Game #1352: Horizon Chase Turbo

 Huh? Where's Aloy?

 Talk about fast games! Horizon Chase Turbo is a love letter to oldschool 2-D, behind-the-back racing games.

 The game is very fast, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very manageable. What is rather annoying is that the AI feels very rubber-bandy? Kinda? You are meant to start at the last place, and slowly work your way up throughout every round. You'll never be on the first place on the first lap. Yeah, rubber-bandy isn't the word for it, but I lack for a better term.

 The only thing I absolutely hate is how progression is gated behind points. You will absolutely need to replay older stages and aim for better spots, for more points and thus unlock more stages. But gaining points, and unlocking cars, goes beyond first place, you also need to collect every coin on every race. And this is a game in which practice makes perfect. After a few runs I was perfecting every single race, unlocking every car and what not, but I hated being FORCED to replay older levels to unlock new ones. There are plenty of tracks, for what it's worth.

 You have to look out for your fuel gauge, because if you run out you will lose the race, so you have to memorize where the fuel tanks are. Sometimes you have to choose between coins or fuel tanks.

 Something I hated is that you absolutely must update the game, otherwise the game will bombard you with reminders to update the game between menu prompts. Who designed this?

 It was quite a fun game, and you can play the main campaign in local co-op, which made it more fun, but I'm not fond of game-design that forces you to replay old stuff in order to progress. After I unlocked every race, but not every care, legitimately, I used codes to unlock every car and color, so at least there's that.

7.0