Developer: DragonJam Studios
Publisher: DragonJam Studios
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Wincars Racer – Preview
Wincars Racer is, you guessed it, a new and upcoming racing game made by DragonJam Studios. In essence, it’s an online arcade game with a strategy twist, where you have to intelligently use your skills to keep ahead. There are no random power-ups included, which should make the game more skillful. Let’s find out if it does.
As the intro suggests, Wincars Racers is a racing game which is currently going through the Steam Early Access program and will receive continuous updates throughout the development process. Like any racing game, your goal is to go over the finish line as the first driver. There’s also a time trial game mode where you can hone your skills offline and climb the leaderboards.
Graphics in Wincars Racer are pretty basic, they’re nothing to write home about. The trailer of the game shows off more impressive stuff, but hopefully the finished product will look like the trailer. Sound effects and music are pretty short and are looped, which is pretty annoying at times. Even the throttle of the car is looped so even if you’re going at a steady speed, it will sound like you’re pulling up over and over.
The game is pretty easy to get into and join a server, if the servers work that is (they seemed to be down for over a week). It will start matchmaking and looking for players, and if it can’t find any players, the lobby will gradually start filling with bots until it’s full. This is a pretty nice way of doing online lobbies in Early Access games, as it might not have that many simultaneous players.
Besides from online racing and time trial, Wincars Racer also features a garage where you can have a look at your cars, circuits and drivers. There are a total six different drivers, each having their own strengths in handling, strength, offroad, turbo, speed up and draft. In the drivers menu, you can also see the name, age, birthplace and a small description of the driver as well as the special skill. This can be something like wings, rocket rush, oil puddle or a couple more. Right now, there are five different tracks to explore, you’ll be provided two at the start and the rest will have to be bought with credits. Last but not least, there are 30 unlockable cars which each have a different driving style and they also have skins available.
The driving experience in Wincars Racer is OK to say the most, it’s not the greatest game right now. The driving is pretty linear and the AI is pretty near impossible to beat with standard cars, and it doesn’t help that there are no random powerups. The game prides itself on not featuring random powerups, but that’s something that should be included to keep a game like this more competitive, because first place will almost always stay first place after the first lap. There are some skills you can use like your driver-specific skill and two others, but they don’t seem to be nearly enough to catch up at times.
Right now, the game doesn’t seem to have a lot of active players. According to Steamspy there are nearly no people playing it, although that data isn’t fully reliable. This makes actual “online” play very hard and will have you playing against bots over and over, which can get quite boring.
Conclusion
At this moment, Wincars Racer is an OK game. It doesn’t really excel at anything but it’s not fundamentally bad at anything either. A lot of things still need refinement, like music, sound effects, physics, balancing etc. Some people might not like to play this game, but at its core it has the right idea, it just needs to become a lot smoother in order to be enjoyable by most gamers.
Wincars Racer - Preview,
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