RC Mini Racers is a simple little racer genre game I grabbed in a bundle of titles back in February. In short, you select from a small but decent variety of RC vehicles and race it around the map.

While the game runs smoothly and the controls are easy to pick up and master the game with both a d-pad or keyboard, there's not a lot to keep you playing this one.

The game is split up into three main race types.

• CIRCUIT: Where you do a few laps of a course.
• SPRINT: Where you have one lap and aim for the fastest time.
• COIN: A 'treasure' hunting map.

The first two put you against a selection of AI opponents, and the last one you play alone.

COIN Racing has the potential to be fun but I found most pickups were hidden in places too hard to reach or were obscured far more than what I'd consider to be fun.

There did not appear to be any difference in enemy AI that I could see, however it can start a little unfair. You face off against all other vehicle types, and while learning the game can easily be lapped by the fastest cars. To be honest, this even happened when I understood how to play due to the way combat behaves.

Looking back on it, the 'fasted car' was not the same each race as a lot can depend on the success of weapon attacks.

The first and major issue I have with this game is as follows.

The Grind

Scoring 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on a course will give you money. And you can also get it for air-time and successfully attacking an enemy car. More on that later. But to buy new vehicles, you need 'coins'.

You can find coins in the treasure hunting levels, providing they are not placed in impossible to reach locations. Or you can convert your earned money to coins.

Unfortunately the rate of conversion is rather high. And the vehicle bonuses mostly appeared cosmetic, with little change to how they control aside from a slight difference in speed.

It's really not worth bothering with this. Use the money you earn to unlock new courses instead.

Which brings me to the other problem.

There's basically one map. The neighbourhood you drive around in is pretty much it. Courses just change the path you race around in. It's a shame as the ability to change the scenery would of done a lot to improve the longevity of the game. Once you've spent an hour, you've seen all it has to offer.

That said. It is a nice neighbourhood, and there are not really any areas where you can get stuck or lost. It is just in the land of bland too quickly.

I mentioned weapons earlier and there are two different types you can pick up. Mines and Rockets.

Mines drop behind the player car, and there's a good amount of satisfaction of being able to creep in front of an enemy vehicle and drop one down. Knocking them back a few places.

Rockets shoot out and have a slight amount of homing onto the nearest car after a second of travel. There's no crosshair or target indicator, but the splash damage from the explosion does a good enough job if you don't get a direct hit. Should you be targeted, there's a beeping indicator to warn you. Not a lot you can do at this point but hide behind various geometry to be able to miss the enemy attempts at hitting you.

You can also pick up TURBO boosters. These activated immediately for me, unlike the on demand nature of weapons. Steering goes down with them and they're not always at a good long stretch of road to make full use of them.

My final thoughts are an unfortunate pass on this title. The reward system needs rethinking and I'd liked to of seen different areas to drive around in.

As it stands right now, there's not enough here to keep people interested for more than a couple of hours at the most.

Game Acquisition: Purchased on sale (Bundle Stars)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 23 April 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP and newer
Processor: Dual Core 2GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 1 GB available space \\