If you gave me a video editing program and CarX Street, I could make it look like one of the best open-world racers ever. Speed, beauty, crashes, insane drifting – it’s all there.
But at the same time, I could make it look laughably bad. The reality, of course, is somewhere in the middle, but the overwhelming feeling I just can’t shake is that the game simply doesn’t feel finished.
It has, of course, already been playable for a couple of years on iOS, which I reviewed here on Traxion, finding the prospect of an open world racer in your pocket rather exciting. And with the promise of more content and modes to be added over time, all looked well.
It then made the leap to PC and has now made it to modern consoles – Xbox first, PS5 later. I’m playing it on an Xbox Series X, which should (in the absence of a Sega Dreamcast version), surely be the ultimate way of experiencing the game.
Technically, however, even on the behemoth that is Xbox Series X, it’s a mess. Not only do details like lamp posts and pools of light pop into existence in the middle distance most distractingly, some even pop back out of existence too. One fully-grown tree even completely vanished as I approached, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.
(Un)smooth operator
There are two graphics modes, but both exhibit the same odd frame hitching effect in built-up areas of the city when there are other cars around, with little else obviously better or worse, barring an obvious resolution hit/boost. Better to stick it on quality mode, where it’s still mostly 60fps on Xbox Series X and enjoy the increased fidelity.
Pleasingly, fidelity is certainly the word that comes to mind when playing it. Everything is crisp and clean. Too clean, in fact, as the city frequently looks empty and sparse, not lived-in like most video game cities of this ilk.
Even during the day, there’s hardly any traffic on the roads, unless you’re doing a delivery mission, whereupon suddenly there’s much more traffic to contend with. The game would be far better if civilian car density was like that during races.
Ah yes, the races. Fundamentally, they are perfectly playable and there’s fun to be had (or rather ‘made’) by running your opponents into oncoming trucks or coaxing them into roadworks and watching them flip over, scattering safety chevrons across the tarmac.
The crashes move very nicely indeed, with cars heaving realistically into the air and barrel-rolling across the road in small flurries of 3D debris. But then you look closer and realise the debris is all just special effects – the cars aren’t actually being damaged at all. I did see one car with only one headlight after an accident, but besides a flat tyre, that’s the only hint of damage I’ve seen, so it may just have been a bug.
If that’s the case, it’s not the only bug. A Japanese club owner told me not to bother trying to join his automotive syndicate, saying he doesn’t deal with ‘gaijins’. He told me to get lost, then the cinematic ended and I was back in the game, with no option to start the race. I assumed the club was off-limits for the time being, but no, it was just the game not displaying the ‘enter race’ option.
A quick restart of the Xbox and there it was. This vanishing ‘play game’ feature occurred several times during my play test, usually after suspending the game, so be warned.
Satisfyingly sideways
But then it does a lot of things right. Coming from the developer of CarX Drift Racing, these vehicles sure know how to slew sideways. Hold the handbrake button as you approach a corner and the back steps out like you’re playing Daytona USA, which is awesome. You can then redline it through the turn, hanging the back end out like in Split/Second on Xbox 360, before boosting away down the straight with your nitrous.
In these moments, as you dance sideways between indicating civilian cars, it really, really works.
While you’re driving like this, there is close racing to be had with AI cars, which is great. The difficulty is quite erratic, with some races much easier than others, but you can go online at any time to race against real people with similar cars.
Finding said people hasn’t been easy pre-launch, with some gamers already having cars that literally disappear into the distance in the first five seconds, which is infuriating.
Unlocking the best cars takes a great many hours, and you can’t just buy them. Some are locked behind achievements, others behind online events or club wins, and even normal purchases are locked behind XP levels. You need to play it for a long while to get anything decent.
Grinding…
And that’s where we come to the grind. The grind is real in CarX Street. Each club has some 19 races before you face off against its boss. You then unlock Elite Races, which cannot be restarted and must be won to continue.
Each club has 40 levels of Elite races, and each level has four nodes to fill. Win a race and the next win will be worth two nodes, so you can clear the whole thing in about 80 races. But after 60 Elite wins, I confess I just didn’t care any more. Progress is tied to each club, too, so it’s not like you can go from club to club, trying different locales and car types while progressing your loot level.
You start from scratch in every new club. And with only 13 songs on the soundtrack and some apparently tied to specific clubs, playing one club’s Elite races starts to grate way too quickly.
So even though there are car deliveries, package deliveries, drift events, optional detours to change tyres and the need to put fuel in the car, the game soon just becomes an endless stream of very samey-feeling races.
Faster cars make for more thrilling events as the smallest mistake sees you crashing through safety barriers and off overpasses, but without the satisfying destruction of Burnout Paradise waiting at the end, it feels neutered. The lack of car damage is surprising considering the cars aren’t licensed, so could theoretically have been smashed up until they’re just a steering wheel in the driver’s hands, but there’s no such fun here.
You can customise your car livery with a Forza Motorsport-style decal editor, which is glorious and easy to use. Cars can be modded and tuned to your liking, there’s tons of loot to unlock, secret collectables to be found, screenshots to take with the photo mode, and hundreds and hundreds of hours of racing content if you want to do so.
Most races are over in just a couple of minutes, so it’s easy to dip in or dip out, but you can also go exploring the city. There’s even a recreation of the Sao Paulo Brazilian GP circuit in there, albeit dressed up like a funfair.
Charmless
At the end of the in-game day the sun sets, flooding the streets with volumetric lighting, before the city’s neon comes alive, tracks lined with little lights. But somehow it doesn’t have a fraction of the atmosphere hard-baked into Need for Speed Underground on PS2.
The story scenes here are just static pictures of unconvincingly voiced characters, and I always feel like I’m on the surface of the game, like there’s got to be more depth to this city. But after playing it all week, it hasn’t come. It really is just drifting around near-empty roads, ticking off wins until you reach a boss, then doing it all over again.
Games like this inevitably develop a small but hardcore community, and that’s bound to happen here, so there should always be someone to race if you get into it. But considering how many greats the genre has seen over the years, this does absolutely nothing to demand you choose it over the competition.
And since ‘but it’s portable’ isn’t even the USP for this version, in this current state, I just can’t recommend it as being worthy of your time. Any Forza Horizon or open-world NFS game will provide a better overall experience. Great drifts, mind.
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