Tiny Cars!!! (Toybox Turbos)

Game: Toybox Turbos
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows
Played On: Xbox 360
Price: £7.99
Available on Xbox Game Pass: No

Today I played the free offering from the Xbox Games with Gold scheme for April and downloaded Toybox Turbos, a 2014 real was developed and published by Codemasters. To be honest I wasn’t expecting anything truly exceptional but it was free and I’m in lockdown so I thought why not?? I might as well play it then I can at least bring a small amount of content to you! I know, you’re all incredibly lucky.

The game we have here is a call back to the old Micro Machines game on PS1 and Nintendo 64, curiously they were also developed by Codemasters and it was a game I used to own and have played and I have to say I thought it was amazing. So really this leads me to a question, why have they made a game, almost identical to a previous title they own but not made a remake?? The game was good enough.

As much as I love remakes and think there’s plenty of games that could do with one, I also enjoy new things and new ideas and applaud ambition, but this is essentially a carbon copy of what’s been made before, so why not just say it a Micro Machines game. I will assume it’s due to some copyright issues and ownership of licenses but the 2010’s was the decade of the throwback, why not just send out a nostalgia pack and see what happens, we all know were not going to be playing Game of the Year here. So that answers that question. But does it play like it did before.

Yes mostly, maybe a little more polished as it’s a 360 game I’m playing, but it still had that sort of top down camera and the tracks were things like desks with pencil barriers or school science labs with Bunsen burner hazards so it still had the same gameplay elements just a bit more vibrant and precise. The game offers a single player mode with 7 cups to choose from, beating one cup unlocks the other and so on. In each cup there are a few different game types such as races or time trials and as you’d expect they get herder the more you progress. All standard stuff.

With the game sticking to its Micro Machine principals it’s also has shortcuts in the track and these become crucial to beating levels so there is an element of learning each track and knowing how to utilise is boundaries. With the difficulty ramp up we also learn the importance of the weapon boxes to win or break your opponents. Crucially for me these mechanic aren’t forced on you but as you play the game you realise you must use these to win so you do get that sense of reward for your learning.

That being said it has its downsides too, the difficulty ramp up is extreme and caught me off guard a few times and this can lead to frustration, the physics aren’t good either and you will find yourself getting a little annoyed as to why you can be thrown over the map but your computer opponents can’t. It’s short too, offering roughly 4-5 hours of game time, and through about the third cup you’ve gone around every track the game has to offer.

This games okay, nothing more than that, it gives off the feeling of laziness and does become repetitive, luckily as I said the games short so that doesn’t become an issue but any longer you’ll be becoming rather fed up with the game.

But it is what it is, this is a game that stayed on the 360 platform 6 months after the Xbox One came out and never was put on that console, yes it’s backwards comparable now but it shows there was little faith that this game was going to be anything more than a few hours fun. Honestly if I had to pay for this game, I would have felt ripped off, it’s nothing more than a free game and sadly that’s not what’s on offer here, (it only being free in April with Games with Gold) so I’m glad I played it when I did. Next time just do a remake of the Micro Machines game.

4/10

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