Reviews

• 

  A Bald TroLL

  Jun 8, 2018

  As of this moment the game is basically a solo play game only. The online multiplayer is broken and you cannot actually see other players servers to connect. Needs a few more tweeks but its your basic old school Mario Kart.
• 

  IrishGrundle

  Jun 8, 2018

  Needs work. clipping needs work on 3D objects, game stops detecting what place you are in if you pause the race, and the items you pick up, which are supposed to be the heart of a kart racer, don't work properly on a gamepad. The game detects pause and item use on the same button, even after configs were changed. I cannot recommend this game....yet. The devs claim their inspiration comes from CTR(Crash Team Racing) my personal favorite racer, yet it's missing so many things. -The funky music The Flashy animations(Like at the end of a race in CTR, the music explodes in brass instrument fest as confetti rains down on the track and your character does some AI controlled victory laps. Here you just roll to a stop....) --The enemy AI are HARD. Not impossible, but damn. Not to mention after the first lap you never see them.... --The line at the top showing where the other drivers are just kind of glitches out and stops working. --lastly if you pause the race and try to continue, it fails to read our position or if you complete a lap. As I said before, I don't recommend this game....YET. That is because I have faith in the DEVs to fix these issues. last gripe... more than 6 tracks please :]
• 

  bozey

  Jun 8, 2018

  Tried it for a solid 25 minutes. Literally unplayable. Countless of bugs and SO not ready to be released. Given the devs postponed the game countless of times as well you should expect at least a game where the menu navigating and singleplayer should work properly. This is not the case. I do not recommend anyone buying this game.
• 

  qFiend

  Jun 8, 2018

  I had extremely high hopes for this. Seeing this game made me feel somewhat nostalgic since its based off Crash Team Racing I thoroughly enjoyed. The developer team is new and to my assumption haven't been in the game developing scene for that long which is very apparent. There was a release date announced quite a long time ago and has been postponed several times and had a beta as well to ensure we got a quality game without bugs, however, upon launching the game it was clear the developers were not ready. It is bug-riddled and unplayable and I'd suggest you wait out your purchase until the game actually works.
• 

  Da_Coda

  Jun 8, 2018

  I would love to give this game a proper rating and review as I have been waiting for it about as long as they have been public with the idea of a CTR inspired cart racer. However, as is, I am literally unable to play. I am unable to get any of my gamepads(Xbox, Generic USB, Dualshock 4) to work with this game properly, and even the keyboard does not function. For some reason, Pushing left on the menu does not do anything. This leaves no way to be able to select any of the options I want to if I happen to go to the right of them other than to quit the game and not pass by it next time. I am also confused, as it seems like all the option tabs other than controls are unavailable to use as I have not been able to successfully get into them. This problem changes when you enter a race however. Instead of not being able to press left, the cart is perpetually steering left and I am not able to get it to do otherwise. I'm sure that these issues are of my fault and not the devs, so if anyone has a fix for these issues, please let me know. I have been dying to play this game for so long. As of now, I am refunding until the game is actually ready for release and the glaring issues that everyone else has pointed out are fixed.
• 

  HOLYONE

  Jun 8, 2018

  ALL BONES AND NO MEAT
• 

  walk into the lane purse first

  Jun 8, 2018

  This game is pretty bad. The driving itself feels like CTR and the level design and music are ok. But the actual gameplay is terrible. Racing against the computer is no different than a time trial, they dissapear and you see other racers for maybe 5-10% of the course. In the 5 or so races I went through I only ever got 2 different power-ups, the toxic jar and the speed boost, that's it - and I must have picked up 50+ power-ups over that time (in positions from 2nd - last). There are no satisfying sounds or feebacks when you hit something, and when you finish the race your position isn't even shown, just your time. If someone take the power up box in front of you it doesn't vanish so everyone can grab the same box. The pause menu is a disaster as noted by others as is the main menu. In the main menu, in the adventure mode there are things that appear unlocked but you can't click them. This game was enjoyable for about 30 seconds in the same way street view on Google Maps is enjoyable, you can look around and see some neat stuff but that's it. Definitely don't waste your time or money on this game. I can't believe this is what was released after all those delays...
• 

