Xbox Live Indie Game fans may remember Little Racers STREET from a year or two ago. The popular XBLIG title has now made its way to Steam with a few additions along the way. Little Racers STREET is a top down view arcade style racing game with a single player career mode and online multiplayer for up to twelve players.

The racing action takes place over two ‘cities’ in which the tracks are created by blocking off road junctions to create a route. Think of it like the routes in games such as Need for Speed. This allows around 60 different tracks to race on, double that if you mirror them. The tracks range from short loop style routes to long ‘tour of half the map’ races. The cities are an urban area with scenery such as buildings and train tracks and the second a more open area with mountains and canyons providing the backdrop. To add some variety there are night and dusk lighting as well as rain and snow weather conditions which affect the vehicles handling. The two cities combined with the number of route permutations (around 200) means you won’t get bored of the tracks too soon.

There are 41 vehicles to choose from, split into classes from E, the slowest, to A being the fastest. The classes are decided by four attributes; Power, Turning, Grip and Nitro. These can be upgraded in the garage, and if you upgrade enough you can even have the vehicle go up a class. The range of vehicles is good, from nimble mini’s and cumbersome buses up to super charged beasts, all of which can be painted and decaled. Depending on the type of race, speed is not always the best, as tracks can be very twisty so choosing a vehicle with lower speed and higher grip can make a massive difference.

The career mode starts you with a small amount of money to buy a low class vehicle and get straight into the race. Depending on the race, you can be up against three to eleven other drivers. Credits are earned depending on the outcome and if you find your opponents too easy you can increase the difficulty to earn a larger reward. The AI is very competitive on the harder difficulties and one or two minor mistakes on the track will punish you. As you complete races your leaderboard ranking changes accordingly, it can be a bit of a grind working your way up the leaderboard and vehicle classes, but there is plenty to do.

The multiplayer mode allows you to host, join or search for a race. A number of options are available if you are hosting a game including a choice of public or private games, number of vehicles and the race length. If you wish to, you can host a game and fill it with AI racers and play until some humans join the start of the next race. Surprisingly, you are unable to choose which track or conditions to race on. I haven’t spent any time playing multiplayer against other humans on the PC as the game had not yet been released on Steam, but I spent a lot of hours playing on the XBLIG version and I can assure you it is immense fun.

The career mode will keep you busy for several hours as you progress through the classes. The multiplayer mode is where the lifespan is, get a few friends involved you can easily spend an evening racing against each other and inventing game modes such as ‘cops and robbers’ with differently painted vehicles and decals. If you enjoy racing games and simply want that arcade fun experience then this is a must buy.

Gameplay: 8.5
A lengthy career mode with challenging AI if you increase the difficulty. Vehicle handling is spot on. The multiplayer mode provides many hours of enjoyment.

Graphics: 8.5
Smooth 60FPS graphics which look nice, but often missed as you are tearing around the track.

Sound: 7
A mix of music tracks which sound decent. Sound effects are sparse as expected in a racing game but they do the job.

Final Score: 8.5

Review originally posted on Gamergeddon[www.gamergeddon.com]

Meh

Uno dei Giochi arcade divertenti, Gioco che dura sulle 10 - 12 ore, con vari livelli di difficoltà e supporto del pad..
l'ho trovato abbastanza divertente all'inizio con obiettivi da raggiungere e superare molto stimolanti, ma a lungo andare il gioco diventa noioso, per sfidare i vostri amici c'è la modalità Day Challenge, dove ogni giorno puoi postare il tempo più veloce.
Lo consiglio ma per gli amanti dei giochi arcade con una buona grafica

Let's just put it out there. Little Street Racers is just awesome and is the pinnacle of a genre that has sorely lacked any incarnation of excellence. This literally little racer sports two imaginary cities in which 60 routes are spliced from and similar in design to Project Gotham Racing. This is a polished piece of software sporting fluid frame rates, weather, varied environments, day and night racing, an online mode for up to 12 players, a single player campaign, multiple skill levels, a well designed AI, a damage model, time trial challenges with ghosts, multiple camera angles which include in track views, 6 performance tiers featuring cars with weight, a fun handling model, upgrades, paint jobs, nice graphics, achievements, a sense of speed, time trials, over 300 leaderboards (one for each class and track), trading cards ... and I'm sure the kitchen sink is to be found as well. I'm floored and so is the gas pedal. Easily one of the best indie products on the store.

Addendum: Concerning the AI the developer has commented as follows:

"The game has no rubberbanding (AI slowing down or being faster when they are ahead/after you) because I personally don't like that system. So yeah, the AI cars will do their best (within the set difficulty) all the race."

