Obliteracers is a quirky, cute and very colourful top-down racer from developers Varkian Empire. I’m going to get it out the way and compare it to Mario Kart then I promise I won’t do it again. It’s definitely no Mario Kart, phew now lets get on with the review.

Obliteracers is an intergalactic racer that offers up to 16 on-screen players battling it out to be the last one standing. On the track lies a selection of weapons from oil slicks to rockets that can be used to slow you enemies or completely take them out of the race. Not only are the weapons a threat but if you fall behind the pack and screen camera catches up with you you’re also out of the race.

Your kart is equipped with a shield that you can use anytime, it comes in handy especially as it’s quite easy to miss the powerups. The difference between this and Mario… Sorry!!…any other kart racer is you’re not battling to get a place on the podium, it’s purely last racer standing. The main focus of Obliteraces is clearly the multiplayer aspect, however, if you want to play by yourself then there are a selection of campaign races for you to participate in. The single player section is not difficult but there are some tweaks thrown in just to mess with you a bit.

06

With so many players on the screen things can get quite hectic and if you’re not watching properly then it’s easy to slip off the track into oblivion. The locations vary form track to track, there are beaches, ships and even sky tracks to race, however, the location does not have an affect on the race. It would have been nice to have various things happening dependant on the location but there’s nothing of the sort, unfortunately. That being said, in it’s defence each level is very colourful and has amazing visual design.

15

Available modes are a little disappointing, two of which are practically identical. Survival mode is exactly that, while Endurance mode and Knockout mode requires you to earn points to win. However, Endurance allows knocked out opponents to re-spawn immediately. The modes offer nothing new in terms of gameplay or challenges, that is except for Leader mode. This is more about you against the pack, and offers a bit more of a challenge as they all focus their fire on you. The only way to win this is to make best use of the drift and boost feature to stay well ahead. It’s worth remembering there are no laps in Obliteracers it’s always points or last racer standing.

14

Obliteracers is a fun and at times hectic multiplayer experience. The singleplayer does not add much to the game and certainly doesn’t offer any sort of long-term reason to go back to it. With friends Obliteracers excels, there is no denying that, it’s just a shame more of it’s mechanics weren’t put to better use to cater for the singleplayer offline. Overall Obliteracers is worth a pop, keep it in your library for those impromptu sessions with the kids or friends. The camera is fixed which sometimes make locating your racer difficult, they did include a handy little feature though that when you wiggle the left stick it highlights exactly where your player is.

Thanks to Xbox and Varkian Empire for supporting TiX