Bang Bang Racing

Developer: Digital Reality
Publisher: Digital Reality

Bang Bang Racing is an arcade style racing game played from a top-down perspective. It is a port of Bang Bang Racing THD on Android and plays true to old style racing games such as Super Sprint and Championship Sprint; being easy to pick-up and play but difficult to master.

Gameplay
Bang Bang Racing is a gameplay driven game, which presents players with a few different modes across 3 game types. This game does not support online play - however it does have split-screen and leaderboard functionality. The core gameplay mechanic is driving, with a very fluid driving system and car classes which ease the player into controlling the fast apex cars. There are no power-ups or weapons (which are commonly found in most other arcade style racing games of this style); however there is nitrous oxide which learning to use efficiently can result in great lap-time improvements. There are also some obstacles scattered around tracks such as explosive barrels and oil spillages.

There is a Career mode which takes a tour of the game tracks and modes starting off with the slow N-Dura cars, which present the perfect opportunity to familiarise with the controls. The career mode then moves to faster car classes: Evo GT, Protech and finally Apex - all of which are very fast F1 style cars. The career mode is an enjoyable experience which provides a nice introduction to different game types such as elimination, time trial and standard race. It is also a perfect opportunity to adjust to handling the different car classes, increasing in top speed per class upgrade. Completion of career mode unlocks championship mode and each event that the player has obtained a gold medal in can then be attempted in a hard mode; this can pose a decent challenge.

Championship mode presents a tournament of racing events for each car class. The championships can be completed in split-screen with up to 4 players and adjustable AI difficulty. Unfortunately, this feels like a replay of career mode with less variation due to the championships being restricted to the standard race type only. The AI can often seem to be all over the place and are regularly found crashing into each other and corners.

Free Play mode grants many different options to customise the gaming experience - time trial being one of the most notable. Each track has a bronze, silver and gold par time for players to tackle. Some are relatively tight providing an adequate challenge even for advanced gamers. There certainly is no shortage of time trials. Six variants are available for each of the nine tracks, amounting to 54 trials. Each car class also has its own set of time trials giving a total of 216 for gamers wishing to push the limits and perfect every inch of the courses.

Graphics and style
The graphics are well presented in bold, bright colours with a shiny finish. The scenery has a cartoon style but with a realistic feel to it – like a large racing toy set. Before each race commences, the camera pans over the course displaying all the details (including track layout and shortcuts) with a key that informs the player with track length, number of laps etc.


Music
Bang Bang Racing is accompanied by upbeat tunes fitting for a game of this style. The music has a very short loop time making it repetitive. Hence, the music tends to become most unwelcome after a couple of hours spent in time trials; however the player could easily mute the game and listen to other music.

Longevity and replayability
The career mode should only take a few hours to complete with the additional four championships only adding another hour or two to gameplay. Time trials are where a lot of play time can be found as they are in abundance and can take several attempts to attain gold on a single trial. No online support greatly limits the replayability factor as once each challenge has been completed there is little incentive to repeat them.

Overall
The career mode provides a decent racing experience but is short-lived. There is little extra playtime to be found due to no online. Split-screen play may be enjoyed if players have three local friends to play with but there are better offerings on XBLA. The time trials may be very enjoyable (and slightly frustrating!), adding many hours to play time – such as shaving seconds off personal records towards the target of a gold medal - but I feel this content would only be extensively explored by players who thoroughly enjoy the game mechanics and don’t mind racing solely against the clock (better in my opinion as the AI don’t race well). Anyone who does put the effort in can find delight with the fluid control scheme, which is the main pleasure received by playing this title.

Rating: 5/10

Nice review mate, I like the look of it, reminds me of something I can remember playing in the arcade years ago, cant remember what but it was probably one you listed

Great review mate, I was umming and ahhing about this one but I'll probably give it a miss now!

Good work Slayer!

I like this kind of game usually. Super sprint and Championship Sprint were some of my fave arcade games back in the day. Doesn't sound like there's a great deal to this game though. Might get it when it's on offer some time.

What a shame this looks like it should be great fun. Nice honest review though

To be honest Colne Crusade if you thought a lot of Super Sprint and Championship Sprint it might be worth trying the trial for this as the driving aspect is similar and you can keep trying for better times just like the old arcade classics. Even if you liked the trial i'd wait for DotW though

For others though prob best to give it a miss as Tenlo says as there really isn't much to the game.

Good honest review.

I was quite shocked you scored it so low as your review reads quite well.

What's it like for the 200?

I try to be fair in my reviews and reinforce that the game really does have good driving mechanics and graphical, but the low score was due to not being much of a game present to back up the good features.

As for the gamerscore it's out of 400. 11/12 are very easy and can be gotten in around 5 hours. The 12th is for getting gold on all 216 time trials... I have done maybe about 30-40 and although some are straightforward there are some really tight ones that took me several tries. Not sure how hard they can get but it would certainly take a lot of patience and a bunch of hours to get through them all.

Slayer1189 wrote:To be honest Colne Crusade if you thought a lot of Super Sprint and Championship Sprint it might be worth trying the trial for this as the driving aspect is similar and you can keep trying for better times just like the old arcade classics. Even if you liked the trial i'd wait for DotW though

For others though prob best to give it a miss as Tenlo says as there really isn't much to the game.

Good advice dude! Cheers! I would probably buy it at full price but for there being so many other games i'd like first! :-/

mmmmmmmmmm 400 points, nice!

That is a chuffing lot of time trials though!