Driift Mania Review

Years ago, when I was just a little video gamer, one of my favorite games was “Off-Road.” Maybe it was just because of the fact that you actually got to spin a wheel in the arcade version of the game, but it was one of the first things I ran for when my parents took me there. As such, I’ve always been fascinated with top-down single-screen driving games like “Off-Road” and “Super Sprint.” “Driift Mania” is another such version and, while it has some interesting features, on the whole it falls short.

The game can be played one of two ways, single player or multi-player, and, since the main focus of the game is multi-player (as evidenced by the much larger icon on the selection window), I figured I’d start with the single player version of the game. The single player format works much like that of “Mario Kart.” There are a number of courses, each with three tracks (aside from the “World” course, which lets you compete on every track). There are also a variety of car classes – small, medium, large, and special – each with advantages and disadvantages. And finally, there are a slew of items to unlock, by finishing first in races or, as the instructions say, by playing a certain number of games in the multi-player version.

The first thing you’ll notice, regardless of the car class, is the difficulty of control. The physics engine seems to vary from car to car and on most cars it seems like going into a tailspin on each turn is impossible not to do. The feel of the motion is somewhat comparable to “Super Sprint,” but at least in that game if you flew off the track you’d explode and be put back on the course. Here you have to get yourself righted, and by then you could easily be a lap behind. The majority of the computer-controlled opponents (you race against 7) have no such troubles unless you crash into them and send them off-course (which does seem to be a fun strategy). Another big, inexcusable, problem is that often your car can find itself stuck. These situations, which happened often enough, were never permanent. By holding down the buttons and pushing left and right I could eventually break free, but this often took minutes – which is inexcusable in a race game – especially one with such haphazard controls.

On top of this, the courses are designed to have a number of pitfalls to throw you off course – such as falling off part of the track that rises above another section, causing you to basically start the lap over. Since you are forced to drive through certain check points on each lap, and the computer generally avoids these pitfalls, falling into just one essentially takes you out of the running . While I like games that require you to be good at what you are doing to beat the computer AI, this game seems to require you to perform too perfectly. While on the first level I took first easily enough, after that I fell off tracks so many times that I almost gave up playing. What kept me going was when I somehow unlocked the first “special” car, which had the specialty of great control (at the cost of speed, which kept allowing me to only take second or third). I only unlocked that one special car, but I gather each one has a different special power (when I raced the computer, one was much faster than all the others, for example).

The tracks and the cars are simply rendered, and the sound effects are non-obtrusive which works for a game like this, though I would have enjoyed some more variety in the design of tracks. All of them seemed to have some nice “hard to reach” areas that look like shortcuts, but most of those shortcuts took you nowhere (especially since you had to cross the checkpoints and the shortcuts often took you past them). The few tracks that did have workable short cuts were refreshing, especially since I could use them to get back in the race after a misstep. The cars themselves look like plastic toy cars, which is fine, but some, especially front the large class of cars, have a front and a back which were indistinguishable. You couldn’t tell which way you were pointing unless you were moving.

On a side note, one thing this game is sorely missing from its previous counterparts is the “power-up items.” There is no way to improve your car or build up speed bursts (though at least there are tiles that give you short speed bursts on almost every track). One of the nice thing about these type of games has always been debating whether to go out of your way to pick up an item that can help you later, or trying to hit a turn as fast as possible.

Despite all these flaws, the game does have merit in the multi-player mode. For one thing, it boast simultaneous eight-player play. How? While in the single player game you must use the Wii controller (held sideways), in the multi-player game one player can use the controller while another can use the Nunchuck or classic controller attached to it. Thus, with four controllers and attachments, 8 players at a time is possible (though you’ll be sitting pretty close to the person you’re attached to and in a heated game I could see some tug-o-war going on). I tried playing with both the Wii remote and Nunchuck, and neither seemed to offer any advantage. Also, as far as controls go, in a multi-player game everyone will be in the same boat, which takes away the problem of making one mistake and losing. Luckily, even if you are playing with fewer than 8 people, you are given the option of whether or not to fill in the rest of the slots with computer-controlled players (or just leave them empty).

On top of this, there are a number of different modes in multi-player, most of which you have to unlock. There is the standard race, a team race, and even one called “cold-potato” that requires you to chase down an object rather than race. One of the more interesting ones, called V.I.P., plays a little like a roller derby. Each team of four has one player randomly selected who must complete the laps, while the other three players simply try to help him (or detain the opponent). All in all there are a number of different combinations that should keep a group of party goers interested for some time.

Overall though, “Driift Mania” is a frustrating game to play. It had a lot of potential, but all that potential is wiped away through the lack of items, tracks that aren’t terribly interesting, and a poor control scheme. The one area where it does shine is in allowing 8 people to play at once, but they are still going to face the above problems. For 800 Wii points, it’s not a bad purchase, but make sure you’re buying it with the multi-player game in mind, as the single player version won’t get very many plays.