Addendum: Little Racers STREET can be improved. At the end of each career race show best lap and total race time and make the leaderboard accessible for the track and car class. General filters are also needed for the huge number of leaderboards.

Little Racers Street is an overhead racing game that still manages to be fun even if it has its own physics that let you turn or stop on a dime even in the most ridiculously fast cars. Its a game that's easy to play and tough to master the later courses thanks to the most 90 degree turns I've ever seen in a racer. This is street racing after all and most cities are built in a grid. On top of that you have a career mode that lets you buy cars and tweak them to your liking. If you upgrade them too much they will leave their class where the races face tougher competition..

While this is an overhead racing game, there are several different camera angles to chose from. The default isometric camera is problematic, because as a street racer, there are buildings that will obscure your view. You have a setting to turn on a highlight that will show your silhouette, even when obscured, but the other cars still remain hidden and that's something that matters. There's a non isometric camera that falls into the same problems and an overhead chase camera that feels better than the other two.

I have a feeling that Little Racers street was trying to be a kin to the old isometric racers like RC Pro Am and Heavy Metal Racing. Its more than the view, its the way the physics of the game. You still need to slow down in order to make a turn without bashing into something, but the turning is always sharp. I think that's what might scare people away. You'll need it though, because there can be a brutal number of hairpin turns back to back.

The sharp turns are evidenced in the game's best camera view of all is the one that betrays its gimmick in general and that's the chase cam. Your typical camera that follows the back of your car is by far the best way to play the game. Its just a great view that makes the game feel more like a modern racer. All of these camera angles can be changed on the fly when you realize how bad they are.

The game controls as you might expect a racer to play and it controls well on a 360 controller even if the game says the nitro is the X button when its really the B button. The nitro feels weak and sounds weak, as if its a pneumatic arm from a carnival ride. Its slow to start and takes a while to reach its maximum velocity, so your best bet is to wait until your gauge is filled all the way.

There are several different modes to chose from. Quick race that just drops you into a random vehicle in a random race. Free play lets you drive around either of the two cities. Time trials let you test your time against the world with online leader boards that rank you. There are even daily challenges, that are still being generated to this day. You can even play previous ones up to a week ago.

The meat of the game is the campaign, which is where you'll be earning the money to buy cars. If you bump into walls or other cars you'll damage your car and that will affect your vehicle's performance, but more than that, it will cost you money after the race to have it repaired. Its a nice trade off and I was never able to fall into negative numbers. Its amazing how I can just about destroy my car, come in last place and repair it for a few hundred dollars, but if I were to come in first place, it would cost a few thousand. In other words, the game is lenient.

From the look of it, the racers are about half the size they should be and this can be beneficial in races against eleven other drivers, you can still make your way past all of them at once. The barricades are taller than your car and if you try to cut a corner by driving over grass, you slam into it like a wall. You can slam into a wall at top speed and your car will bounce backward and fly you over a lane or so. Yet when you slam into other cars, its like hitting them with a pillow, because they hardly move. In a way its to cut out the dirty tactics, but in another its an overlooked part of racing.

While the racers themselves might be little, the game itself relies on quantity over quality. There are an overwhelming fifty-five tracks in the game... oh wait, what's that? That's only the E class that has fifty-five courses? Oh my mistake. There are over three hundred tracks set in two small cities. Several of the courses feel similar and you'll be racing in the same areas over and over again, but since these courses are so disposable, you're never on them for long. Some courses last a minute, others can last three, it all depends on the amount of laps.

The courses are flat for the most part with a road ripple here or there and a drive up a curvy mountain. Its just another reason to have more hairpin turns rather than 90 degree angles. There are a few jumps, but nothing spectacular. Even diving off of a highway to the street below seems lackluster.

While using the chase camera, you get a chance to see the environment. It looks good from this angle. There are plenty of neon lights, but nothing that will overwhelm a person. The streets also shine as if they're made of polished marble and not asphalt. The pavement has arrows painted on them to ensure you're going the correct direction. That can be turned off, but there are a few races with a crossroad in the center. Some crossroads are obvious, others turn one direction or the other when you cross. So imagine a T combine with a Y.

Each class has several different vehicles to purchase, each looks different and great. They all have some sort of character even if they're reasonable facsimiles you'd find in the real world. You'll find more than cars, there are hippy vans, old rustic trucks, street racers, muscle cars and even beetles.

There are four different types of vehicles all geared toward the four stats which are power, turning, grip and nitro. The power consists of acceleration and top speed, but I wish they were different stats rather than combine as one. The nitro determines how fast your nitro gauge refills. Vehicles also can also have four-wheel drive or rear wheel drive as well. Its a rich amount of variety.

