XBLA Review: Bang Bang Racing

“A Great Little Racer!”

An XboxHornet review by WDesm.

Certainly, the racing genre is well established.  All sorts of gimmicks have been done – from powerups to bullet-time, from cartoon themes to boss fights, from PvE to PvP full-out combat, and countless other permutations.  Instead of carbon-copying another overused gimmick, or worse, reinventing the wheel with brand new gimmicks, Bang Bang Racing tried for a “beauty in simplicity” approach that works rather marvelously.  In fact, the only thing beyond “acceleration” and “brake” that the controls offer is a simple Nitro feature that works great for boosting around fellow racers and simplistically adding a little depth to tactics.

I’m not the first person to do this, and I certainly won’t be the last, but there’s certainly a parallel to be made to the old classic Micro Machines titles on the NES.  Tight-knit courses zig and zag, and with only the barest of course interactives (pylons and barrels realistically placed around dangerous turns) and zero power-ups or superpowers, skill is the real deciding factor in a race.

Bang Bang Racing has a rather ingenious system of unlocks – within your first five races, you have unlocked each of the primary vehicles, each focusing on a boost of handling, acceleration, etc.  Each vehicle has a series of skins that can be unlocked, some by doing straight-forward targets (ie: Come in the top three on Stage five), while some are rather exotic (ie: Come in the top three on Stage four after hitting at running into at least four barrels).  Course-wise, content is unlocked in the more traditional sense, with each of the four cups being unlocked by placing well in previous events and stages.

Bang Bang Racing is probably best described as a “safe bet”.  Despite championship cups, a collection of interesting unlocks, local 1-4 player splitscreen multiplayer, and customizable course choices for one-off races, the game focuses on solidly delivering a few simple basics and not straying from the formula.  The end result is a game that is a fair bit of fun, a blast with a few others on the same couch, and a good nostalgia dose for those that want more of a Micro Machines-vibe from the 1990s.

Game Score: 6.5/10.

Download a free demo of the game here.