{"id":114149,"date":"2020-06-14T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/super_toy_cars_2"},"modified":"2020-06-14T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T17:00:00","slug":"mini-review-super-toy-cars-2-a-cute-racer-saddled-with-technical-and-balancing-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/06\/14\/mini-review-super-toy-cars-2-a-cute-racer-saddled-with-technical-and-balancing-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: Super Toy Cars 2 &#8211; A Cute Racer Saddled With Technical And Balancing Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0e29dfad38a55\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/0e29dfad38a55\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/105775\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/105775\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Super Toy Cars 2 Review - Screenshot 1 of 10\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Racing around everyday domestic environments in dinky toy cars isn&#8217;t a fresh concept for Switch owners. Not only have we already had the original <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/super_toy_cars\"><strong>Super Toy Cars<\/strong><\/a>, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/table_top_racing_world_tour_-_nitro_edition\"><strong>Table Top Racing: World Tour &#8211; Nitro Edition<\/strong><\/a>, too. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/super_toy_cars_2\">Super Toy Cars 2<\/a><\/strong> doesn&#8217;t exactly have novelty on its side, then.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it doesn&#8217;t have an awful lot else to recommend it, either \u2013 not with the Switch library being so well stocked with high-class casual racers. This game&#8217;s angle is that it combines <strong>Mario<\/strong> <strong>Kart&#8217;s<\/strong> bright and bouncy item-driven action with a little of <strong>Burnout&#8217;s<\/strong> automotive violence, but the resultant game feels like it&#8217;s come out of a chop shop, with its constituent parts only just about holding together.<\/p>\n<p>For all that, Super Toy Cars 2 handles surprisingly well. The racing physics here fall somewhere in between modern-day Mario Kart and <strong><a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/games\/xbox\/outrun_2\">OutRun 2<\/a><\/strong>, with a power drift system (just hold A while steering) enabling you to carve through corners whilst charging an immediate boost. There are four main car categories to choose from: muscle, wacky, gran turismo, and supercar, with each class varying in their balance between speed and ruggedness.<\/p>\n<p>Races, too, are nicely varied. In the single-player campaign you&#8217;ll encounter last man standing eliminators, battle mode-like arena battles, time trials, item-free clean races and more. All the while you&#8217;ll be unlocking new cars from a pleasingly varied roster, and spending virtual currency to soup them up.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the good stuff out of the way. Unfortunately, there are a number of flaws with Super Toy Cars 2&#8217;s execution. We took exception to the original game&#8217;s temperamental physics, and unfortunately, that&#8217;s still an issue in the sequel. We encountered a couple of egregious invisible walls that stopped us in our tracks, as well as a couple of clipping bugs that saw us falling through the track.<\/p>\n<p>Even discounting these technical gremlins, there&#8217;s something about the exaggerated way that your car bounces off barriers and level scenery that just seems off \u2013 not to mention overly punitive. That&#8217;s exacerbated by the inclusion of a Burnout-style takedown system that can see your car wrecked through a solid collision. Not only is this incongruous given the cutesy Tonka theme, but it&#8217;s maddeningly hard to pin down what constitutes a crash-worthy collision.<\/p>\n<p>Technically, too, Super Toy Cars 2 is poor. It feels very low resolution, even in docked mode, where there&#8217;s a smudgy smeary look that makes you want to clean your TV. In handheld, it can be borderline unplayable, as the game&#8217;s garish reds and pinks smoosh into one another, neutering any sense of depth. You don&#8217;t even get a guaranteed smooth frame rate for all these visual compromises. Talking of compromises, the multiplayer provision is <em>seriously<\/em> lacking, limited as it is to two-player split-screen on individual races.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Table Top Racing: World Tour &#8211; Nitro Edition does the whole dinky toy car racing thing much better and feels like a much more solid and cohesive experience. Although, Super Toy Cars 2 could teach TTR a thing or two about engaging handling. Of course, both games fall well short or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/mario_kart_8_deluxe\"><strong>Mario Kart 8 Deluxe<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/crash_team_racing_nitro-fueled\"><strong>Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled<\/strong><\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/team_sonic_racing\"><strong>Team Sonic Racing<\/strong><\/a>. If you need another dose of fantastical arcade racing in your life, just pick up the one or two of those three that you don&#8217;t own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Racing around everyday domestic environments in dinky toy cars isn&#8217;t a fresh concept for Switch owners. Not only have we already had the original Super Toy Cars, but Table Top Racing: World Tour &#8211; Nitro Edition, too. Super Toy Cars 2 doesn&#8217;t exactly have novelty on its side, then. Unfortunately, it doesn&#8217;t have an awful [&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-114149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114149","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=114149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}