 |
Publisher Digital Reality
Developer
Released: June 6, 2012
|
Supported Features:
|
What We Liked: What We Didn't: The Final Score: (?) |
|
|
Bang Bang Racing Fans of the 1988 arcade game SuperSprint better stock up on their Microsoft Points! Bang Bang Racing has just launched on Xbox Live Arcade. Being an Xbox Live Arcade game, there are somewhat limited play options. You have a choice between Career, Championships, and Free Play. All of them are fun, but way too short. The graphics and handling are the main standouts in Bang Bang Racing. The cars and tracks remind me of the old Micro-Machines style. In many ways this game looks like Wii game with much better graphics. There are 5 cars available in each of the 4 classes giving you a total of 20 cars to unlock. The cars range from classes of Muscle Cars, Street Racers, GT Racers, and IndyCar. These are fun enough but there is a wealth of other classes they could have easily included to increase playing time. Everything from karts, to outlaw, to trucks, to NASCAR is absent.
With a name like “Bang Bang Racing” you kind of expect there to be missiles and explosions. I was expecting missile power-ups along the lines of Road Blasters and the various Kart racing games. Instead we get a more ‘purist’ form of arcade racing with a few oil slicks and shortcuts thrown in to appeal to arcade fans. Some kind of demolition derby would have been great too. Combat racing options would have been fun on Xbox Live. Bang Bang Racing is an enjoyable pseudo Xbox Live Arcade game. It has nice graphics and a decent variety of tracks. Unfortunately this is yet another game with huge potential, but the developers failed to go the extra mile, instead leaving all kinds of possibilities on the table. They really missed the chance to make a great game by leaving out options of more car classes, weapons, and a track construction set. There are 12 achievements adding up to 400 points to your Gamerscore. Most of the achievements are for completing various race cups but there are a couple difficult ones such as beating the studio’s time on Sakura Speedway. It’s very unfortunate there is so little to write about in the game. The lack of Xbox Live multiplayer support is a huge letdown for a game with limited replay value. Instead you’ll memorize the tracks and Bang Bang Racing will become boring boring racing and you’ll soon move on to other things, never to see your $10 again. This game will entertain for a weekend at best. Screenshots 
|
Genre: Racing
There are 9 distinct tracks available with variations in forward, reverse, short, long, and shortcuts. Most of the tracks are full of curves in various settings and cities. A couple tracks have snow. Layton Raceway is a knockoff of Daytona but in an over/under figure 8 configuration (you can unlock a standard oval too). It’s also a shame that the tracks and classes are limited essentially to formula 1 style of street racing. There are no dirt tracks or off-road courses and there is no track construction set to make your own. Since this is basically an updated version of SuperSprint, they might as well of updated Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off-road game as well.
