Official Score
Overall - 50%
50%
Drift King fixates on the things that don’t matter, pouring all of its energy into minutiae instead of what makes a racing game truly thrive. Its bland tracks and broken drifting mechanics are not conducive to a good game, and the grind to unlock content will turn people off sooner rather than later.
The perfect drift is the thing lap times are made of, which is why Giorgi Abelashvili put the spotlight on these skids with his new title Drift King. The Ridge Racer and Initial D series have pulled off this art with panache – does this racer do the same?
Drift King Review
True to its name, drifting is king in this title. It’s not about getting to the finish line; it’s all about landing the perfect skid and looking cool while doing it. The loose controls help make this dream into a reality; without too much effort, players will be sliding along on each track.
Of course, actually landing each skid is a completely different story. The longer one drifts, the more one’s points go up and the higher the multiplier goes. However, crashing into a barrier or going off-road will lead to a steep penalty, undoing all of your stylish work.
However, scoring takes a page with Who’s Line Is It Anyway, where everything goes and the points don’t matter. Although we hate to admit it, some of our drifts had us careening headlong into a concrete barrier, only to have us earn a cool 10,000 points for doing so. It’s awkward, and the overall scoring system could use a fair amount of tweaking.
However, one thing that people will be able to tweak in this title are each of their rides. Staples like the MX5 and 190E are joined by “Muscle Car #1” and “Muscle Car #2” in its garage, with different functionality available for tweaking. Cambers, suspension offsets, grip, and counter steering can all be tweaked to your hearts’ content, though we did not notice too great of a difference when hitting the track.
This lack of variety can also be seen with its different tracks. As of this writing, players can dive into Drift King’s Test Drive Mode, Circuit Mode, Endless Mode, and Mountain Mode. While these all seem to offer a fair amount of variety at first glance, the objective of drifting for a set amount of time remains the same.
The amount of unlocking one has to do to see everything also borders on the egregious – players must use money earned from successful runs on additional tracks and cars. While this does encourage replayability, there’s simply too much that needs to be unlocked among its different tracks. In addition, a number of the tracks lack any sort of personality, featuring such names as “Test Playground” and “Greece.”
If anything, Drift King is aimless when it comes to what it wants to focus on. Players can choose between manual or automatic transmission, their region, and even the level of smoke opacity, but it manages to drop the ball on the more basic details that should come standard with a game of this style.
Drift King fixates on the things that don’t matter, pouring all of its energy into minutiae instead of what makes a racing game truly thrive. Its bland tracks and broken drifting mechanics are not conducive to a good game, and the grind to unlock content will turn people off sooner rather than later.
