Horizon Chase Turbo is simple fun that doesn’t offer up an overbearing challenge for its racers. It contains some good rewards, which help keep the player motivated, but needs to be just a bit deeper in the physics department. All in all, though, it’s a fun arcade racer.
It has been a long time since I’ve played an arcade racer. We’re talking about Outrun, Ridge Racer, and F-Zero long time. After such lovely experiences, my racing interests shifted to more complicated experiences. I went through F1 (pick a year), some Gran Turismo, and a hint of Forza, which brought an untold depth to the racing game. All of the latter are complicated games that require quite a bit of thinking and effort to get through and enjoy. That complication comes at a price, and if you aren’t an enormous fan of those types of games, then they can create an exhausting gaming environment. Sometimes you need a break from such things. Color me entertained and somewhat thrilled that Horizon Chase Turbo crossed my desk in the last week or so. It’s a game that harkens back to ye olden years of simple arcade racing games and reminds one that easy racing can be fun racing.
Let’s get right into this.
Horizon Chase Turbo is not a complicated game by any stretch of the imagination. The initial goal of the game, like any racing game, is to finish in the top three of every race. That is typically the goal of arcade racers. By finishing in the top three in Horizon Chase Turbo, with first being the most ideal, and picking up onscreen blue coins that are randomly placed on the track, the gamer builds up points, which equal out to more cars and more locations to unlock. Good stuff to make an arcade racing game interesting, no doubt. Beyond these things, there are a few power-ups on the track, fuel gauges to watch, as well as fuel to gather, and bonus stages to conquer. That is pretty much the entire game in a nutshell. Honestly speaking, I can deal with that lack of complication. It really does give me some comfort as a gamer and gives me a break from the over-complicated opuses that most driving games are comprised of these days.
Now, simple doesn’t make for great, which is the case for Horizon Chase Turbo. The game hits the rank of good, but doesn’t go beyond. The main cause of this is that the controls still don’t meet the standard established by arcade racers of its type. When you’re hitting curves on race tracks you simply need to push right or left (depending on curve direction) while the car is positioned in the right part of the track to avoid rolling off the track. There are no real physics to this game. No punishment for track style or consistency. This isn’t Pole Position, where if you’re going too fast you will slide off the corner, nor is it Ridge Racer which contains just a smidge of drift, rather it’s a cut and dry movement that is guaranteed to work every time. Ultimately, it provides no challenge in positioning or slowing for the corners, rather it simply works the same way every time. It doesn’t take any effort to master, rather just a little bit of positioning and timing. To be quite frank, it needed to be more unforgiving, which I can’t believe I just typed, otherwise the experience is far too easy, which is the case with Horizon.
All is not lost with the controls, though. To compensate for the cornering and controls, Aquiris Game Studio tried to make the curves challenging by adding more speed and sometimes complicated multiple corners in a row, which pose a problem if you’re not ready for them. Catch a bad angle and you hit something, which delays your continuity, and could put you out of the top three. In addition, the corners are color coded to let you know how severe they are in the curve. Blue curves are average curves, while red are sharp curves. Like I stated above, the curves don’t carry physics with them, or at least I could tell, so timing is really the key with conquering these curves. If you have good timing, then you have good ways to get through them. The balance of lack of real physics and unforgiving gameplay control is made up by throwing in some race track design difficulty. Ultimately, this does make up for the lack of control challenge.
Shifting gears a bit (no pun intended), and getting back to the rewards, the game does a good job of motivating the player to keep continuing. By adding small goals within the game, like the aforementioned coins, and rewards like a ‘super trophy’, which are earned by completing an area in first place and all goals met, the game encourages you to keep going. The addition of bonus areas, which offer up true car upgrades (nothing too complicated) also help to make the experience bigger and better. The final piece to the motivation puzzle is unlocking cars, which are not branded, but easily identified, and nonetheless a fun reward for doing well on the track, although I wish unlocking them was easier (it feels like it takes forever to get that fourth car).
Before I wrap this review up, let me just mention the awesomeness that is the visuals, which are styled simplistically, and the fantastic music. The latter of the two is probably the best part of the production. You get some fantastic synth beats that hit the right notes and fit the racing scenarios perfectly. I had multiple workers in the office talk about how great the music was, so I know I wasn’t alone. As for the art style of the game, it’s gorgeous and plain. It fits the mold made for it and works every step of the way.
Overall, Horizon Chase Turbo is simple fun that doesn’t offer up an overbearing challenge for its racers. It contains some good rewards, which help keep the player motivated, but needs to be just a bit deeper in the physics department. All in all, though, it’s a fun arcade racer.