  Mocha

  Jun 8, 2018

  Check out my video for all my thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkV7FpKandQ I followed this game since June 2015 and I was very excited. Being in alpha and beta the games progress looked very promising, but then everything changed when the fire nation attacked....lol PROS: ♦Track design is beautiful (Some tracks feel the same) ♦Characters are creative ♦Karts feel good (sometimes) ♦Music has a CTR feel CONS: ♦Online is broken ♦Maps have way too many glitches ♦Only two weapons work ♦The button for weapons is the same button to pause the game ♦Options is greyed out so you can't change any settings ♦Controller re map gets reset once game is closed ♦When items are used you get no response someone ran into them ♦AI act like dumb asses and you never actually feel like you are going against anyone ♦Game hasn't changed much since beta (6 months ago) ♦Weapon drops stay on map even during next race ♦Positions aren't always accurate THE KARTERS WAS RUSHED!! -Mocha
• 

  asтer

  Jun 8, 2018

  Unfortunately, if you are looking for a Crash Team Racing spiritual successor, you won't find it here. As a long time fan of the game, the controls feel extremely weird. Drifting is not as tight as in CTR and sometimes it seems like you don't have enough control of where you want your character to move. Collisions with objects and obstacles are not polished, definitely something you would expect for a released game. Also, items appear to not have been programmed correctly. Addressing some of the issues regarding this game's launch, online functionality is broken. You can't participate in online races and can't invite friends to your room. There are not enough options for controls or graphics customization. Tracks feel unfinished, sometimes the game can't even keep you on track and going out of bounds is not that hard to do. Finally, I would like to talk about the developers. They have a Discord server but they don't pay attention to anything going on there. Very unresponsive, like they ignore everything that's going on. Fans of the game are really dissappointed, and the lack of communication or an official statement by the team regarding the game's flaws and when we can expect a fix really makes me wonder about the future of this game. Only 6 characters with no different functionalities and 6 tracks. You will need to pay for DLC to expand the limited content they have for the game right now. What you get for what you pay is not enough in my opinion. The developers seem pretty incompetent and don't have an idea of how to manage a community or even manage their own game. They shouldn't have made constant promises about a finished product and should have taken their time to ensure the game was ready to be released to the public. Charging users to play this game and even calling it a complete version is a scam. If the developers were transparent they could have talked more about the problems the game had and they could have avoided all the criticisim. I can't really trust people like them to really manage a game worth my money, especially when games like this one are supposed to keep the player hooked for years to come.
• 

  StickySheets

  Jun 8, 2018

  Can't tell if the AI is impossible to defeat because the buttons aren't working correctly (drift boost worked about 2/50 times in 3 races) or if this one of those games where you have to have the map memorized and hit every corner exactly right (like F1 race stars or TrackMania) either way though, this game doesn't feel like a kart racing game to me (like Mario Kart, Sonic Racing, or Diddky kong racing). I never played CTR so maybe i'm not the person they were trying to market this game to, but already the gameplay is not what I expected. I'm not really excited for the future of this game either because it seems like its what they intended at this point.. Beyond the actual gameplay teh controls are terrible. When you put in your custom controls you have to change it every game because it wont save. Every time you beat a race you can't continue. You must return to main menu, and select anotehr race again, even though there is a "resume" button at the end of a race that does literally nothing. I don't think the game is unplayable, I just think its a giant turd at this point. The game feels rushed, which is a major disapointment after waiting so long and having multiple delays. Its funny that the devs made it sound like it was steams fault for the delay when in reality it seems like they never got their shit together. Even if they fix the bugs, i'm not sure this a game you'll enjoy if you're looking for an alternative to Mario Kart or Sonic Racing like I was. Its a massive bummer that the more casual friendly games don't implement split-screen online play. Thats the only reason I bought this game, and since multiplayer isn't working now, and the game seems less casual i'm really bummed about the future of arcade racing games.
• 

