Cruis'n Blast (Arcade) Review

Following on from the trend of previous games in the franchise, Cruis'n Blast features five stages based on real world locations - Death Valley, Madagascar, London, Rio de Janeiro and Singapore, ranging from easy to hard difficulty, respectively.

There are a variety of licensed vehicles to choose from, including Nissan GT-R, Hummer HX, Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and five different Lamborghinis. All of the vehicles have a selection of colours and have slightly different stats when it comes to handling, speed and acceleration.

Additional to these licensed vehicles, there are a further eight bonus vehicles unlocked from the start. These are actually the traffic vehicles from the game's five levels, so they range from a double-decker bus for London or a triceratops representing… uhhh… Madagascar…

The game's unit is well built and well lit. Kitted out by Raw Thrills, the aesthetics are on point for a game in this genre; flashy, bright and fitted with neon lights. In fact, Raw Thrills is a company that has its roots embedded with the Cruis'n franchise, as it was founded by the lead designer and programmer of the original Cruis'n games.

Like most arcade racers, up to four participants can take part in a race, but unlike similar titles, Cruis'n Blast offers no manual/gearbox option, and in fact doesn't even have a brake pedal. The unit actually only consists of an acceleration pedal, which if double tapped allows the user to wheelie, inverted-front flip over other racers, drift around corners, and barrel roll over jumps. Performing these stunts allows the player to build a boost meter, which can be performed by punching the bright green button next to the steering wheel. A slight frustration arises from this method of input in that "double-tapping" the accelerator does everything you want it to do. This means a slightly frantic double tap results in doing something that you don't want the car to do.

At the start of each race there is an option to upgrade the body, engine, boost or other aspects of the car. If you play more regularly, then the game allows a pin code log-in process, which means that user keeps all the upgrades to their car - something that first featured in Cruis'n Exotica from 2000. However, in allowing the player to do this, the game becomes abundantly much easier. It only takes two races with one car to fully max out the stats and storm your way to victory. In fact, in the 20 races played personally, all but two of them were victories, and most of the time without maxing out any stats.

Race times and scores can be shared to a central leaderboard on the Raw Thrills website, and also to Twitter and Facebook via a QR code supplied on screen at the end of the race.

The cars handle near enough all the same, so it's probably best to go for speed. It does feel like not much thought went into the handling, so that's why updating your engine will give a much larger advantage when racing, mainly just for raw power.

The tracks are bright, vibrant and full of character. The visuals are not ground-breaking, but nonetheless feel current for 2017. The tracks all revolve around some sort of disaster, where there are earthquakes in Death Valley or chaos in London. The main issue with the game is that the tracks are all too short, roughly only lasting around 90 seconds each. Furthermore, the car often clips through terrain and obstacles, which allows for good flow throughout the race, but means that no skill is often required to win.