I was appalled by intro for Curved Kart racer, a new kart racing game that combines many popular cartoon shows. But like a horrible car wreck, I can’t take my eyes off the waking nightmare of Peter Griffin and Hank Hill racing in a Mario Kart clonal line. It was cursed. However, now that I’ve actually played it, I’m even more horrified to tell you all that it’s actually pretty good.
Released earlier this month on Apple Arcade and nowhere else to date, Curved Kart racer so many Mario Kart clonal line. But instead of Mario, Peach or Bowser racing around the Mushroom Kingdom, Warping features a cast of characters and maps taken from four different animated sitcoms: Family boy, American father, King of the hilland uh…Opposite Sun, whatever the hell it is. If you’ve ever dreamed of being Peter Griffin and attacking Bobby Hill with a turtle while you all ran through the streets of Langley Falls, Virginia, your dream has come true.
And let’s be clear here: This is a Mario Kart clonal line. The people who made this game know that and don’t really hide it, which is fine. If you’re going to make a game, why not make it play as one of the most popular video game franchises ever made? Seems reasonable. As a clone of the famous Nintendo kart racer, Warping Features colorful tracks with shortcuts, loads of power-ups hidden in the box, drifts and boosts, big jumps, gliding and kart customization. It’s all here, and it all works as you’d expect.
When I first boot Curved Kart racer I was shocked by what I saw. All these characters and shows interact with each other in one Mario Kart would like is very odd, even cursed. But only a little of the gameplay is revealed Warping Become a fun and good mobile kart racer. Like many of these games, you don’t need to speed up, as the game will handle that for you. But you have to do everything else, like steer, activate boost, drift and brake. All of this can be done using the touchscreen controls, which work great, or you can connect a controller instead, which works great.
I won’t pretend like I haven’t liked some episodes of American Father and Family boy. And I love legal King of the hill. (Opposite Sun is… a show I’ve seen commercials for.) Being a fan of one or more of these shows helps a lot. 16 songs filled with little details and jokes extracted right from the shows. I find myself slowing down sometimes and just appreciating how amazing it is. Obviously the people who created Warping either really enjoyed these shows or spent a lot of time watching them while doing it. Likewise, the character’s costumes and cosmetic items are also ripped right from the show, allowing you to stick Dale’s Dead Bugs mascot on the back of Stan’s CIA armored vehicle.
(Yes, all pop culture is coalesce into a giant gray monoculturebut I can still enjoy how cursed all this is and have a good time sliding down the abyss.)
And because this is an Apple Arcade game, all locked content, cosmetics, characters and other things are not tied to microtransactions or advertising. You just have to play the game and unlock the stuff. It’s a nice change of pace compared to most other mobile games I play. Several daily challenges and the ability to level up for each character help add some mobile gaming to the experience if you’re a fan of that genre, but you’ll never have to splurge to enjoy Curved Kart racer. At least not beyond buying an Apple device and signing up for Apple Arcade.
If you are already tired of Mario Kart Tour’s In-app purchaseslove and cherish Family boy or King of the Hillor just being in the market for a well made, fun to play and good looking mobile game with no microtransactions i definitely recommend Curved Kart racer. And if you like card games, Throw down animation on iOS, Android and Steam has been out for several years and merges all of these shows (plus Bob’s Burgers) together into a pretty good Hearthstone-like card games, too.
We live in weird times, but at least some games are fun.
