The PS4 Port That Leaves Pieces in the Toybox
Â
Researching a game before you review it is an important step in the process. A lackluster experience can be excused with a little bit of knowledge about the developer, or how much of a budget the game had. Itâs important to have knowledge of context, in essence. Conversely, such as with Super Toy Cars, what would otherwise have been a fine experience is sullied with images of what couldâve been.
Each track in STC is filled with vibrant colours and set dressings.
Super Toy Cars for the Playstation 4 is an arcade-style racer that uses toy cars and tracks built from everyday household items (wrenches, oil canisters, toys, etc.) in a style similar to Toybox Turbos or ReVolt. Developed and published by Eclipse Games as their first major entry, Super Toy Cars initially released to middling reviews back in 2014; for the PC, Wii U, and Xbox One. So now with the release of the PS4 port at the turning at the year, what exactly can PS4 owners look for in this title?
To kick things off, the game looks great. The cars all have a nice shine to them; the courses are filled with a wide range of colours and well-designed objects, and everything just looks right in the game. From what I could see of screenshots, it doesnât look like they changed much from the previous editions, but that works in the gameâs favor, as every picture Iâve seen from the Wii U and PC ports looks fantastic.
These well-polished graphics also help give each of the 16 unlockable cars a unique personality to them, adding to the initial charm and appeal that comes with the toy box racing genre. Everything from the initial Ladybug, which is clearly inspired by the Volkswagen Beetle, to the Formula 2500 racer looks and plays differently from each other. Adding to this, each car can also have its colors changed, and a variety of creative skins unlocked for them.
Natural course obstacles, while charming, are largely ineffective.
Unfortunately, you likely wonât be using all of these cars or experimenting with them for too long. After a few minutes of playing around, I quickly found out that some cars are simply and objectively better than others. Namely, the drifting stat seems to be significantly more important than the others. Mostly because having a low drift stat means attempting to drift will kill your momentum, but also because players with high drift stat can auto-drift simply by turning hard enough, and drifting for an extended period of time charges your boost meter.
Getting the superior model cars wonât even be difficult, as the lower races reward around 3000 credits per first place victory, with minor prize pool reductions for when you place below first. The first car you can unlock is 10,000 credits, and then the cost to unlock scales slightly as you progress through the higher quality cars. Although, this aspect is also very positive. Allowing players to quickly unlock the cars they want after adjusting to the gameâs controls with the all around balanced starter car, âThe Ladybug.â
Players will need the time to adjust too, as the controls for this game are best described as sub-par. Most cars start out handling poorly, careening at the slightest taps or needing to use the wall in order to turn period, and will only improve upon purchasing upgrades to increase handling. Each car does feel like it controls differently, but when itâs varying levels of wonky, it kind of defeats the point anyway.
While Super Toy Cars has a few racing variants, this largely does nothing to increase the replay value beyond two or three more times.
Compounding this is the gameâs physics engine, which renders everything ranging from ânormal kart racerâ to âeverything is styrofoamâ. I get that the cars are supposed to be toys, but everything still feels incredibly light and floaty. Itâs not uncommon for cars to smack the wall, and then fly up incredibly high, flipping over in the process. The items and course obstacles also suffer from the bizarro physics, as items like the giant 8-ball have no actual weight to them. Launching one at a wall seems always to have just as good a chance, of jettisoning it into low earth orbit as it does just bouncing off. Each stage is also littered with a few objects, but theyâre all just reskinned blocks that donât appear actually to hinder player progress. In some cases even, I found that the stage obstacles sped me up from time to time in the time trials.
Aside from the physics, though, the stages are all well designed. Even though thereâs only a handful of levels with slightly varying aesthetic, each track has an easy, medium, and hard variation to it. Each variation, while visually the same, is wildly different from the others, with some of the course changes adding a much-needed level of difficulty to it, while also preventing the players from becoming bored with what they have.
All the minor gripes aside, though, there is one major problem that this PS4 port suffers from alone. It lost a two of the major features the previous installments on the PC, Wii U, and Xbox One had. Namely, the PS4 port of Super Toy Cars loses its course creator and the ability to play with other people online, both of which would have given this game so much more to offer. Now, instead of being able to play with up to eight players, youâre stuck with the 1-4 split screen. With the research I did after playing this game, a lot of people had plenty of positive things to say about the course creator too, so why Eclipse removed it from the PS4 port is simply beyond me.
Super Toy Cars, while not bad by any means, has a lot holding it back from being better than okay. With an asking price of ï¿¡7.99 and $9.99, and its glitchy state, I donât think I could safely recommend this to anyone except die-hard fans of the toybox racer genre. But even then, there are other games that do the same thing, but better. Hopefully, Eclipse Games will have better luck with their next game, Tachyon Project.