You need to make strategic use of Turbo and shortcuts, and if you come near an enemy you have to time a sideswipe just right so you can slow them down and earn more Turbo. Race is a pure race with no weapons or special abilities, meaning that it all comes down to how well you drive. The expansion offers three main modes (Race, Battle Race, and Time Trial), as well as one bonus mode when you’ve completed everything that enables each vehicle’s special abilities during the race. There’s a few other weird issues that you’ll encounter as well – I’ve seen one where one of the opposing racers dies while in their kart, and respawns standing on the track while their vehicle keeps driving on its own! This is particularly an issue in higher engine classes when you get close to the barriers while taking the racing line. Vehicles occasionally get stuck on bits of terrain and the track barriers, slowing you down. The game’s physics in general are an issue in this expansion. However, some of the smaller, lighter vehicles are barely usable on tracks with huge jumps, because they bounce around when they land and end up flipped around or rotated. It’s also possible to unlock the ability to apply the Monster Truck tires to vehicles with wheels, which changes the way they handle.
You can even race as the Cars characters! Characters don’t affect how you drive, but vehicles have differences from one another. You can use just about any character and vehicle combination in the game, including power disc vehicles. Good luck clearing this track in 12 parsecs There’s other shortcuts that require you to enter them at such specific angles, and jump at specific times, and put you at a huge disadvantage should you miss, which makes avoiding them a better option. There are shortcuts that are tricky to get into, but barely shave off any time (if any) because the routes are equally long, or put you out onto the track at awkward angles that send you into the walls most of the time. Some of these work great, and reward skillful jumps and rail grinding with shorter paths. It’s a nice way of keeping you on your toes while racing.Įach track has shortcuts and alternate paths for you to choose between and try to get a faster time.
For example, in the Gravity Falls track a forest fire will break out during the race, making trees fall over to block off some paths, and in the Big Hero 6 track Yokai will attack the city towards the end of the race and you’ll need to avoid Nanobot swarms that pop up on the road. Sometimes these are just aesthetic changes, like the Millennium Falcon taking off from the spaceport part-way through a race, but other times these will change up the way the track works as well. A cool feature that was carried over from Sumo’s previous racers is that tracks will undergo changes from lap to lap. Each one feels different from the rest with its own distinct style and landmarks, whether this be the vibrant colours of the Sugar Rush track or the sand dunes of the Tatooine track. The tracks in Speedway definitely share some similarities with the track designs in the Sonic racers. The Toy Box Speedway expansion was handled by Sumo Digital (you might know them from their recent work on the Sonic All-Stars racing games) who overhauled the driving mechanics for 3.0 to make them more suitable for racing. Weird ‘quirks’ in the game’s mechanics and track designs stop this expansion from being as enjoyable as it could be. It’s an interesting addition that allows you to make use of your collection of vehicles and non-combat focused characters, but unfortunately it does suffer from a lack of polish. Speedway features 9 tracks that go through locations from various Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars movies. Instead of a focus on combat or platforming, Toy Box Speedway is all about racing. Toy Box Speedway is a big change from Infinity’s usual expansion content.