Pocket Cars

200 character summary
PocketCars is a nice RC combat racing game with a lot of potentional It looks great and has very nice physics simulation, It does lack in content for now, But the gameplay is already extremely solid.
Gamemodes & Gameplay 7/10
The game only has one game mode for now, Seasons, Here there are 36 events, Some are time trials some are normal races some force the use of a specific car or tyre or only allow a certain class, Each race has 3 challenges, Like hit an amount of cars, evade mines, hit a certain laptime or finish first. You can do the same race 3 times to complete each challenge seperately. Each challenge gets you a star and a certain amount of stars in a season will unlock you cars, tires, weapons, but also new events and new seasons.
The game currently has 6 cars, they all drive extremely different, after you selected your car you can set the tires you want and you can equip 2 different weapons, You can not switch weapons while in a race. In the races there are 2 different kinds of powerups, Boost and Ammo. Boost will give you boost to go faster when you choose to use it and Ammo will give you ammo for whichever weapon you have equipped, The game currently has 8 weapons, including a Rocket Launcher, EMP, Bullbar, A shockwave thingy, mines and a bunch more.
The game has very nice physics, The RC cars drive like real RC cars, surely it is not all that realistic when you are shooting rockets or have forcefields but it is nice that it tries a realistic approach in the racing itself. The game surely is missing some tracks, There are only 3 environments and a total of 12 tracks, But the game has just released and is still in early access. The number of environments actually went up while writing this review.
Graphics & Soundtrack 8/10
The graphics look nice, The cars could look great, the environments look good, but some things could have a bit more detail, like normal cars and trucks, The soundtrack is also alright. The 3 environments look good, but some feel a bit empty, I think it would help the tracks if they get some extra props differing from the other tracks in the same environment.
Performance & Support 8/10
The game runs alright It runs around a nice 100 fps, I had no crashes and the controller works like it is supposed to, Steam Cloud save is also working great. No hickups framedrops or other problems. The game also loads fast.
Endgame & Replayability 7/10
For now it lacks in replayability, But Online and Split Screen will change this for sure. For now the challenges are very easy to complete and will probably take you a few hours, Then you can repeat the same tracks or just drive around in free roam, But this will get boring pretty quickly. The game is still in early stages and it shows. But it surely has a ton of potential.
Improvements
Ofcourse More areas, more tracks, more cars, Maybe some smaller scale races? We use pretty big remote controlled cars, Why not have 1:10, 1:16 and 1:24 scale RC cars of each model, but only change the size of the environment, I would love to see tabletop racing Micro Machines style.
Split Screen Multiplayer is listed in the roadmap, I just hope they mean 4 player splitscreen, 1 vs 1 is only half the fun as a 4 player carnage. We also need some gamemodes with this, Maybe deathmatches in arenas, or capture the flag, you name it, There are a ton of games to draw some inspiration from.
The game also has some small things like the Analogue stick doesn't work in the menu, A lot of spelling errors Not as bad as the Store page tho, but still very present. I also think the UI could use a overhaul, It is nice and clear, but it feels a bit generic.
Then I would also love to see Customizability, Turn on off bots, weapons, ramps, etc. Tweaking your car, maybe with skins, or a whole paintshop, rims, bumpers, Who knows. Workshop support would be very nice, Maybe for custom cars, tracks, Getting a level editor where you can place props and checkpoints in existing environments might be cool. This would also improve the current tracks if they where enhanced with some props that only appear in that specific track and not in all tracks in that environment.
Early Access
The game is in early access, It has actually just released not too long ago, Just a few days for Linux even, And it is obvious that the game is missing a lot of content, Most of the menu options are even grayed out. I will update this review when I feel a lot has changed, There is a roadmap, but so far this only includes Split Screen Multiplayer, Online multiplayer and car customization. Which are great things, but certainly not the whole scope of the project.
Conclusion 7/10
PocketCars has a lot of potentional, And a lot of spelling errors, But the physics are solid, with Online, Splitscreen and a load of content the rating will certainly go up, For now it does not offer a lot, I can barely recommend it even. But if the devs play the cards right I can see this becoming a masterpiece.
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Game Info
# of players
Single Player Only for now
Steam Cloud Save
Working fine
Controller Support
Yes, Xbox One Bluetooth Working
Achievements
Not Available
FPS on Ultra 1080P
90 - 160
Ram Usage
3.3GB
Installed Size
4997MB
Launch Command
gamemoderun %command%
Issues
None
Operating System & Hardware
OS
Arch Linux
Kernel
5.5.10
DE
Gnome 3.36
CPU
Intel I7-6800K Hexa Core @ 4.2 Ghz
GPU
Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 (Nvidia 440.64 Drivers)

