Classic Sport Driving

If you grew up in the 1980s, then you already know that there was a time when racing games looked and played very differently from what you see today. You weren’t driving around a course or even competing against other racers, but rather you were fighting against the clock just to keep going until either the track ended or you made it to the next level. That’s the inspiration behind the new game Classic Sport Driving, a throwback racer that tosses realism out the window in order to be the spiritual successor to games like OutRun and Rad Racer. It’s obviously far from the only modern racing game to take this old school approach, but is it one of the best? That’s what we’re going to find out when I review Classic Sport Driving by Pixel Wrappers.

“A retro-inspired game crafted for a genuine driving experience.” That’s how first-time developer Pixel Wrappers describes their new game Classic Sport Driving on its Steam page, and, no matter what I have to say about this debut release, they are definitely right. This is a “driving experience” based on the classic racing games we grew up with, for better or worse.

If you’ve played games like Rad Racer and OutRun, then you’re going to feel right at home with Classic Sport Driving. Instead of going around in a boring circle, this is a point-to-point racer where we’re speeding against the clock. Like a lot of 1980s racers, you’re not really competing against other drivers. In fact, the other cars on the highway are only there to act as an obstacle. The goal of each stage is to go fast enough that you’ll cross through the different checkpoints, which will give you an extra boost in time and allow you to catch up to either the one, two or three-star times. These are conveniently represented on the track, giving you something to chase after in the absence of other racers.

Classic Sport Driving is not the first modern racing game to find inspiration from the classics of the 1980s. This one continues the tradition of using simple polygons to create the illusion of these old games, which doesn’t quite match the pixel graphics of OutRun, but are close enough to trigger nostalgic feelings. While a bit sparse, the hand-drawn graphics generally look good and help to give the different tracks some much-needed personality. And because the game is working with polygons instead of pixel graphics, the developers were able to create a racing game that is both fast and smooth.

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It helps that the gameplay is surprisingly tight for this type of racing game. As an arcade-style racer, it probably won’t come as much of a surprise that the controls are extremely simple, with little more than brake and accelerator buttons. And while that may sound limiting, it really leads to a great-playing game that outclasses most of the retro-themed speedsters I’ve played in recent years. This is one of the few racing games where using the brake doesn’t immediately send you into last place, and I have to commend the developers for making it both easy to play and easy to master.

As a single-player game, Classic Sport Driving is split up into sixteen individual stages that are grouped together into four increasingly challenging tournaments. Ideally, you’ll catch up with the fastest time and earn three stars on every stage, but you can still open up the new tracks by snagging a single star. Completing these sixteen stages will take around two hours, and you can add another two or three hours to that time if you want to go back and earn a perfect score on each track.

This single-player mode is only part of the package, because a lot of the fun comes from playing the randomly-constructed courses. This mode will give you an unlimited amount of tracks to race, each pulling from different locations, weather conditions and obstacles. There are also daily tracks to beat, allowing you to compete against other like-minded racers in the online leaderboard.

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The problem that I ran into is that no matter if the track was developed for the game or randomly-constructed by the computer, the point-to-point races are extremely forgettable. The one and only memorable stage comes in the form of a race set right next to a dangerous cliff. And when I say “right next to it,” I mean that the only thing standing between you and flying straight off the side of the mountain is an occasional sign. This is a great example of using the sides of the track (or lack thereof) to add a new obstacle and ratchet up the stakes. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the only one that stands out in any meaningful way.

In a lot of ways, Classic Sport Driving feels like the first draft of a half-finished game. I was honestly taken aback when I discovered that this wasn’t an Early Access release. Sure, the game looks good and handles well, but it doesn’t have a lot of the things you would expect from a racing game. For example, you’re limited to driving the same yellow sportscar in every single race. You can’t choose another variety or even change its color. And that goes for the other cars on the street. Don’t expect a nice mix of cars, trucks and maybe even motorcyclists getting in the way, because everybody else on the road is driving the same blue car. Couple this with some forgettable courses and the sparse backgrounds and Classic Sport Driving has a real problem of feeling a bit samey.

Perhaps some of this comes down to an inexperienced developer prioritizing gameplay and presentation over some of the bells and whistles, but you’ll likely never shake the notion that the game feels unfinished. That’s especially frustrating when you factor in the fifteen-dollar asking price, which seems too high for what you get in this game. While I’m sure some people will find a lot of replay in the randomly-constructed stages, that simply wasn’t enough to keep me engaged for long. Classic Sport Driving is a great-playing throwback racer that I want to recommend, but you should probably wait for a sale.