  The General

  Jun 8, 2018

  I hope the developers are reading these comments and realise that releasing this game in this unfinished state is causing players to ask for refunds (I can't speak for anyone else but I certainly did). While this is a good béta this product isn't finished at all and 10Ants Hill, you know it! Clearly their heart is in the right place during development because the basics are really good. The level design is good, the racing is good and very similar to CTR (although the driftboosting feels awkward to me), the graphics on par with what they need to be and the style of the tracks and characters really give a CTR vibe. So all the elements are there. Now on to the bad. How could I possibly recommend a game that doesn't even have fully functional menu's? For instance, after completing a track in the adventure mode, I can't click "resume" because nothing happens when I do. You have to go back to the main menu and start the next challenge. The same goes for the settings menu, I can't go from audio directly to the control settings even though the button is there. Go back to the main menu and open settings again. That could be forgiven, but the settings you change aren't even saved! I wanted to change the controls and I like that the option is there, but it never saves. So the only way to do it right now is to start a race, press pause and change it there. You have to do this every single time. Okay, so after navigating the settings menu, I want to start racing. So I start racing and it plays decent enough, but I notice not one of the AI opponents is shooting at me or laying traps! Then after a few more rounds I notice that the only two power-ups that I get or the toxic jar and a booster. Their seem to be more power-ups but I never get them. Do I need to unlock them? That would be a terrible decision in a party game like this! I can imagine a lot of players don't even want to play single player adventure mode and just want to start enjoying the game with friends. But you can't really do that with just these two power-ups. These are all things that you might overcome if you're a real fan. You can work around the unfinished menu and settings and you can just unlock everything in the game by completing the adventure mode (I think, the game doesn't say). If I put in this effort, would it not be a good karting game to play with friends? Frankly: no. Because even when you work around all that there's still the fact that there are a lot of minor bugs and design decisions that need to be ironed out. The collision detection for example has been improved but there are still to many objects that you just drive through in stead of bumping into them. And even when you do bump into something, the effect it has is still not what it needs to be. At one point there's a big fan you have to drive through. If you don't time correctly you might bump into one of the blades. But, when you keep giving gas and the blade goes into the ground your momentum doesn't stop. Normally when you bump into something there should be an impact and a moments hesitation because your cart would stand completely still, but that's not what happens here. Then there's the fact that the speed doesn't feel exactly right just yet. CTR wasn't the fastest paced racer around and The Karters isn't either, but in CTR you could get a lot of momentum out of hitting all the booster pads around the track. The Karters tries to do the same thing but doesn't get the flow exactly right, the cart loses speed a bit too soon before getting to the next booster and sometimes there are no boosters for a longer period. Maybe I just need to get used to it but it feels a bit off to me. That's definitely not the biggest problem this game has though it worth mentioning. I believe rumble functionality (as I believe most of us would play it with a controller, definitely when playing split screen) could add a lot to the feel of speed and bumps you take from power-ups and such. Speaking of bumps, there are no animations for hitting a toxic jar (the only power-up besides the booster I could test). In CTR your car would bump upside down or there would be a rainy cloud above you, in other cart games there are other animations. These animations are a big part of why kart-racers are so much fun to play! In the Karters though, when you hit a toxic jar, the car just stops for a second. That's it! Let's be positive though and assume the developers iron all of that out. You would get a pretty fine karting game, I believe. But even then this game would need more tracks, more power-ups and more characters to stay relevant for a long time. I don't see that happening at this price but DLC would be a very good way to add more. At this point, the game is in what feels like a 0.8 or 0.9 version at best and I can't recommend this to anyone, no matter how big your love is for Crash Team Racing or other similar games. No matter how much you're yearning for a decent cart racer on PC (I feel your pain, I really do). But I do beg the developers no to give up. You've come so far and the basics really are here. There's a skeleton of a really good cart racer here.
• 

  Tom

  Jun 8, 2018

  It's bad, like really bad. The core mechanics are there, it tries to emulate CTR's gameplay, but it fails miserably. It's incredible buggy and flawed by design, bugged/non existant collisions, bugged pause menu and controlls, sliding on place works, no start boosts, etc. Only 6 tracks, switching between jungle/beach/desert motif, so it's all very samey, they are very large and quite boring, tracks are large and the karts are small so there's a lot of unnecessary space. All in all, I don't recommend it, and it's very unlikely to improve.
• 

