If you were a kid growing up in the past 50 years, then you probably had Hot Wheels (or Micro Machines) cars in the house. If you were really spoiled (like me), then you had a ton of these plastic Hot Wheel track strips strewn all over your basement. Any solid structure was a potential ramp, and all of our other toys were transformed into building, obstacles, or innocent bystanders (extra points if you were able to launch these die-cast projectiles into the family pet). I have even recently witnessed my own sons’ prowess for mayhem as they converted our basement into a spiderweb of complex orange racing death… the legacy lives on! If any of this carnage rings a bell, then you most certainly will be interested in “Mad Tracks” for Xbox Live Arcade, developed by Load.
This new party arcade game has the same initial charm as Toy Golf, where typical rooms are transformed into obstacle sources (or in this case, miniature racetracks a la Micro Machines). The game has 15 race tracks that resemble every Hot Wheels fantasy you could ever imagine. To add some extra challenge to the game, the “safety rails” that kept your car on the track have been removed, allowing you to slip off a banked curve. There are lots of other racing challenges such as banked curves, death-defying ramps, and destructible obstacles like candlesticks, domino arches and action figures. There are several power-ups (in the form of gift-boxes) that can be used to blow your opponents off the tracks or zoom past them. There are rockets, oil slicks, freeze attacks and other tricks to win each race. The graphics are rather simple for an Xbox 360, but multiplayer is an absolute blast on Xbox Live (you can take on those bully kids from the other side of the tracks).
Many action-kart games seem to have the same formula, where you just floor the accelerator and randomly shoot rockets (or turtle shells, but whatever). Mad Tracks adds another dimension on how tracks are played: the toy cars have an internal spring that slowly runs down, which means you must manage how you use the accelerator so that it can recharge (although you regain power when you fly off a ramp). You really need to pay attention to everything that’s going on; not just concentrating on falling off the track.
There are even a variety of mini-games included with Mad Tracks that keeps the game fresh when you grow tired of the tracks. You can play a game of “pool” where two cards on each team crash into each other to push colored balls into the table pockets! You can even put your cars on a foosball table, where you scurry around collecting candy and blasting everything that moves.
Racing party games aren’t new, in fact alot of them are pretty much the same. Game companies try to brand them with different graphics to make them different or somehow more fun than the competition. You don’t need cute dinosaurs, sexually frustrated plumbers or talking mushrooms to have a great racing game. There is something about Mad Tracks that has a nostalgic charm, and it’s not a bad game, either.
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