NASCAR: Arcade Rush – Review

Head to the starting line and rev up your engines, we’re off to a flying start with NASCAR Arcade Rush and it’s time to dive in to the new arcade racer from GameMill entertainment to see if this high-action twist on the American past-time of driving round in circles, makes for an entertaining arcade game for 2023.

NASCAR: Arcade Rush throws us into reimagined NASCAR tracks from the American circuit, with well-known tracks like Daytona, Talladega, Darlington and Kansas, rather than the often-seen norm of oval tracks, each course in Arcade Rush has been upgraded with plenty of twists, turns and boost pads, to ensure a high-speed, all-action race to the finish line.

Heading into the game you’ll get the choice between playing solo or multiplayer, when playing with friends there’s 2-player split screen, or you can head online with up to 12 cars taking to the track.
Playing alone, you’ll have the choice of a quick race, a cup series or time attack, but the meat of the gameplay lies in the 4-race series, where you’ll work to top the leaderboard to gain enough points to unlock the next of 12 series with plenty of other rewards unlocking on your high-speed journey.

On top of the additional twists and turns NASCAR purists won’t be used to seeing, each course is scattered with various boost pads, Blue (and sometimes pink) boosts, will give you a quick burst of speed while passing over them and yellow boost pads partially refill your nitro meter. While speeding around each circuit you can hold the A button to use your nitro for a considerable speed boost, otherwise controls are really straight forward.

After the first few series, you’ll start to encounter tracks with a few jumps and bumps along the road, a quick tap of the boost will ensure you get over even the toughest of jumps, and the bumpy hills won’t really affect your race too much, with the same relevant about any rival cars clipping into you, the worst you’ll see is a shake of the screen, but you’ll rarely find yourself clipping a wall unless you overshoot your turns.

Throughout each race you’ll get other cars clipping you, and eventually getting marked as rival, but there’s little effect on the overall gameplay except for a little extra XP at the end of each race. This all adds up to unlock rewards from new cars, driver styles and spoilers as well as a few less interesting additions such as font styles and the disappointing “emotes” which are only going to be sued sparingly by a few online players, but sadly made up a large majority of the 100 unlocks.

Back to the racing and there’s a few cracks you’ll soon start to notice thanks to strong rubber-banding.
I completely agree with keeping arcade racers close-fought, but when you can have a perfect lap, hitting nearly every boost pad available, seeing the rival racers right on your rear bumper feels a little unbalanced.
Likewise, the nitro boost is so significant, even using only half of the boost, within a few corners you can move from the back of the pack to way out in front, this means you can sit with the pack until half-way through the final lap and then use the boost to get a near guaranteed victory every single time.
It’s a tactics that’s so easy to utilise and when it’s as effective as it is, it’s nearly impossible to ignore, common sense tells you to keep a little boost spare in case you clip a corner, but even on the toughest courses full of twists, turns and jumps, I never found myself short of boost, meaning there was always enough to ensure a high-placed finish.
It’s not quite as straight forward on the tougher difficulty, but experienced players aren’t going to struggle to get a result, which makes the game feel a little too repetitive in the long run.

While the overall gameplay feels a little shallow, it all looks great and moves along at a blistering pace, there’s sections on long straights between boosts, where it feels a little mundane, but ultimately, you’ll be swerving between boosts to keep the speed high and with a strong motion blur, there’s almost an F-Zero or Wipeout feeling of speed, but when those quiet patches come into play, it breaks the immersion of speed and when you check your rear-view only to see rival racers right behind you it feels a little superficial.
A stable frame-rate keeps the action feeling smooth even at the greatest speeds, and there’s plenty of trackside detail and saturated colours to keep your eyes busy, the game certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s hard to deny it looks very good and maintains that feeling of speed, even if only in sections.

Audio is a pretty storng point, with enough background audio to keep your ears a little more involved and while I feel some cheesy loud commentary from a stereotypically strong American accent would have helped give the game a little more personality, but there’s enough going on to keep those ears entertained.

Finally there’s a question mark over value, listed at £31.99 it still feels steep for what is essentially a quick arcade game for many, younger or less experienced gamers might find more than a few days enjoyment from it, but there’s so many high-quality racing games not just around the same price-point, but considerably cheaper.
Overall NASCAR: Arcade Rush is a fun arcade racer but it struggles with enough depth for more experienced players, to warrant the price of entry.

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