Xenon Racer

It feels like it was only yesterday when companies big and small flooded the market with all kinds of arcade-style racing games. From Burnout to Midnight Club to Auto Modellista, it seemed like everyone wanted in on the action. Of course, this wasn't just yesterday, but more like fifteen years ago. These days you have to go out of your way to find an over-the-top racer that isn't a remastered port of a decade-old game or filled with go karts. That's one of the reasons why I was so excited to get behind the wheel of Xenon Racer, a speedy new game that picks up right where Ridge Racer left off. And maybe, if we're really lucky, this will be the first salvo in a new era filled with drift-heavy arcade racers.

Set just eleven years from now, Xenon Racers is not your typical futuristic racing game. We aren't piloting hovercrafts, making death-defying jumps or launching missiles, because this is a lot more grounded than something like WipEout or F-Zero. This is a future where cars are only a little more advanced and will occasionally change shapes as they pick up speed. The most noticeable difference comes from locations and backgrounds, which are not only colorful and bursting with personality, but also just futuristic enough to feel a little alien and unsettling.

I likened this to Ridge Racer at the top, and that wasn't by accident. With its focus on drifting, Xenon Racer reminds me a lot of Namco's long-running franchise. It's over-the-top like a lot of arcade racers, but not in the violently aggressive ways you saw in the Burnout franchise. Drifting is your main weapon against these tracks, and you'll find that maintaining that drift will slowly increase the boost gauge. You're able to hold up to three boosts at a time, so charge them up and unleash hell whenever you're a little behind or going into a straight stretch.

The game is split into several different modes, with the biggest draw being the Xenon Racing Championship. This is a lengthy and elaborate campaign with multiple paths and all kinds of events to complete. This is the way you unlock new tracks and cars, though you won't always be able to customize your vehicle. In most cases, you'll only have a choice between a half dozen cars, and any tinkering in the garage is strictly off limits. I respect the simplicity, but wish the developers would have given us a little more control over the single-player campaign.

While we may not be driving flying cars or racing on the moon, there are a lot of signs that this is in fact the future. It's the seven different cities that really sell the illusion, including Boston, Miami, Shanghai, Dubai, Canada and more. Seeing as this is only a decade down the right, Xenon Racers does a good job of sprinkling in new architecture and technology without feeling the need to reinvent these cities. There's a level of restraint here that you don't normally see in futuristic racing games, and yet it's clear that there will be some major enhancements over the next eleven years. Airplanes look a little different, drones are everywhere, holograms have taken over and you'll race against a flying craft straight out of Star Wars. And yet, despite the obvious enhancements, these iconic locations largely remain the same. There's a nice mix of new and old.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

It's worth mentioning that each of the seven cities have several different tracks to race, including reversed versions where you speed through the course in the opposite direction. It's also nice that these tracks can be played during the day, night and dawn, giving the stages a slightly different ambience. The problem is that there simply aren't enough tracks to race. Sure, I like that each location has different courses, reverse runs and even day and night versions, but you see the same (admittedly cool) backgrounds a few too many times before the campaign is over and done. It would have been nice to have a few more cities to race through, even if it's at the expense of an alternate version of Miami or Boston.

On the topic of disappointments, this is the part of the review where I roll my eyes at the aggressive A.I. On second thought, that's not exactly fair, because the computer opponents are all over the place. Sometimes they'll get out to an early lead that is nearly impossible to overcome, while other times they'll barely put up fight. What often happens is that you'll get out to a sizeable lead and then, out of nowhere, the second-place car will magically appear behind you and all of a sudden make your final lap a real nightmare. And it's not because the difficulty ramps up, since the A.I. will drastically change each time you restart the race. I would say the game is challenging, but often it's not. The difficulty is a bit of a mixed bag.

There are other minor problems, like the long load times and occasional frame rate issues. But the truth is, none of these issues, including the repetitive tracks and weird A.I., are enough to keep me from having a good time. Maybe it's because I'm so starved for an arcade racing game, but I had a lot of fun with Xenon Racer. Although I'm sure that some of it is because I just want to go fast and smash slightly futuristic cars out of the way, it's also due to the great graphics, challenging tracks and exciting sense of speed. This is a well-made racing game with solid controls and a lot of content, including both online and split-screen multiplayer modes. If I had my way, we would see a lot more games like Xenon Racer.