Xenon Racer

I like everything about this game, except for having to start in a hoop-dee that can't drift.

It's sorta like Ridge Racer, but cheap. Drifting feels similar enough, and there is no rubberbanding, so that is a point in its favour. Unfortunately, the AI opponents are extremely reckless. They have a tendency to crash into the barrier directly ahead of you after the first turn, necessitating a restart if you want to be in with a chance of winning, but the game is so fun that this is quickly forgiven. The first time I loaded it up, I played for hours without realising it, and that is high praise for any game.

Starts out ROUGH! BUT!!!! I do mean BUT, if you use the tools available, like Free Roam mode, and get a feel for both the mechanics and the differences in the cars, IT IS WONDERFUL! I want a SEQUEL with upgraded graphics, the old tracks and a ton of new tracks. The difficulty is the heart and soul the developers put into this title. Underrated! Needs much more attention! Imagine a GT race mixed with Formula one, and street races mixed with nitro but not with Gas, Lithium Batteries that need friction to activate. A ZEN MODE racing game!

If you like old Ridge Racer, this is the game for you...once you get used to the way it handles. I really like the atmosphere, the car designs, and some of the music is cool too. It's feature-complete and has, so far as I've played, very few bugs and it's only crashed on me once. We need more games like this, we really do.
Tracks are handled in a ridge-racer fashion with a handful of locations and a bunch of track layouts and running the tracks in reverse too. Pretty traditional. The tracks have some nice variety and a few gimmicks, and are filled with little animations and effects that make the scenery really pop sometimes (like the airport track.)
BUT, you'll hate this game unless you learn how to play it. The game does not explain any of this properly, or at all, and it can really make the game seem unwinnable, so as a PSA, let's talk about how to actually play this damn game.
A) The car setup is EXTREMELY important, and how drift works is important.
B) Drift in this game is handled like in the ridge racer fashion of being almost its own separate handling model that you NEED to master, the whole game revolves around this and nothing but this.
C) To enter "drift mode" consistently, hold the accelerator and tap brake + turn direction. Depending on your drift and handling stats, you can enter "drift mode" at very shallow angles, which allows you to build meter faster and more frequently.
So once you "start" drift, you have options to handle all the corners in the game. In fact, getting into "drift mode" before corner entry is key to also gaining a lot of boost. Drift mode also doesn't sap nearly as much speed as you would gain from correctly using it and boosting on straightaways. If you mess up, having the right angle due to drift also allows you to wallride to mitigate some of the slowdown from your crash (this is really important vs AI, who ...well, also forget how to drift in a lot of corners!)
The way I played (and I got all time attack golds, etc), is that I almost never let go of the accelerator. Instead, I would tap brake to enter "drift mode", and THEN I'd modulate the accelerator depending on how slow the corner was. Additionally, you can use "drift mode"'s natural braking effect to slow yourself down for chicanes, without needing to let go of the accelerator. The brake in this game is only for getting into drift mode, you do not use it for anything else but tap it to get into drift mode.
Try all cars, try all setups, but keep an eye on the HANDLING and DRIFT stat, make those as high as possible so you get the car to oversteer as much as you can. Oversteer in "drift mode" is EXACTLY what you want, so you can put the car sideways if you need to, but you can also enter "drift mode" in very shallow angles to build up boost before corner entry.
Not gonna lie, once I understood all this, I spent 4 hours 100%ing all I could, cuz driving was that much fun.

If you like futuristic, drift-and-boost racers this is the ticket. Not sure why this game is sitting at Mixed, I've had an absolute blast with it. The early cars are rough so you have to give it some time, learn the tracks and push through until you unlock the GT LM002 which is just sublime. Online is dead but it fills with AI. Got the game 90% off at a dollar fifty and i would have paid three times that. Maybe I don't have as high of expectations but don't let the negative reviews fool you - for an indie racing game, its pretty darn good.

This game takes old arcade racing and mixes it with futuristic science-fiction theme and surprisingly it is kind of fun.
I just bought it for 90 percent off and i think its pretty good but the cartoon style kind of throws me off. I can live with it for two bucks but i think most people will have most of their fun and then not play it ever again. The fact that it has online is pretty nice and more than you can expect from most other indie developers. Thumbs up for the discounted price but dont buy this at full price.

This is quite arcadey (I did expect this). It seems I've lost the taste for arcadey racers after all these years. The speed readings are a joke (120 kmph feels like around 60 kmph). The focus mechanic is drifting (which is also a kind of a joke; I'm the kind of person who never learned to drift consistently in Assetto Corsa (with G920)). "Easy" difficulty is not easy at all — the AI is cheating (probably teleporting n' $#it). I don't know why a lot of reviews are referring to Ridge Racer (it's probably an age thing — I'm 35). Not only the vibe, but even the soundtrack (drum n' bass) tries to emulate a way older game from the PS1 era — Rollcage Stage 2. Definitely not worth more than 4-5 EUR. Even with all the flaws, you could squeeze a few hours of fun like I did (with a DS4 controller + DS4Windows). Also, taking up only 5,27 GB of space is always a win, at least in my book.