  Withywarlock

  Jun 8, 2018

  **Contrary to the "Early Access Review" tag, this review was written on the day of its "proper" release before it went BACK into Early Access. It has likely been tagged as that because I have made some edits such as this one. I will continue to update it as the game's development goes on.** Never have I had to write a review about a more painfully disappointing game. The Karters, on paper and in beta, is a solid idea - it takes inspiration from one of the karting kings, and puts it on Steam. What should have been a simple translation from the Playstation One to 2018 has been disastrous, despite my strong faith in the Closed Beta phases. However, its storied development history is the cause of much cynicism; the game has been delayed numerous times, opting out of the Early Access programme to instead deliver two limited Closed Betas. When it eventually dribbled onto Steam to its jaded yet excited playerbase, the game has been dogpiled for its evident bugs, some being in the game as early as the first Closed Beta. Upon starting the game, you're greeted with the same UI as in the beta, only without a working Options menu. Should you get into it, adjusting the controls is inconsistently functional. Sometimes mapping controls works, and sometimes they reset the moment you leave the menu. The Adventure Mode allows you to play as any character within the game, with an "upgrade" at certain milestones in the campaign. One good thing I can say about this is that the Adventure Mode progress is not shared amongst characters, increasing what little replay value you might find. It's also an attempt to stay loyal to Crash Team Racing's influence, which in all aspects it does very well. But it is a video game in its own right, and with that come certain other expectations. From what little I've seen of the powerups (that have been removed in order to be fixed), there's approximately eight but I only have two; Boosters, which are self explanatory, and the Toxic Jar akin to CTR's test tube voodoo placed powerup. I've not seen the effects of the jar because the AI doesn't drive into it. It's quite clever, and tricky, but often will it bug out by simply driving into walls and being unable to reverse out of them, or find itself stuck in a surface. [The AI & Trophy mode have been removed in order to be fixed] Two other modes exist within the Adventure mode besides standard races; time attack and letter mode, the latter once again being similar to CTR's CTR mode. No, that's not a typo. Again, very well done in terms of its loyalty to Crash, but as a video game on its own merits it has its flaws with hit detection when touching crates for items and letters. The controls are just as smooth as they once were, though without boosting the karts are incredibly slow. Given how they are go-karts, that's to be expected, and it encourages what Crash Team Racing once did - there's just no way you're going to win if you're a powerslide pariah. Besides the animations, there's no impact felt from falling or making a jump, which could be greatly improved with the simple enabling of vibration or a slider for it. The Steam controller would be ideal if such a thing is to be implemented. Alas, many more things need to be implemented and I'm not sure if they ever will be. Tracks for one thing - while they are OK, they rely on competitive players with powerups galore to keep them exciting. The Karters and Meow Motors could do with swapping out their powerup frequency, then you'd have a pretty wild ride in both games. Visually, the game looks OK if I'm being generous with the excuse of "it's an indie game", ignoring the myriad of wonderful, beautiful kart racers that exist (All-Star Fruit Racing, Bears can't Drift?!, Toybox Turbos, I could go on....), but it hardly stands out amongst the others. Truly, its biggest selling point and the best thing it does is the CTR stuff, but brought down by the rocky foundations it's built upon. The sound design is the only unique thing I can comment on positively, as the soundtrack is upbeat and joyous, the karts grumbling and roaring is beautiful and other miscellaneous sound effects are pretty nice all 'round. I cannot recommend this game, not even to die-hard Crash Team Racing fans. It's not that it's a bad kart racer; like Garfield Kart it's one of the best on Steam, but like GK it's a bad product. There's bugs galore from pause menus not working to progress being wrongly calculated, from being unable to find matches to being unable to find resolution settings. I can't fault the devs if they give up on this given the feedback, but if they want to soldier on, it's going to be an up-hill battle all the way. Then again, their company logo seems to suggest they're prepared. I certainly hope so. Perhaps it would've been better if Nitrous Oxide turned the whole planet into a concrete parking lot after all. Need a second opinion from me? Check out the ("FINAL" RELEASE) video below! https://youtu.be/6AFCKGq3Koo
• 

