Bears Can’t Drift!? Review

<p>Sure&comma; bears can&&num;8217&semi;t drift&comma; but that never stopped a bandicoot in <em>Crash Team Racing<&sol;em> or Donkey Kong in any <em>Mario Kart <&sol;em>game&period; Stereotypes are meant to be broken&comma; but <em>Bears Can&&num;8217&semi;t Drift&excl;&quest; <&sol;em>is more inclined to just be a good time than break down barriers of race and species&period; The four player cart racing game offers plenty of fun with people&comma; but lacks many of the mechanics that encourage playing by yourself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There&&num;8217&semi;s a simplicity to <em>Bears Can&&num;8217&semi;t Drift&excl;&quest; <&sol;em>which most games often refuse to try to attain for many reasons&period; When you start up the game&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re dropped onto a race track and pick the difficulty for your play session by simply driving through either the left&comma; right or center of a track&period; The center is the easiest difficulty as you drive straight to your entrance&comma; while the left side is the normal difficulty&comma; and the right side is the more difficult one entailing drifting and falling off a cliff to reach the same destination as the others&period; Already I was smitten with the game&&num;8217&semi;s interesting decision to remove a menu to select the difficulty&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Then you get to a hub world which allows you to pick between three different environments&comma; each with multiple tracks to race on&period; Then those multiple tracks have three different game modes to participate in&comma; each cycled through by simply pressing a button&period; You might think it&&num;8217&semi;s weird for me to be focusing so heavily on something as simple as not having menus&comma; but it is one of the game&&num;8217&semi;s unique charms and helps keep things streamlined&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109456" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109456" style&equals;"width&colon; 1600px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109456" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03132112&sol;0010&lowbar;ForestTrack3&period;png" alt&equals;"Bears Can't Drift&excl;&quest;" width&equals;"1600" height&equals;"867" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109456" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Bears Can&&num;8217&semi;t Drift&excl;&quest;<&sol;em>&comma; Strangely Named Studio&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Unfortunately&comma; the game streamlines a bit too much&period; By having three game modes for each track&comma; tracks don&&num;8217&semi;t always feel customized for a specific mode&period; There are your traditional races&comma; time trials&comma; and then a Picnic mode where you aim to collect as many pieces of food as possible by finding it on the track or taking it from players&period; The problems arise in that Picnic mode is designed as a form of the traditional battle arena&period; It felt like lots of tracks were designed for this mode and so&comma; when you go into modes like Time Trial or Race&comma; you can wind up falling off the course fairly easily&period; Mind you&comma; this encourages drifting more but that leads me to my next complaint &&num;8211&semi; the drifting isn&&num;8217&semi;t particularly fun&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For a game called <em>Bears Can&&num;8217&semi;t Drift&excl;&quest;&comma; <&sol;em>you&&num;8217&semi;d think that the drifting would be fun&comma; but while it is insanely simple &lpar;the mantra for this game&comma; it seems&rpar;&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s also not very effective&period; You can&&num;8217&semi;t always see over a hill where you might fly off&comma; but there was probably a turn right after the mound that required you to drift a bit&period; You didn&&num;8217&semi;t see it though&comma; and now you&&num;8217&semi;re off the map completely&period; Sometimes you even see that a drift is necessary but you don&&num;8217&semi;t quite realize how long to drift before you&&num;8217&semi;re bouncing off a wall&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a problem with the environment design that finds its poor designs reverberating throughout the different game modes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Fortunately&comma; the game is pretty&period; It doesn&&num;8217&semi;t have a very distinct soundtrack to it&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s visually scrumptious&period; Running on Unreal Engine 4&comma; the game is reminiscent of N64-era 3D platformers like <em>Banjo Kazooie <&sol;em>or <em>Donkey Kong 64 <&sol;em>in its art style&period; The way the hub worlds work is also akin to those games&comma; but it only goes as far as that&period; I feel a lot of the game&&num;8217&semi;s style is unique&comma; and I would definitely look forward to seeing more games in this aesthetic&period; But if it&&num;8217&semi;s a cart racing game&comma; it will need to be willing to sacrifice some of its simplicity for a more engaging experience&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109455" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109455" style&equals;"width&colon; 1600px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109455" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03132135&sol;0002&lowbar;InRace2&period;png" alt&equals;"Bears Can't Drift&excl;&quest;" width&equals;"1600" height&equals;"867" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109455" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Bears Can&&num;8217&semi;t Drift&excl;&quest;<&sol;em>&comma; Strangely Named Studio&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Even when competing in a race&comma; the game doesn&&num;8217&semi;t really penalize players for losing&comma; meaning they don&&num;8217&semi;t really feel any stakes&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s a significant thing to opt out of doing&period; The game will reward players for doing well&comma; but doing poorly is never punished&period; The worst you&&num;8217&semi;ll get is frustration&comma; which you can find in other aspects of the game already&period; Take&comma; for example&comma; the weapons&comma; which are your standard cart racing weapons&comma; but with different skins more tied to the bear theme&period; Weapons are interesting because you can combine them to create more powerful weapons as well&comma; but there is still room for more compelling types&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It&&num;8217&semi;s all fine in the name of warfare though&comma; and that is where <em>Bear&&num;8217&semi;s Cant Drift&excl;&quest; <&sol;em>shines&period; Specifically local warfare &lpar;there is no online support&comma; which is a bummer&rpar; where the game will let three other players including yourself drop in for some competitive action&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s when it starts to get hectic&comma; and the multiple weapons come into play to create havoc for other players&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a fun time and easily the best part of the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you&&num;8217&semi;re looking for a really good single player experience though&comma; <em>Bears Can&&num;8217&semi;t Drift&excl;&quest; <&sol;em>will not offer you that&period; It is clearly designed around having local multiplayer&comma; which explains many of the decisions regarding environment design and its simplicity&period; No need to toy around with a bunch of settings&comma; just pick up and play&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a novel idea on the surface&comma; but you realize what costs it comes with and immediately recognize the reason for some complexity&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A PC review copy was provided by Strangely Names Studio for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;