{"id":103216,"date":"2019-11-06T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/race_with_ryan"},"modified":"2019-11-06T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:00:00","slug":"review-race-with-ryan-a-thoroughly-average-racer-tied-to-the-most-annoying-licence-imaginable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/11\/06\/review-race-with-ryan-a-thoroughly-average-racer-tied-to-the-most-annoying-licence-imaginable\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Race With Ryan &#8211; A Thoroughly Average Racer Tied To The Most Annoying Licence Imaginable"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/race_with_ryan\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/nintendo-switch\/race_with_ryan\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 1 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100821\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100821\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 1 of 5\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>It might be difficult to believe, but <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/race_with_ryan\">Race With Ryan<\/a><\/strong> is one of the most difficult reviews we\u2019ve written in a while. When you\u2019re covering a game based on a licence it\u2019s always important to make sure your opinion of the licence itself doesn\u2019t get in the way of the review. After all, nobody wants to read a review of an NBA game that\u2019s just full of the writer going on about how they think basketball is rubbish.<\/p>\n<p>The problem here, though \u2013 and we\u2019re about to break the rule \u2013 is that Race With Ryan is based on one of the most easily hated licences in the brief 4.54 billion-year history of our planet, which makes it <em>incredibly<\/em> challenging to write about the game without constantly wanting to scream in the face of anyone who\u2019ll listen about how knuckle-clenchingly infuriating the whole thing makes us. But we\u2019re professionals, so we\u2019ll try.<\/p>\n<p>For those unfamiliar with it, <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UChGJGhZ9SOOHvBB0Y4DOO_w\">Ryan\u2019s World<\/a> \u2013 formerly Ryan Toys Review \u2013 is a <em>massively<\/em> popular YouTube channel in which a very young boy (who doesn\u2019t know any better, to be fair) is given an obscenely huge supply of toys by his parents (who <em>absolutely<\/em> do know better). These often take the form of enormous mystery eggs: <em>literal<\/em> loot boxes, packed with countless toys.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 2 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100822\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100822\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 2 of 5\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>His parents have made more than $22 million so far, and toy companies are bending over backwards to get their products into Ryan\u2019s videos because it gives them massive exposure through what are essentially paid product placements for preschoolers. The whole thing\u2019s pretty grim, really&#8230; unless, of course, you don\u2019t think it is, in which case, <em>hey<\/em>, to each their own.<\/p>\n<p>Not content with having all the internet money ever, Ryan\u2019s parents have now taken to jamming their lad\u2019s face onto various other products, from inevitable toy lines to stuff like toothbrushes and TV shows. Now it\u2019s time for a Ryan video game, and what better way to do that than to make a karting game in which eight of the characters are Ryan? Actually, don\u2019t answer that.<\/p>\n<p>We can already feel our prejudice getting in the way so let\u2019s put aside our feelings on the licence and judge the game on its own merits. Race With Ryan is your regular run-of-the-mill <strong>Mario Kart<\/strong> imitator, with the typical selection of modes you\u2019d expect from this sort of thing. There\u2019s the option to race solo in single races or a cup, as well as local split-screen multiplayer for up to four players. Nothing remarkable, then, but at least the standards are being met.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 3 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100825\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100825\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 3 of 5\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The first red flag, however, is the severely limited number of tracks. There are only six on offer here, though you do get to race them in normal and reverse forms. The six environments \u2013 Ryan\u2019s playroom, a theme park, a haunted house, a wild west town, a pirate island and a toy shop \u2013 are reasonably well-designed, with decent background detail and multiple routes in each circuit. Regardless, though, even Mario Kart would lose our interest after a couple of hours if it only had six tracks.<\/p>\n<p>The character roster is another strange affair. There are <em>technically<\/em> 21 different racers to choose from, but this actually amounts to seven characters in various different vehicles. As well as Ryan \u2013 who, as previously mentioned, takes up about two-fifths of the entire roster \u2013 players can choose from various animated characters from the <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCwOGO9gT1y0IvzPqKal4loQ\">VTubers<\/a> &#8216;Let\u2019s Play&#8217; channel that\u2019s part of Ryan\u2019s YouTube network. The selection of vehicles is varied enough, but some of them are a little on the large side which actually affects gameplay: Ryan\u2019s boat is pretty tall, for example, and its sail obscures a lot of what\u2019s up ahead, meaning you\u2019ll regularly drive into spills and obstacles you couldn\u2019t see on the road in front of you.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 4 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100827\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100827\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 4 of 5\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Speaking of which, how\u2019s the actual racing itself? Well&#8230; it\u2019s <em>alright<\/em>. The frame rate is expectedly weak but the handling is fine and there\u2019s a hop-to-drift mechanic that works well enough, giving a generous turbo boost without too much effort needed. When it comes to actually controlling your kart, then, we have no real issues. That\u2019s not to say it\u2019s all good news, however: the game\u2019s array of weapons \u2013 ranging from paper planes to footballs to hamburgers \u2013 are all painfully uninspired and feel so lightweight that they simply aren\u2019t satisfying to use.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also no escaping Ryan himself, who regularly pops up in the corner of the screen in a series of still \u2018reaction\u2019 images any time you hit someone, get hit, complete a lap, collect an item, breathe, look out the window or generally exist. It\u2019s like the \u201cToasty!\u201d pop-ups in <strong>Mortal Kombat<\/strong> games, except whereas those games were inappropriate for children, this one\u2019s unsuitable for adults.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s just the tip of the Ryan iceberg, too. Look, we\u2019ve tried our best to be diplomatic here, but the reality is that Ryan\u2019s <em>all over this thing<\/em> and it\u2019s hard for us to play it and not continually be annoyed. Not at him personally, of course \u2013 he\u2019s just a kid \u2013 but at the way he\u2019s being shamelessly exploited here to make people money: including his parents, who actually show up in FMV sequences before each tournament to talk a load of guff about racing strategies. If you\u2019ve got a swear jar, best put it away before booting up this one.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 5 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100829\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/100829\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Race With Ryan Review - Screenshot 5 of 5\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>It\u2019s not even like his presence has been handled with much care. The menus are full of speech samples where Ryan talks you through every single option, mode, character and unlockable in the game, but they\u2019re horrendous quality with plenty of mic feedback. So too are the video clips that appear before and after each race and show Ryan at home trash-talking his other (animated) rivals. It seems the studio just asked Ryan\u2019s parents to get him to record some stuff at home and WeTransfer it over, rather than recording stuff properly in a studio environment.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the argument from some will be \u201chey, it\u2019s just a kid\u2019s game, don\u2019t worry about it\u201d. The reality, though, is that children are smarter than some people give them credit for, and they <em>still<\/em> know quality when they play it. Just because a game has the kid they watch on YouTube in it, that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re still going to be playing it weeks and months from now, certainly not like <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/mario_kart_8_deluxe\">Mario Kart 8 Deluxe<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Putting our opinion on the cynical Ryan phenomenon to one side, the resulting game is nevertheless a slightly below-average kart racer that handles reasonably well but generally underwhelms, from the pitifully small number of tracks to the uninspired, floaty-light weaponry. Give your kids a Mario, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/team_sonic_racing\">Sonic<\/a><\/strong> or <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/crash_team_racing_nitro-fueled\">Crash<\/a><\/strong> racer instead; they may be young, but they aren\u2019t stupid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It might be difficult to believe, but Race With Ryan is one of the most difficult reviews we\u2019ve written in a while. When you\u2019re covering a game based on a licence it\u2019s always important to make sure your opinion of the licence itself doesn\u2019t get in the way of the review. After all, nobody wants [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}