Race Me Now

Kids today have no idea how good they have it. When they buy a new racing game like Gran Turismo or Forza, they expect dozens of expertly-crafted courses or, at the very least, a fully-realized open world to speed around in. But that wasn’t always the case. If we go back to the early days of polygonal racers, you’ll find that most gave you a handful of courses, at best. Ridge Racer, for example, came with three stages all set in the same city, which turns out to be the same amount of courses found in both Virtua Racing and Daytona USA. I was reminded of these stingy titles while playing through the aggressively named new game Race Me Now, a throwback low-polygon racer that only gives us four tracks to speed on. That was enough to satisfy gamers back in 1995, but will that do it for race fans in 2022? I’m going to answer that question and more in my review of Race Me Now.

Don’t let the title fool you, Race Me Now isn’t as in-your-face as you might expect. This isn’t the next Burnout, where the goal is to take down the competition by smashing them into walls and buildings. What we have here is a fairly straight-forward low-poly racing game that is modeled off of the early 32-bit speedsters. It’s the kind of game that would have fit in perfectly as an early PlayStation or Saturn title, like Ridge Racer or Daytona USA. It’s a small game that knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn’t bite off more than it can chew.

Race Me Now is split up between a bunch of single races and a season mode, which will enter you in a multi-race tournament in four different classes – street car, sports car, muscle car and super car. Beyond opening up the different classes, competing in the four-track season mode is also the only way to earn money, which you can use to purchase the 52 different cars in the game.

The good news is that Race Me Now looks great and controls surprisingly well. In fact, of all the throwback racing games I’ve played over the last few years, this is the easiest one to steer. No matter what car you’re racing, the cornering is tight and the cars have a good weight to them. And I say that as somebody who ended up having to use the keyboard, since I couldn’t get either my PlayStation or Xbox controllers to work properly. But even with the less-than-ideal keyboard, I was shocked by how well these cars handled.

The low-poly visuals also add to the appeal. While some of the cars are a bit on the simplistic side, the mountains, forests, rock formations and bridges found on the sides of the track all look amazing. There’s a smoothness to the races that is pleasing on the eyes and reminds me of the first time I saw Ridge Racer in action. This is a great looking and playing game, there’s no doubt about it.

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I bring these positives up now because the rest of this review is about to get negative. The thing that plagues the season mode is the same problem that makes this game incredibly hard to recommend – there just isn’t enough content. No matter if you’re in a street car or muscle car, you’re forced to race the same four tracks in the same exact order. There’s no variation whatsoever. They don’t even mix things up by making you run the tracks backwards.

Now, you might be thinking that the four car classes act as different difficulty settings, speeding up the action as a way to keep the four repeating levels fresh. Think again, because there’s not much of a difference in speed (or difficulty) between the street cars or the super cars. One might go a few miles per hour faster, but it’s hardly noticeable. This gives each of the class seasons a very samey feel, which is even more annoying when you discover that there’s no payoff or extras to unlock. What you see is what you get.

And speaking of difficulty, this is one of the easiest racing games I’ve ever played. Even on the hardest difficulty, I had no problem taking a commanding lead early on, which can sometimes give off the impression that you’re the only one racing. In truth there are twelve cars on the track, some of which you’ll pass as you literally lap the competition. And again, this is on the hardest difficulty. Using the keyboard. It shouldn’t be this easy to win a race.

Part of the problem is that you don’t lose a lot of speed or momentum when you take the car off road. In fact, you’ll quickly discover that you can drive right through the trees and rocks that line the course. That said, you don’t want to drive through the trees. While it may look like you escaped a fatal car crash, what will happen is the game will randomly reset your position without warning. This means that you’ll drive for another ten or fifteen seconds, only to be teleported against your will. It’s jarring and frustrating. I’ve never seen another racing game handle a penalty like this, and I don’t like it. It feels more like a glitch than a design decision.

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Also, for a game that commands you to Race Me Now, I’m genuinely surprised by the complete lack of multiplayer options. You can’t go online or even split the screen for local play. This is a single-player game only. That’s a shame, because there are a lot of cars here that are going to go to waste and never be seen by the vast majority of players. With multiplayer support, the decision to include 52 different vehicles would certainly make more sense.

Look, this is a game that I want to love. The graphics are so clean and the gameplay is some of the best I’ve seen, but that’s not enough to get Race Me Now over the finish line. With no multiplayer modes and only four tracks, this would have fit in perfectly back in the mid-1990s. However, as a racing game being sold in 2022, Race Me Now simply doesn’t cut it. This does not feel like a complete game.