{"id":118860,"date":"2020-10-02T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/micro_pico_racers"},"modified":"2020-10-02T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T17:00:00","slug":"mini-review-micro-pico-racers-sadly-not-in-the-same-league-as-micro-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/10\/02\/mini-review-micro-pico-racers-sadly-not-in-the-same-league-as-micro-machines\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: Micro Pico Racers &#8211; Sadly Not In The Same League As Micro Machines"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/d622314951a28\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/d622314951a28\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/109108\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/109108\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Micro Pico Racers Review - Screenshot 1 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>At first glance, you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/micro_pico_racers\"><strong>Micro Pico Racers<\/strong><\/a> is the second coming of the classic racing franchise <strong>Micro Machines<\/strong>. Indeed, with its colourful pixelated design (and the blatant fact that it has the word <em>Micro<\/em> in the title), the game is a clear homage to Codemasters\u2019 series of arcade racers. Unfortunately, despite its tantalisingly low entry price, Micro Pico Racers is hard to recommend, with gameplay so barebones, the experience sadly falls on its micro behind.<\/p>\n<p>The bulk of the game sees you complete a variety of bite-sized tasks, taking you through a series of challenges from \u2018Novice\u2019 level right up to \u2018Master\u2019 level. On the surface, there\u2019s a decent amount of challenges here to be cracking on with, but when each one takes \u2013 at <em>most<\/em> \u2013 a minute or so to complete, it won\u2019t take long to get through all of them. Having said that, the difficulty spikes in the game are often ludicrous, and largely hinges on which vehicle you choose to drive. If you don\u2019t choose the <em>exact<\/em> specification needed for the challenge, chances are you\u2019ll fail and need to start over.<\/p>\n<p>To elaborate on this a bit, one of the challenges involves executing multiple drifts in order to fill up a bar to 100%, all within a short timeframe. The game is excruciatingly harsh on how you pull these off; stray just a touch over the edge of the road, and the game won\u2019t register it as a successful drift. You\u2019ll need to choose a vehicle that not only drifts around corners with ease, but also has a decent rate of acceleration in order to get to the next corner in the nick of time. It discourages experimentation, and you\u2019ll quickly start relying on the same vehicles depending on which challenge you partake in.<\/p>\n<p>Visually, Micro Pico Racers is <em>okay<\/em> at best, utilising a simplistic pixelated style with a birds-eye camera view by default. If this isn\u2019t your style, then the good news is you can switch the camera to an isometric view, or directly behind the vehicles. In addition, you can alter the zoom of the camera, so you can move this away if you want a better view of the track. Sadly, though, there\u2019s very little visual flair at work here; the tracks themselves are bland, and the surrounding environment is really no better. In a bizarre addition, spectators can also wander into the middle of the road, and if you happen to run into them, they\u2019ll turn into a spreading puddle of blood. It\u2019s a frankly baffling addition to a game that\u2019s otherwise quite suitable for all ages, so we\u2019re not sure what the thinking was behind this.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s an argument to be made here that the low entry price is perhaps reason enough for the experience you\u2019ll be getting with Micro Pico Racers. Ultimately, though, racing games need to be fun, and this <em>really<\/em> isn\u2019t that fun. It\u2019s a shame, because the game isn\u2019t broken in any way, and actually runs very well for the most part. But the gameplay just isn\u2019t up to scratch, and you\u2019ll be better off leaving this at the pit stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At first glance, you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking that Micro Pico Racers is the second coming of the classic racing franchise Micro Machines. Indeed, with its colourful pixelated design (and the blatant fact that it has the word Micro in the title), the game is a clear homage to Codemasters\u2019 series of arcade racers. Unfortunately, [&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-118860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118860","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=118860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}