Drive RC cars for racing, with missiles, mines and other weapons at your disposal, and with environments and gameplay style like the 1999 classic 'Re-Volt'
Gameplay:
The game is currently still in early access but is without a doubt already incredibly fun and playable in terms of stability, the cars also drive well and sharp as if controlled with a real remote,
the locations are beautifully detailed and often bring with them the nostalgic feeling of driving RC cars during your childhood, without the weapons then, say that the use of weapons and ramps makes the gameplay more exciting, if this could be done in real life then the neighbors can't laugh at the daily fireworks sessions.
You can choose from a wide variety of RC cars such as the well-known buggies, trucks to muscle cars and more.
These cars then differ in acceleration, speed, cornering grip, etc.
But you can also always choose a type of tire with which you can then drive on the right terrain,
the levels in the game also have different types of surfaces, such as stones or sandy, and the right tires ensure the right racing behaviour.
The weapons you can choose also bring many combination choices with standard missiles, missiles that freeze the enemy, EMPs, mines, shields, cloaks, and even more.
You will also be able to choose the weapons before the race start, two different ones, and you will have to drive over pickups during the race to be able to use these weapons,
in addition to the pickups for weapons, you also have pickups for boost and boost has a higher priority than the weapons at times.
Pocket Cars also has great support for ultra-wide resolutions as you can see in this example:

If you played Re-Volt on the N64 as a child this game has probably caught your eye, I know because that is the exact reason i am currently enjoying this early access title!
I played enough to earn all 30 of the practice-mode stars accross all practice tracks, allow me to share my game experience to help the devs to improve the game.
Each car has toy-like weight to it, making the experience unique from other racing games i have played (aside from Re-Volt) and adds a very well-made sense that you are indeed controlling an RC car.
the game world is already quite polished and I assume will only improve as the developers iron everything out.
I only have a few gripes, which could be seen as minor depending on what is important to your game experience.
For starters: The camera controls (gamepad) have a very unsatisfying "snap back" to the original camera position once the stick is let go, causing me to become quite disoriented, I hope the devs add a smoother camera sweep to position it behind the car once you are done swinging it side to side.
The maps also have certain points where your car will become stuck in the geometry, forcing you to hold "Y" to respawn. Some lips and curbs will also randomly send your car flying, forcing you to follow the intended path (could be on purpose)
The cars will also fishtail wildly when you make even small adjustments to the wheels, this does not effect the original direction the car is moving but can be very distracting and pulls me out of the immersion a little.
Some turns are very sharp and require you to slow to below half your original speed, sometimes it can be quite hard to judge which way your car will move, the wheels do not always point where the car is going to turn once you start accelerating again.
even with these complaints this game has taken me back to my childhood playing my N64 and racing RC cars! i intend to continue playing and following the developers' progress. Hopefully they create a discord as well!

As it was mentioned here. Game doesn't really want to be compared to Re-Volt but it must be.
Of course its completely different than Re-Volt but surely can bring joy as same as Re-Volt. There is so much fun to do and also very much more to come since its still in Early Access mode.

thank you thank you THANK YOU for adding a 4 player local split screen mode.
love to see the regular updates. very nice, challenging, diamond in the rough of a game.
edit: full controller support is nice but a little buggy
would love if the turn assist was explained in-game

Pretty solid so far (v0.77). I do however get frame dips with local multiplayer. Sometimes even in single player. I've set everything to low. But considering this is still in early access, hopefully it'll be better optimised soon. Can't wait for more tracks and cars to appear.
Edit: Sometimes the screen turns black when I quit the game. But Alt + F4 solves the issue.

If you're a fan of RC cars, you'll like this game. The physics are spot on, at the same time frustrating due to your car's light weight body and stiff shocks. Be prepared to take some tumbles when you land jumps. But these physics are what makes this game what it is. I only wish there were more tracks and environments, but then again this is only in early access so I'm sure they will come. Looking forward to the full release.