Playrise Digital’s miniature racer is a fun time with plenty of content, but a lack of speed and repetitive content let it down.
| Developer | Playrise Digital |
| Publisher | Ripstone |
| Franchise | N/A |
| Genre | Racing |
| PSTV | Yes |
| Physical English | No |
World-building & Story
It’s often difficult to flesh out this section of my reviews when it’s a racing game, as very few have any meaningful plot. Some try – like Switch Galaxy Ultra – while others build an interesting world – like WipEout 2048. Table Top Racing does neither of these things – it’s content being a simple toybox racer without any bells and whistles for the story.
That isn’t to say there isn’t a decent world built here, as all the vehicles are toys and the tracks are based on everyday items – you’ll come across picnic blankets; forks and soda cans during your races – as such, the theme is explored well throughout.
Presentation & Sound
I was impressed with a variety of things about Table Top Racing‘s presentation, as everything from the toys to the tracks looked good and – most importantly – the game ran smoothly making it an enjoyable racing experience, at least from a visual perspective.
The vehicles look great – there are a good number available, each customizable with things like different paint jobs or wheels. They’re cleanly modelled and interact with the environment like real toys, not crumpling when hitting a barrier but merely bouncing off; while things like weapon attacks look colourful if a little unspectacular compared to other kart racers.
Environments are similarly impressive – rather than going for a large selection of varied locales, the team at Playrise stuck to their theme of a toybox and modelled each course on realistic household objects and locations. You might race through one track with books scattered everywhere while another has kitchen utensils in the background – each works well, unique enough to look good but occasionally a little too cluttered for my liking.
Menus also work well, appearing bright and colourful and are easy to navigate. With that said, you can tell they’re transported over from a mobile game due to their design and frustratingly they’re all touch-only, a bizarre choice given Vita’s biggest strength as a portable gaming device with buttons.
Sound is fairly standard – music is catchy at first but looped a little too much to stop it from becoming annoying; weapon hits and racing noises are standard (and thankfully there are no droning engines given the vehicles are toys). It’s all standard, if a little unexciting and bland.
Soundtrack highlight – Speed Race
Gameplay & Content
Using fairly standard kart-racing mechanics as a base, Table Top Racing provides a nice bit of genre variety on Vita and is generally competent at what it does – although a few quirks and niggles keep it from being anything truly fantastic.
Right off the bat you’re given a fairly decent selection of modes – the game’s tournament pits you in a series of races with the aim of coming first in each to progress; while a challenge mode gives you a series of objectives to achieve while racing. Of course, you can also select the free mode to choose your own course and rules if you simply want to practice or play on your own terms across the game’s eight tracks.
Within each of these modes, there are also a number of different types of races. Your standard race will feature a number of enemy vehicles who can be hit by weapons (and hit you back!) which is simply a race for the finish line; while things like fastest lap and time trials also exist. Most exciting is elimination, which knocks out the last-placed player each lap – with the way the AI is rubber-banded this can actually get really tense and quite exciting, if a little frustrating.
The actual racing itself is… a mixed bag. All the basics are there – you can accelerate and take sharp brake turns round corners; drift; collect and fire power-ups etc. – there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it. With that said, something just feels lacking – races feel slow and lack urgency, yet the tracks are all quite short and over very quickly. I never felt fully in control of my vehicle, a feeling amplified when you collide with scenery or other racers and spiral out of control.
In addition the weapons also feel like they lack a bif of ‘oompf’. All the genre standards are here – missiles which lock on to the racer in front of you; boosts which increase your speed momentarily etc., yet their impact when used is quite minimal and rarely feels like an reward for grabbing them (although I did enjoy the Crash Bandicoot-esque boxes they’re picked up from).
Enemy AI can also be quite frustrating, rubber banded to never be too far behind or in front of you, meaning the outcome of a race can often be down to the final half a lap or so. It all comes together to create a racing package that is by no means bad – in fact it’s quite enjoyable in short bursts – but quickly becomes tedious.
This feeling is amplified by Table Top Racing‘s progression system. You earn xp and coins by taking part in (and winning) races and these are used to level up and buy new vehicles, which in turn means you can take on new challenges which requires a certain xp level or car. You’re not forced to buy any extra coins using real-world currency, but there’s always a nice flashing icon to remind you that you can and without it the game turns into a bit of a grind, replaying events over and over to get enough coins to take on the next. It’s a stark reminder of the title’s mobile origins.
Otherwise, there is a good amount of content here – a decent number of vehicles; a handful of tracks and a sea of challenges to undertake, which for the price it’s going for is more than fair. Whether you have the patience to see it all before fatigue kicks in is another question.
Conclusion
A solid racing game that does very little to distinguish itself, you can do a lot worse than Table Top Racing on Vita – but you’ll be left coming away from the experience somewhat underwhelmed. The relaxed pace; unexciting weapons and repetitive objectives detract from the experience, but underneath it is all there is a fun, well-made racer.
6.0/10
kresnik258gaming 