Table Top Racing is a game that garnered plenty of success on the mobile platform with well over five million downloads on the Google Play Store. Based on this, Playrise Digital, developers of the zany little racing combat game, decided to bump the title up into the console world with Table Top Racing: World Tour.
It’s not very often you see a developer make an move like this as the console world is far harder to break into, so we were very interested to see how this relatively small developer would go about it. Table Top Racing: World Tour was released on PS4 and PC early last year, but now that it’s available across all three major platforms, it’s worth giving it a look.
As soon as you’re introduced to the opening menu, you notice that this game makes use of the same bones of the mobile version. The menu is simple and easy to navigate and you’ll find yourself racing without having to wait for any tiresome tutorials or extended loading times.
Game modes, however, are limited as you only have the choice of competing in the championship, which consists of various modes such as combat racing, drifting and time trials. Special events are similar to this but make use of sharper opponents and more restrictive rules. An oversight with this game is the lack of a free mode, which would have given players an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the tracks before entering the campaign.
Regardless, the gameplay is straightforward and quite fluid. The controls are easy to use and very responsive, making the cars easy to manoeuvre and battle with. It doesn’t take a long time to get use to the dynamics of each vehicle. That said, the selection of vehicles is quite limited, with there being only 16 to choose from (five from each class of difficulty). The vehicle designs are humorous and draw plenty of references from pop culture, (including the likes of Breaking Bad and Initial D).
Despite claiming to have different characteristics, these vehicles are rather similar to one another. The level of customisation isn’t what we would call conclusive, but it is welcome and adds a bit of flavour to the selection. The wheels also lend extra abilities to the cars, something that was evident in the mobile game as well. They are expensive but require only a single purchase for them to be used on all vehicles, which is an interesting approach.
The track selection, on the other hand, is quite restricted, as only a handful of tracks is made available. Although they do have different configurations, it’s not enough to create a sense of proper variety. These tracks, while visually appealing, are not the best designed as some bends are just too tight for the cars to smoothly corner through. Certain jumps are also placed right before corners, which means that if you don’t brake before an incline, you’ll find yourself smashing into a wall.
The gameplay can be entertaining, especially in the combat race mode, but it can convey a sense of repetitiveness, which means that you’ll most likely find yourself playing for a few minutes before switching over to another game; something that is, of course, quite common in mobile gaming.
Table Top Racing: World Tour‘s strength lies in its multiplayer mode since it is a fun game to play with friends. But further than that, there isn’t much to expect from it, which isn’t really critical when you consider that it costs only R149. Based on this price, it’s hard to give Playrise Digital a hard time for any of these criticisms.
Gameplay is fluid, it’s graphically appealing and the soundtrack works well with the playful theme. Considering that this is coming from a developer more accustomed to the mobile world, Table Top Racing: World Tour is a rather impressive product. In the greater scheme of things, however, it will likely not see the success it has on mobile.
But again, this is not a game that takes itself too seriously. If what you’re looking for is a way to entertain yourself for a little while, Table Top Raicng: World Tour delivers. Anything beyond that is not what it’s designed to do. Not only a common case with mobile games, but with combat racing in general.