Each course has a class restriction that limits you to race with cars of that class. This prevents you from being grossly overpowered. With that said, it does feel like I can purchase a D class vehicle, upgrade it almost to a C class and win more D class races races than I lose. The game will warn you if a vehicle is about to surpass its class. The C class races and beyond get much more challenging. There's a lot of human imperfection on my part that the computer benefits from.

To diversify the races, there are day, dawn, dusk and night races coupled with environmental effects like snow and rain. These races are beneficial for four wheel drive vehicles, just as a lot of 90 degree turns are better for turning and grip.

In terms of customization, you can select your vehicle's design and its color. It really makes the vehicle feel like your own. With all of this customization, you can purchase the same vehicle again and again to customize them differently. There's are two precise color sliders and dozens of designs.

Why do color and design matter? Well the game has online multiplayer. Well dead online multiplayer, but if it was still a happening place to be, your car would look different than anyone else's. Even in the single player mode, each computer controlled vehicle looks different.

Little Racers Street is a game with character and its own style. It walks a fine line between so bad that its good and so charming that its fun. Its a budget title and I imagine only a select few will look beyond its flaws and find a fun game. A great game? No, but still a fun, enjoyable game.

Carino se avete un pc molto scarso e consigliato il joypad Xbox. Belle musiche, buon divertimento ma un po' monotono dopo un po'. Ci sono solo 2 mappe con diversi tracciati. Funziona bene in 21:9.

Buy It!!! - It's <$7 plays smooth even using keyboard. If you grew up on Off-Road and Rock n Roll racing you'll love it. Oh and up to 12 person multiplayer

Of all the small racer games i have played this one is one of my favorites for long time playing. In the beginning when you play the game the graphics and modelling of cars is a bit meh as one may be accustomed to more cartoony racer games like Bang Bang or Mini Motor or even 'realistic' looking like Real World Racing. This game reminds me of the later Slicks'n'Slide games on the looks. Few liked those either.

As you play the game starts to open up a bit and you start to like this more and more. Also filling up the garage with different cars and using them in various situations opens up entirely new scenarios that extends the experience.

Career mode is grinding - lots of it as prices of cars and tuning parts are very high - but still interesting as you buy and customize cars and do challenges using certain types of cars. There is always something to aim towards to.

Best part is probably multiplayer design. You can just put it on and either pop into someones game or host it yourself and keep on playing and if someone joins then they just join and there is no change to ever flowing races that keep on rolling with 5 sec lobby wait intervalls. No need to separate Career, achievement hunting or multiplayer. This is a brilliant idea from the devs as they probably knew multiplayer is going to be dead anyways so why not make it as open as possible to encourage social playing. No other racing game in my library has this. Others - that i have tested atleast - force you to wait in a lobby hoping that someone might pop in. Dead wrong! That does not work. MP is dead - universally - everyone is playing whatever is the genre leader. iRacing, Dota, whatever... dont even know if this particular sub-genre has a game that 'everyone plays' ?

Daily challenges keep one entertained too. Very tough times to beat there. but not impossible to reach a relatively high position either. i seem to score world spots 3-5 all the time so it can't be that bad.

Controls are spotless and car turns precisely like you want it. And getting good lap times is purely about skill.

9/10 - This one takes a well deserved spot in my library along with Mini Moto Racing Evo which is another game that i regard very high. Points could be perhaps a bit higher if the awesome MP section would be even more open and certain menu items and in game indicators would be more clearer.

edit: some extra words removed that did not belong anywhere

I got this game in Groupees "Build a Greenlight Bundle 2" a little less than a year ago, so the number of hours I've played on Steam is misleading.

Little Racers STREET is a fun top-down racing game. It's simple in it's mechanics, and easy to get into. It has many different difficulty modes, the higher the difficulty, the more money you get, and the lower the difficulty, the less money you get. I found the difficulty settings in this game great. I'm absolutely terrible at racing, sports, and fighting games, but the difficulty settings in this game let me put it to a level that even I could call fair for my skill level.

Basically, the point of the Career mode is to make your way to the top of the ranks. You start out with enough money to buy a E Class car, and perhaps a couple upgrades for it. Paint jobs are also free, which was nice.

Multiplayer is a blast too. Being able to have 12 player races, and even filling slots with AI's is sweet.

It's definitely no for simulation fans, which should have been immediately obvious from the screenshots, but it's a sweet arcade racing game that's definitely worth picking up.

Little Racers STREET is a top-down view arcade racing game that does exactly what it says. It's a fun little game, but is a mixed bag for me personally.

