Nitro City Racing is a simple yet effective driving experience. Think Scalextric or NASCAR, only the circuit is a straight road. If you want a video game comparison, then it’s Moto Rush Reborn during the day, or Cyber Rider without the ass: you start at point A, and drive to point B in a straight line, avoiding traffic – both from behind and incoming.
Driving in straight lines is incredibly boring, unless it’s drag racing – which this ain’t. How on Earth are Eastasiasoft going to make this appealing if there isn’t a single babe to drape over your bonnet in a bikini? Here’s one idea: Set simple objectives, and ensure each of the 50+ stages are self-contained setpieces that are challenging and entertaining.
Nitro City Racing begins with a tease of the possible cars you can use and customisation options, but emphasis on ‘tease’ as you have zero cash to buy anything, including a paint job. So, you can go for a free roam or separate challenges, but let’s stay focused on the career, as that’s predominantly where you’ll be playing.
From a choice of three perspectives: dashboard, bonnet and third-person views, you essentially have to get to the finish line without crashing. Doing the same thing again and again does get boring, so to change that up, you will be maintaining a top speed for X seconds, driving close to other vehicles for a near miss and changing these in succession for a combo, driving on the opposite side of the road, or simply going a set distance.
While the locations in Nitro City Racing do change, the gameplay remains the same. Strangely, there is an incentive to play, and I’m not talking about trophies, but for the sheer challenge. You can get pretty far with the standard car, but eventually you’ll need to maintain higher speeds, which is only achieved through new cars and upgrading the engines. Some stages are locked unless you have this requirement.
For the majority of the challenges, you can be sneaky and drive a slow car to avoid traffic, though when it comes to speed, there’s no way around it other than to upgrade and pick something faster. Upgrades include top speed, acceleration, brakes and nitro. For a while, I never used the brakes and seldom slowed down due to the theme of speed. Also, you can flash your lights, and cars will mostly move out of the way, or you can slow down time to weave in and out.
However… as is the nature of the humble NPC, some cars will change lanes. You won’t see their indicators until you crash, so there’s lots of arse-clenching. Eventually, in stages where you have to accumulate a set amount of points, you need to mix it up with high speed, close calls and distance. The only way to do this is through strategising a mixture of braking, swerving, flashing (ooer!) and luck. If those sorts of games appeal to you through their simplistic, but addictive gameplay, then Nitro City Racing is one to consider. There’s a wealth of cars, but while some have better stats than others, it’s mostly cosmetic, and there isn’t a need to purchase everything. Nevertheless, an entertaining game of chicken that doesn’t break the bank, nor is it over in one immediate sitting.
