Worst Game Ever?? (Scalextric)

Game: Scalextric
Platforms: Xbox One, iOS, Android
Played on: Xbox One
Price: £9.99 (UK/EU Only)
Available on Xbox Game Pass: No

I’ve mentioned my hobby of achievement hunting a few times and do get asked what draws me to it, to me it’s the varying games I can play, some easy, some hard, some good, and every now and then we get a game that truly awful, so that brings me to this game, 2018 release Scalextric, Developed by Sabec. This game has sort of become legendary in achievement hunting circles and that’s because it’s got a reputation for not being the best game ever made and that’s putting it lightly, in fact it’s one of the lowest reviewed games in the market right now.

Now I have my own rules when it comes to getting achievements from ‘easy games’ and these are:
Must be worth the money.
Must be on sale.
Other than that I don’t have any hard and fast rule as to what I’ll play and somethings this has worked out for me, I’ve played some very good indie games I’ve picked up for not a lot of money, Brothers: Tale of Two Sons, What Remains of Edith Finch. But I will be honest for every good game I find, there’s a string 5 or 6 that come before it that are just not good in anyway shape or form, so will this game live up to it’s terrible reviews or will I be in for a surprise??

The trick in this one is to beat the AI on the 12 different tracks in the game which are; Brazil, Spain, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Belgium, United States, Mexico, Abu Dhabi, Australia and Malaysia. Seems simple enough, even more simple when there’s only two buttons to worry about, right trigger accelerates, left trigger brakes (I never used this, I just eased off the gas) there is also a change camera button but this changes the camera from a very nauseous angle to your only other option, a slightly less nauseous angle.

Handily the AI are already set in the difficulty we need to beat them (not that it makes any difference as the AI can either be really good or awful), so choose your car (they all are identical in speed) choose your track and we’re away!! Let’s go racing!! Each race is 5 laps (it is changeable in the settings but only to more laps), only not that you’d know as the lap counter is attached to the start finish line and impossible to see. The AI will immediately speed off into the distance, there’s nothing you can do about that so it’s just focusing on staying on track as your faster in the straights. Staying in track is all about finesse (I’m using that term lightly) as there is no steering in this game, it is just right trigger.  It coming off is crucial as the AI might never come off or have Crashy McCrashcrash behind the wheel, it truly is a lottery.

The lottery continues with which corners you’ll come off at, there are the obvious ones that you can tell you’ll need to slow down, and the ones you’ll take flat out and ease through 3 laps but on lap 4 you’ll be sent into oblivion and flying off the track, costing you the win. ‘But I can just pause the game and restart like in any other game!!’ I hear you cry and for that statement I laugh in your face!! There’s no pause menu, your options are wait for the race to finish or exit to dashboard, quit the game and restart it... which as the start up time is short, isn’t the worst option.

Once you’ve got that sweet taste of victory you can move in to the next track, so after the race you wait, and wait, and wait, and then realise your games crashed and that that you need to exit to dashboard, quit the game and restart, this is after every single race you win, every one, I don’t know how some games get released at times.

The game doesn’t even look good, the graphics are okay, but it’s just black track on a brown floor with a few colourful things in the background to give the impression of a kids room, it’s just all so lazy.

In conclusion what we have here is a game that’s fundamentally broken, has one button to use and seems to have been put together rapidly, so rapidly you don’t know what AI you’re going to get. I might see some small novelty value in maybe the 2 player mode but I can’t help but see this as a cash grab to those who like to beef up there Gamerscore, especially standing at £10. I got this game in sale at £2 and I’d still say I’ve paid way over the odds for the experience of pressing a button for an hour.

So yes if you’re happy, like me, playing anything for achievements then get this game, I was done in just over an hour and that’s while I wrote this. But any person with a normal mind avoid it at all costs, it’s not worth even looking at. It gets small marks for me enjoying the gimmick for 5 minutes. Sadly all we have is another game to make the achievement hunting community look stupid.

0.5/10

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