive effects, like automatically getting a second item each time you pick up a power up. There are a whopping 70 pit crew members to pick from, though most of them have to be unlocked.
It has a decent roster. Not being ten years old, I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough characters I recognized. However, its roster of 28 drivers spans several decades, including the Ninja Turtles, Ren & Stimpy, CatDog, Hey Arnold, The Last Airbender, Spongebob, Rugrats, and a few others. Heck, the Ninja Turtles alone are enough for me.
It also has a decent number of tracks. Eight cups, four tracks each, making thirty-two tracks total. It has the standard types of tracks you see in every racing game, along with tracks themed after certain cartoons, and a few slime-filled Double Dare style courses. It also has an arena mode with two arenas, a time trial mode, and a challenge mode where you complete challenges to unlock more goodies.
Some reviewers complained that the graphics aren't up to current gen, but honestly they're as good as I need a kart racer's graphics to be. It has better graphics than Beach Buggy Racing, which, as I've mentioned, I've been playing weekly for more than two years.
So it's better than people are giving it credit for. Still, all is not perfect. I have three complaints:
1. Drifting. I'm not the only reviewer to mention this. NKR2 tries so hard to copy Mario Kart's controls, but it just doesn't get drifting right.
2. Chaos. Sometimes there's just too much going on. Brightly animated courses, dripping slime, constant items flying by... It's like driving through a neon circus. Trying to figure out what's going on during the more frenetic races makes me feel old.
3. Physics. It gets it a lot closer than some kart racers, but it still just doesn't "click" for me the way Mario Kart does. It took me a few races to really get used to how much pressure I needed to put on the stick, and when I went to play Beach Buggy Racing again, it took a few races to unlearn NKR2 so I could get back in the BBR groove. Also, even on the fastest setting, NKR2 doesn't feel as fast as I would like.
Despite those drawbacks, I still think NKR2 is a solid kart racer, easily worth $15 to $20. Unfortunately, it's being sold for $40. So if you like kart racing, I'd say add it to your wishlist, and hope it goes on sale.
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