Little Racers Street

 
Developer: Milkstone Studios
Released: Feb 2014
Hours Played: 10.7
Similar To:  Bang Bang Racing / Death Rally / Mantis Burn Racing / Reckless Racing
Rating: 5/5 Stars

GAMEPLAY

Nowadays it seems as if every top-down racer requires combat to make it interesting. Thankfully some do exist along conventional lines where pure racing and best-times are king. The bad news is that few of these exist and that decent ones are very hard to find; the good news is that Reckless Racing, Bang Bang Racing and this little known masterpiece will cater to your needs and are the only few you'll really need. Little Racers Street is basically what you wanted Scalextric to be when you were a kid. Only here your car doesn't fly off the track every ten seconds and you get to race against more than just one opponent. It also happens to be completely fair and ten times more fun and exciting. 
    

BALANCE & PACE

Career Mode gives you the choice of doing five races where you compete against 4-10 cars controlled by the game's excellent A.I. You'll then receive credits to upgrade your roster of cars and shown which of the 49 challenges your performance has helped to clear. Races are always intense affairs where skills in mastering the art of cornering and when to use the nitro boost are top priority. They're pretty damned exciting too. Equally fun are the time trials which have one of the best ghost car features I've seen as they offer up to ten ghost-runs in total. So not only can you clearly see what you're doing right and wrong (usually to do with cornering and nitro boost again) but how other cars in the class perform against your present choice.  

PRESENTATION & DESIGN 

Overall, the cars hug the road and are handled superbly well. You can even see, through the ghost car feature, the difference in how cars turn, grip and accelerate. Additionally, the camera follows the action smoothly giving you just the right amount of zoom-out to anticipate those approaching corners - although just a tad further out would have been ideal. Thankfully, the edges do not swivel as you turn. The menus are plain and simple although will take a bit of working out. Click Race in the career mode and you only get five random races to pick, click Time Trial and you'll have well over 400 tracks to choose from which take an age to scroll through! A track can come with five environments: Dawn, Dusk, Night, Rain and Snow. 

PROGRESS SYSTEM

This took me a while to figure out but don't bother with a Quick Race, Daily Challenge or a Free Roam from the start-screen as they're kind of pointless. Career mode is where it's at with the idea being to clear the 49 challenges by diving into one of five races. A stat-screen is displayed at the end showing which challenges you've progressed in. Secondly, the superb Time Trial is where you attempt to beat your best time, on one of over 400 tracks, while effectively racing against yourself in ghost form. It sometimes takes a while to upload but after you've run as many laps as you wish, the game will show your best time, what car you did it in and your world rank. The Shop provides new cars to try and The Garage sells upgrades. It's a veritable nerd's paradise.
  

CONCLUSION

Top-down combat racing is all well and good and I have no problem with games like Blaze Rush and Death Rally leading that particular pack. But I stand by my claim that Bang Bang Racing and Little Racers Street are the true greats in this category on Steam. LRS manages to get all the important things right. My rate of success and failure was pitched at just the right level; the A.I. made me feel I was really competing in a proper race - without rubber banding; I was often glued to a Time Trial track for over 20 laps just to shave a fraction of a second off my time... and I actually understood the upgrade system where I could boost power, turning, grip or the nitro-boost as they made noticeable and recognisable changes to the cars. This one will be on my hard drive for a very long time.