This game is meant to be played from the top-down perspective, BUT this game is unplayable at some points, especially later down the road when you get the super fast cars. Buildings and other obstacles can block your view, even worse when there happens to be a corner that you have to take right there and slam taking damage. Thankfully there is a chase cam, but then you can clearly see how bad this game looks. There isn't even a skybox. Just a grey/black void above you at all times. Going into the chase cam also makes this game a cakewalk, providing you can get past the AI.

This game only really has 1 gamemode. Race the AI on a random selection of 5 tracks. The game will randomly select 5 races which will be random classes (depending on what class of vehicles you have.) You race on them, and try to win. Your reward is credits and Ranking points (for single player leaderboard.) There is no real "End Goal" in this game sadly. You just keep racing the same courses, just maybe you take a different vehicle. There is also a Time Trail, Freeroam, and Daily Challenges. There is 12 player multiplayer, but it's dead.

The AI is stupid and can be unfair. The 1 AI that is always meant to win will ALWAYS have a better vehicle then you. I even tried to replicate the exact vehicle the AI would use per class, even upgrading to to where I could not anymore before it got kicked to the next higher class, and yet the AI was still faster and able to hit the corners better. Upon playing on the higher classes, you can really see the downfall of the AI. The AI gets faster cars, but still tries to drive them like they are still in the slower cars. They don't slow down or brake going into the corners, so they always slam into the walls, wreaking their vehicles before they can even get half way through the race. It's even a bigger joke when you race them on the snow tracks. The AI also tend to love ramming you into walls. This sucks on harder levels, which I will say why later on.

LRS has 2 worlds that are populated with more than 200 tracks between them, that have normal, rain, and winter tracks. Each style of level also has slightly different ways on how vehicles handle in the weather, snow obviously having low handling and let's you slide around the map like nothing. This is great in terms of content, but the worlds are not that big, and start to get very repetitive. The cites are empty, there is nothing in them. There isn't anything interesting in them. Playing on Freeroam is pointless, because there is NOTHING! All there is in the game is race the AI or race other players (but the MP is dead.) After a few hours it starts to get boring. There is nothing else, just race AI, try the Time Trials, and "Daily Challenges" which is basically Time Trials again. Good luck trying to beat Dev times, but I just suck at racing games.

The amount of different cars to select is really good. You can buy cars from the "Store" or unlock cars by completing challenges (Win so may races driving the ____, Win so many D Class races, etc.) You can ever upgrade your cars to do better, or even upgrade them to the next class. I was able to get all the cars up to B Class, then it got to the point everything was too expensive to really purchase, and would take a few days of grinding to achieve them. The vehicles have 4 stats: Speed, Handling, Grip, and Boost. This is where I've encountered that certain vehicles start out WAY to OP for the game. Any vehicle that has high grip and handling can easily beat most races as they can turn on a dime and not lose any speed. On the higher classes it because ridiculous on how unbalanced it is. Taking them on the winter levels is fun as you can drift every corner without trying and lap the AI without any trouble. Your vehicles can also receive damage during the races. Receiving damage will slowly make your vehicle slower and handle worse. Fully damaging your vehicle makes you lose the race. After each race, you will be deducted so many credits to fix your vehicle based on how much your car is worth and how much your car was damaged. This is a good concept, BUT in the later A class races, where your cars cost $2,000,000+, this makes getting money impossible. Most races in A class on Normal Difficulty net you about 300k, but just one SCRATCH on your A class car can cost you 50k. This being added with the AI loving to be smash happy, you will be lucky to get even $1000 after the race. You can also customize the paintjob on all your vehicles as well, though it is very basic. Chose a decal/design and change the colors.

There is no options menu to speak of. It's very basic. It has OK sounds but will get annoying. It has 1 music track and it's horrible, but you can turn it off.

As you can see this is a very mixed bag for me. But I only spent maybe 0.50¢ so I can't complain too much. Most people that I've noticed that gave this a positive review never actually made it to the later classes to experience how unbalanced the game is. You won't be able to get a class A car in only a few hours. It took me about 5 hours to get my first A class car.


Pros:
- Lots of tracks
- Lots of cars to select
- Runs at a smooth 60FPS
- Loads real fast, easy to jump in a race within seconds
- Will probably run on a potato
- Achievements
- Steam Cards

Cons:
- Outdated graphics
- Repetitive races/tracks
- Only 2 areas
- Empty Worlds
- Stupid/unforgiving AI
- Dead MP
- Pointless FreeRoam Mode
- Car Stats are not well balanced
- Sub-par sounds and horrible music


For a company that later goes and creates one of my most favorite Dungeon-Crawling FPS games Ziggurat, you can see they grew and learned a lot and can truly make great games.