Genre: Indie, Racing, Sports
Developer: 3DClouds.it
Publisher: SOEDESCO Publishing
Release Date: Mar 26, 2019
Price: $39.99
Xenon Racer is a futuristic racing game that feels more Ridge Racer than Wipeout. Taking place in the far off time of 2030, Xenon Racer introduces a new racing league; a racing league with wheels and fancy gas! In a future world of flying craft, Xenon Racer gives these supercars some magical Xenon gas that lets them zoom around like the track at lightning speeds.
Most racing games do away with any sort of story but Xenon Racer does try to play with something that is pretty interesting, if very underdeveloped. The main racing league in this universe has halted wheeled racing for a year so that teams can prepare for the new flying cars of the future and to allow drivers (now pilots, I suppose) to get adjusted before the league kicks off anew.
But racing is racing and an underground federation is launched to bridge the gap between traditional race cars and flying machines. The big car makers band together to create these new cars that are powered by Xenon gas. This takes traditional racing and pushes it to the limits, letting you drift around like a mad man with a jet engine strapped between your legs.
Xenon Racer is all about speed and in trying to control the machine you are in. It’s a pretty interesting story, but one that really just serves to explain these fast, and wild looking cars. Look, I don’t really care for a story in my racing games, but when you tease one that is actually interesting, and then sweep it under the rug, I get a little annoyed.
Racing wise the game feels like Ridge Racer on steroids. This is an arcade racer so don’t expect drafting, following racing lines, or using the brake button. Instead, you’ll be driving hundreds of miles an hour and using the drift mechanic to weave in and out of corners at a break-neck pace. It’s really simple and a whole lot of fun.
Graphically, Xenon Racer looks great, even on mid-range machines. I didn’t experience any noticeable slowdown anywhere when I played. The cars are pretty interesting and because of the nature of the race they can look pretty normal (think Formula E cars of today) to the insane dream of some child who took too much Robitussin and can’t sleep.
All the cars have this Tron-like look and feel and is pretty great when whizzing past each other on the track. The game look like the future through the world of a 1980s film and that’s something I can get behind, but other times the tracks look pretty normal. It’s almost as if part of the game is in the future while the rest is in the modern day. In reality, in thirty-years we’ll probably just be driving Toyota’s with silly looking headlights and not cars like these.
Xenon Racer does a lot to get you hooked right off the bat with everything it presents, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite last. Simulation racing games tend to be pretty boring and hard to get into, but once you do there tends to be hours of content under the surface. Tweaking your ride, buying new cars, learning how each maneuvers and memorizing how the dozens of tracks lays and flow.
But because Xenon Racer is an arcade racing title, once you get past the flashy nature of the game you are going to be left wanting more. There aren’t that many tracks on offer, and because the game uses a generic futuristic style that we have no connection to in the cars, everything can look more or less the same stuck in a pretty normal world. In a traditional racing game Miami would look much different than Milan, Dubai from Los Angeles and so on. In Xenon Racer they all blend into each other during nighttime races. Thankfully, daytime races are slick and look much better and unique.
Driving and drifting is a lot of fun, but outside of using the boost that you build up, these cars never feel all that fast. It’s always really hard to give the player a true sense of speed in these sorts of games outside of throwing a lot of light bloom at you. If you go too fast then you’ll just bee smacking against the closed off tracks. The only game to ever get this right is F-Zero GX because of the nature of the tracks there. Because we are still dealing with traditional race courses, the sense of speed feels a bit limited.
You have these incredible cars but they are racing on basic tracks that you might find today, outside of the boost recharges that are scattered about. And then you also have to deal with the fact that you can take damage, which would work fine in a simulation racer, but in an arcade title it forces you to play more carefully, lest you blow up and then lose time as you reset on the track.
Drifting is a blast, using only a single button much like Mario Kart, but the AI never feels like much of a threat, or all that smart as they smack around, especially early on. If you aren’t ramming against the guardrails chances are you are going to be at the head of the pack in most races. There just isn’t much challenge on the medium setting the game recommends once you understand the feel for the drifting on the limited track list. If racing games are your bread and butter you are going to want to play on the upper difficulty levels. But after a little bit you’ll hit that difficulty wall that does feel like it comes out of nowhere.
Audio wise things are a bit hit or miss. The music feels appropriate to what’s going on and doesn’t ever get in the way with fun techno-based music. Sound-effects are adequate if a bit on weaker side of the spectrum. What really kills me is the announcer that kicks things off, as he feels like he doesn’t want to be there. It also feels like his audio tracks were slowed down just by a hair making him sound annoyed when he should be getting you excited for the race.
The modes are what you’d expect with online racing, time attack and a nice split-screen feature to play with your friends. Split-screen racing on a PC title feels overlooked much of the time, so seeing it here is a nice surprise. Controls are spot on and plugging in a wired Xbox One controller is the best way to play, although I do want to go back and bust out a real racing wheel to give that go go. And the photo mode is a nice touch that can let you pull off some really pretty shots.
You’ll also be able to pimp out your ride and earn new cars, but it never feels all that deep, especially since I’d been so invested in something like Forza. You can change the look of your ride, but you’ll be doing this more on look than on what boost you may gain from any change. It’s not much or very deep, but it does add to the game for those wanting more than just racing around in stock rides.
There’s a lot to like about Xenon Racer, but it just feels a little light on content for the $40 they are asking for, but not by much. And be aware that you’ll want to avoid this on like the plague on the Nintendo Switch as it runs at sub 30 FPS if you’re lucky. This is weird as the game will run fine on a potato PC. Still, if you are looking for Ridge Racer in the future, Xenon Racer might be right up your alley, but I’d wait for it to go on sale first.
Pros:
Drifting is a blast
Cool cars
Pumping soundtrack
Cons:
AI issues
Bland tracks
Limited customization
“Xenon Racer is a whole lot of fun in short bursts”
Final Score:
3/5
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