  isaach77

  Jun 9, 2018

  Having grown up with CTR from childhood when I first saw this on Greenlight (When it was still avaliable) it looked amazing. I eventually got in contact with the developers after and joining the discord 2 years after only finding out about it. I was instantly met with a nice Kart racing community that got me into sppedrunning one of my most well cherished games. Unfortunatly the events that unfolded with in the last year with the Alpha, Beta, and the Release of this game coming out with in the span of less than a year, the postponning, and the constant silence from the developers its saddened me to see a full game at $25 NZD being sold with it full of bugs and glitches. After 2 - 3 years and that's it?! Not to say that there were no good things. The characters looked original, the mechanics felt right in my opinion, the tracks are great to play on with the senery looking amazing and the music is great to listen to. But having 3 years of development with it still feeling like Beta and even Alpha states at times. It feeling more than dissapointing. And thats just the beginning. The tracks still felt glitchy and the A.I felt eaither to easy or gets glitched into the track itself... the activitys for single player felt...bland if not scarce at best. I want to keep supporting the developers but until the game is accepted by the Kart Racer community I can't buy this. I can only hope that in the coming months that actions will speak louder than words....
• 

  ColourShift

  Jun 9, 2018

  Oh boy... where do I begin? I really don't want to have an entire "notes" of what is wrong with this game as it would be more than 2,000words. After having this game in my wishlist and following The Karters for YEARS (since around 2015), this game is an utter disapointment. Years of beta testing and they didn't fix jack S****. Lazy devs. They could've released this game as an "early access" game instead of a full-on release. Full game released indicate that it's a polished game, and this is far from it. As I said before, I don't wish to list all the problems, as it would be non-stop. I really wanted to keep this game, but I just can't. Maybe after a couple of months later, I'll give it another ago. I was really hoping this would've been a great successor to CTR. I was wrong. Hopefully I don't stay wrong forever.
• 

  BebaardeBrouwer

  Jun 9, 2018

  This game is a bit in a pre-alpha state. This shouldn't be sold as a release version. Don't buy this game. Wait to see if and how it develops, then maybe reconsider buying.
• 

  RickySpanish1Flynn

  Jun 10, 2018

  Fully broken in everyway. I mean, fire and pause are the same button...wtf is that? Gameplay aside, even the menus are trash - you can't even START adventure mode with one of the characters because.. reasons? This is a total dumpster fire. Avoid.
• 

  ShayK47

  Jun 11, 2018

  Coming from an avid CTR fan, this game is bang on controls wise and has that CTR feel. So Kudos for that. The Bad - The Adventure Mode: isn't an Adventure. Its literally a menu and when you win, there's no podium. You have to go back to the Main Menu and have to go into "Adventure" mode all over again. Why can't you make a free roam world like CTR and just copy that style? - Multiplayer: is quiet because there is such a small player base. It works, but again, you win a race and what? No podium, no progression points, unlockables..etc - Collision Detection: I find is not great. I can drive through pillars in the middle of the track without getting punished for it - Power Ups: There are only 2 that work, green bottles and boost The Good - The Graphics are beautiful and the tracks are nice - Controls are exactly like CTR. The Turbo Turns are the same, I love that part Overall it did take me back to my CTR days controls wise, but I have no reason to play after an hour. No progression, No Adventure to continue. Just Menus and then races. This game is not a finished game and not worth the price tag. I am praying that this game does recover and that the Devs rethink their design. Forget about Multiplayer until you have a progression system online and an Adventure Mode fully functioning which takes a few hours to complete. Add in some bosses, fix the collision detection and get the damn power ups working! I will buy the game again once its developed a bit more.
• 

  MatthewRoy

  Jun 13, 2018

  Let's be honest, this game's potential is linked to its ability to be a "CTR clone" on PC the game succeeds in doing that. Replicating CTR drift/boost mechanic in a good way which makes racing lap after lap exciting right now it falls short (to say the least) in many areas (bug, collisions, multiplayer). But given the latest news of it entering EA and continuing to be developed I'm willing to give faith to the developer. TL;DR It has many bugs, but the main core/vision of the game is what I would expect from a CTR game in this generation. So at least they got the most important thing right, let's see what happens in future updates
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  Biliwia

  Jun 21, 2018

  So... I paid... played, but noe i can't play anymore and can't find a way to do so in the bullshit early access