This is a good "Re-Volt style" RC Racing game.
Driving model/physics in this game are done quite well. The RC Car physics seem to be recreated well, since the car is very fragile in acceleration, sharp turns and jumps&landings. Suspension seems to be working in the cars and it does soften the ride, but I think the ride even on dirt isn't as bumpy as it should be simply because the tracks don't quite recreate the roughness of the dirt/grass surfaces.
The game offers driving assists in the form of torque (acceleration) assist, steer assist and stability assist. What could be done instead is either an adjustable "sensitivity" of inputs, where a 100% input (for example L/R arrow or gas ←↑→) doesn't immediately translate to 100% input for the car, but would be rather smooth from 0% to 100%. Another way of "fixing" excessive car instability would be to set how fast the wheels can turn to a maximum steering angle for each car individually, like in Re-Volt. Driving without assists entirely is a much better experience, but also much harder. Or to implement "difficulty" options like in Re-Volt, where simpler difficulties would result in easier ride.
I recommend putting acceleration and turning assist at 0%, and stability assist at 100%.
Car on car collisions seem to be very simple, cars do not entagle with each other. Collisions with walls are somewhat simple, although it is possible sometimes to drive up a curb or get stuck on it if no wheels touch the ground. That proves the game's physics properly propel the car off it's wheels.
As for camera, when driving forward it does a good job. But the camera should definitely not turn around by itself when driving backwards! I just want to slightly reverse and camera does a complete 180 immediately and now I don't see forwards where I want to go. There is a "look backwards" button camera in the game, at least give me an option to disable automatic camera 180flip when reversing. Re-Volt didn't do that, NFSMW didn't do that, RC Cars camera did turn back when reversing, but only after quite a while.
I like the way in which you advance within the game – there is no "cash" or "fame" you gain from winning races, you just have to complete certain targets on each race, you can redo the race as many times you want, when you complete enough of them, you unlock more cars and races. No grinding, a straightforward system.
Graphics are very nice, but the optimisation is lacking, you get FPS drops especially in areas with a lot of leaves and bushes.
There is a native Linux version, but I was not able to run it on a dedi AMD GPU.
Tracks look good, the environments are diverse enough, you get neighbourhoods, sidewalks, parks, bushes, wild west towns, building interiors, stunt arenas. Certainly inspired by Re-Volt, maybe RC Cars too. You need to hit "checkpoints" for the lap to be counted, RC Cars style, although it's always a bit ambiguous where the "border" of these checkpoints actually are. Maybe a system of two vertical physical poles acting as checkpoints would work better.
Pickups – you don't roll them when picking them up on the track, but pick two before the race and you fill the bar which allows you to use either of the two. Not sure if this is a better or worse system, since a randomness factor always brings some chaos and unpredictability, and as a consequence, replayability to the game. Being able to choose will inevitably make some weapons underused and other overused. There is a greater variability of pickups than in Re-Volt and their effects look nice visually.
There is a boost system, similar to pickups you pick them up around the track and you get some speed boost for a short amount of time. Pretty useful, not particularly overpowered. I think this is okay even though personally I am not a fan of too many artificial boosts in racing games that are readily available. Here it seems reasonably balanced.
You can put on different types of tyres on the car and it does make a real difference in the grip level on different surfaces. A very good system, but would be much better, would have a much deeper meaning for gameplay if there would be no steering/accel assists.
There is a car customisation system, adds some flavour if you're interested in having certain colours on your car. I like the fact that there is no way of "upgrading" your car parts, so you know what other cars are capable of if you are driving the same car, there is no dissonance here where you can be driving the same car but be faster or slower due to invisible updates on a car. Want different driving characteristics, pick a different RC car.
Creating "local" race – instead of playing a preset race from a season, you are be able to start a custom race where you pick the environment, track arrangement, number of laps and opponents, but the limits on opponents and laps should be higher, as well as an option to put pickups on or off, boost on or off.
Music is very meh, only some of the tracks are good enough, but this is completely tertiary in a racing game.
Sounds are good, although maybe there could be a bit more of them, like for drifting, sliding around, driving on a dirt/grass surface etc. Similar for pickups - they could be louder and have a bit more sound effects to them.
Game uses Steam cloud to store your progress.
Overall, the best RC racing game to come out after Re-Volt and RC Cars. It's been a long time.
