Kids these days… they have all these great shows I would’ve loved when I was young. Blaze and the Monster Machines is one of those. The show features talking monster trucks and their adventures in Axle City. The Nickelodeon show features adventures introducing STEM concepts in a fun and entertaining way. As a science teacher myself – when I’m not reviewing awesome games – I fully endorse teaching them young. Based on the series, Outright Games just released Blaze and the Monster Machines: Axle City Racers on about every platform out there.
Axle City Drift
With a name like Axle City Racers, it’s pretty obvious the game is all about racing. All the material needed for a racer is already in the series with many monster trucks to choose from. Blaze, Stripes, Starla, Darington, Zeg, and newly added character Watts are all available to race with. Crusher and Pickle who acts as the show’s antagonists are also featured. Blaze’s human mechanic Gabby has an appearance during the races you control as Blaze. The Axle City setting from the show is used as the backdrop for the different tracks. Axle City doesn’t feature all that many different settings. This becomes apparent if you start to take a closer look at the different tracks. The tracks start looking similar with some parts of the tracks even being re-used. The familiarity of the show shines through but the lack of different settings hinders the excitement.
Luckily, the racing does add to the excitement. The monster trucks all look like their counterpart from the show. The racing itself is made in a way everybody can jump right in and be competitive without having to endure a hefty learning curve. Just pressing the full throttle and steering moderately well the whole race is a valuable tactic to perform reasonably OK. On the other hand, If you want to excel you’ll need to use the speed pads laid out across the track to stay in front of the race. Another valuable skill to master is drifting. Drifting by itself makes you cut corners but slows you down a bit. When performed in one fluent line you’ll get a speed boost coming out of the drift. Looking ahead on the track and finding the ideal line to drift into will make the difference between getting gold or having to settle for less.
Axle Kart
Axle City Racers is a fun racer for younger gamers. Easy to pick up and reasonably challenging if you want to win. The frustration level based on how the racing handles is very low and thus kids-friendly. The Auto Drive feature can be turned on to help out even the youngest of gamers still struggling to make it an ideal beginner racer for the young ones. Without a doubt, young kids will be having fun from start to finish. To further excite them, they can collect wrenches across the tracks. Collecting ten of them allows them to perform their character’s special move. Most of these are speed boosts but some feature things to annoy your other racers with. Darington for example has a confetti cannon going off when using the special move. This blocks the view of any car behind. Other characters can leave stuff on the ground much like the banana in MarioKart slowing down cars who drive through. These special moves aren’t as fancy as MarioKart’s but add a little bit more to the game.
Axle Stall
With single race, race with friends, and adventure mode, it looks like you’ll have plenty to do. Sadly Axle City Racers only features 10 tracks. 10 tracks as mentioned before that look pretty similar and even re-use certain parts. I, an adult with a lot of gaming experience who obviously isn’t the audience for this game, got through all of the game in about 40 minutes on the hardest setting. The game performed as it should. I’m all about quality over quantity but Axle City Racers is really lacking content in my opinion. After getting through the adventure and winning the cup I was hoping something new would unlock but sadly that was all. Going through some quick races could unlock some STEM advice in Stempedia but I was pretty much done with the game. The 4-player split-screen local multiplayer feature offers a little redemption but still I would’ve liked some more content.
Conclusion
Outright Games made a kids-friendly racer. The game will have kids racing without much frustration and will surely offer great fun. The lack of content is a bit of a deal-breaker for me.
