Nickelodeon Kart Racers – Review
Follow Genre: Kart racing
Developer: Bamtang Games
Publisher: Maximum Games
Platform: Switch, PS4, Xbox One
Tested on: Switch

Nickelodeon Kart Racers – Review

Site Score
2.7
Good: Characters
Bad: Could have used more franchises, Controls, Graphics, Music
User Score
3.3
(6 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 3.3/10 (6 votes cast)

While the latest Mario Kart release technically isn’t a new game, but a revamped version of the Wii U game, it seems that it attracted a certain amount of attention among different developers. With All-Star Fruit Racing hitting the Nintendo Switch not that long ago, we now see Nickelodeon release their new kart racing game on different platforms, including Nintendo’s Switch. We felt the game had a bit of flair when seeing some initial screenshots, by reviving the Rugrats and Hey Arnold! and including characters from the immensely popular Spongebob Squarepants and TMNT. It all changed when booting up the game however, as at first we were afraid, we were petrified, and we were simply right.

Story

Even though the game uses characters from different franchises, there is no story to be found in Nickelodeon Kart Racers. It would have been fun to have some background on the characters, or at least a flashy introduction clip when booting up the game. Those who are familiar with the different franchises used in the game will recognize the iconic characters from said series, and you’ll notice that many of the tracks are themed, thus having to do with the different series. Overall the cast is somewhat small with its twelve characters, as Nickelodeon could have used more franchises for this title, which could have boosted it a little.

Graphics

Truth be told, when booting up the game we were greeted by a tacky wallpaper with the game name on it, and horrible menus that seem to be in a BETA phase, waiting for a designer to properly finish them. The actual game didn’t get much better from that point on, as the game felt like it was stuck somewhere in limbo between the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 era, and even then it looked poorly done. The cast of characters looks somewhat decent, which is certainly a small redeeming quality of the game, but their rides once again look horribly designed and often don’t truly resonate with the characters. The level design is slightly better, but it’s stuck in the same limbo as all the rest and thus the game looks as if it lacked a proper design team, or was simply a B project in order to lure some kids into an unsuspected trap by the name of Nickelodeon Kart Racers.

Sound

If you happen to leave the menu music rolling in the background, you may want to find yourself a fork to jam in your ears repeatedly to drown out the noise that is the music from Nickelodeon Kart Racers. The music during the tracks is a bit more toned down and less noticeable which is certainly a plus.

Gameplay

Nickelodeon Kart Racers is as the name implies, a kart racing game along the lines of a Mario Kart game, but way crappier. You’ll be able to play alone, or with friends in the Grand Prix, Free or Time Attack modes. The game looks and feels like a typical kart racer, and thus you’ll drive around with slightly humorous characters, picking up items you can use to stall your opponents’ progress and hopefully bring in the gold. Outside of that, Nickelodeon has a strange fetish for everything that has to do with slime and snot, so you can gain free speed boosts by driving through green mucus and pressing the assigned button to use whatever you have in your boost meter.

The controls are fairly simple and straightforward, and when you use the drift button (left trigger), it’s actually quite hard to go out of bounds of the tracks. Nonetheless, drifting doesn’t feel as satisfying as it does in many other games, as counter-steering is nearly useless and it’s quite hard to properly control what you’re doing. The rest of the actual in-game controls feel stiff, the power-ups only feel useful in the hands of your opponents and even on the lower difficulties, the A.I. is so far up your ass you’re not permitted to make a single mistake without them catching up to you.

You’ll be able to collect coins in the game, which can be used to buy power-ups for your carts, in the form of new tires, skis, paintjobs and so on. Overall this feels like a dimmed down version of the new car unlocks in Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe). Nonetheless, this creates some content to strife for, as the rest of the game feels like a very bland experience.

Conclusion

Nickelodeon Kart Racers has a few redeeming qualities, but in reality it abuses the franchises some may have held dear as a child, and some franchises that are still popular on this day. The game not only has an extremely steep asking price, it feels bland, unfinished and horribly designed. If you’re looking for a poor Mario Kart clone, then there are other options on the market. If you wish to tread in the dankness that is Nickelodeon Kart Racers, simply because your favorite characters appear in it, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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Rating: 3.3/10 (6 votes cast)
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Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)
Nickelodeon Kart Racers - Review, 3.3 out of 10 based on 6 ratings
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

5 Comments

  1. MC_JP
    October 28, 2018, 02:14

    They should make this game into a punishement for criminals.
    So you want to leave on bail? Complete the first championship and we’ll think about it.

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    • Ibuki
      October 17, 2020, 12:51

      Second one is a lot better though. ^^

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  2. […] of characters with Nickelodeon-branded characters. We already saw this in 2018 with the release of Nickelodeon Kart Racers, which proved to be a horrible Mario Kart clone. Nonetheless, in 2020, the sequel, Nickelodeon Kart […]

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  3. […] but with a custom theme. In both cases, it’s often a good game or a huge miss. Games like Nickelodeon Kart Racers are often the latter, so we hold on tight when the news comes that, let’s say, a Smurfs […]

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  4. […] starting to see a pattern when it comes to the release of the Nickelodeon Kart Racers games, as they seem to release every two years. The series started in 2018 and spawned a sequel in […]

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