Top-down racers are some of my favourite arcade experiences and in recent years more of these games have made the leap towards something more sim-like. Pretend Cars Racing does away with powerups or any gimmicks and places you in a pure racing challenge against various AI and an always-connected hot lap leaderboard. The result is something that compels you to keep playing as a new challenge is given every lap.
The handling in Pretend Cars Racing is grippy initially but slidey if you go in too hot to a corner. You can’t drift your way around the 30 tracks in the game, you have to brake, turn and accelerate properly and that’s one of the main selling points. There are 6 car classes too. Each class has its own stats so expect the hot hatches to be pointy and nippy whilst the formula cars blast along at a riotous pace but can’t take hairpins well at all. It makes for interesting car and track combinations as some are clearer better combinations than others but that doesn’t stop you from setting up your own challenge.
I’d recommend tweaking things because Pretend Cars Racing is connected to Steam leaderboards for every car and track combination. Each time you cross the line and beat your best time, your leaderboard position updates. This happens in hotlapping, multiplayer or single player career mode so there is always something to race for whether leading by a mile or a lap behind the field. Whilst 2 player splitscreen racing is present and works smoothly, Pretend Cars Racing is geared towards a single player experience. The career mode starts you off in a low class car for a 4-race cup. Score enough points to be in the top 3 in the cup and you can move up to the next car class, with new tracks to beat. This is a great way to be introduced to each car type whilst experiencing different tracks and the nuance of racing.
The tracks are quite narrow in Pretend Cars Racing… and the cars are quite long. This leads to a large amount of jostling and turning car racing into a contact sport. The AI stick to their racing lines and will happily biff you out of the way. Quite often they’ll move across on a straight or pinch you in a corner and the merest of touches sends your car spearing off into the grass. It is frustrating and although you can do them dirty too, it is very difficult to race cleanly and fairly in Pretend Cars Racing. Lap 1, turn 1 – hold back and expect carnage. Initially, this made me quite annoyed but after a while, I learnt to spot where the AI likes to cause problems most and avoided going near them at those bends.
Whilst racing against 6 AI is fun in career and custom races, the gem in this game’s crown is its GT and Prototype racing. It is multiclass, giving you 11 cars on track split across the two classes. With tracks taking about 30 seconds to complete a lap, you start lapping cars by lap 3 or 4 and the precision, speed and strategy to block your opponents and deal with traffic is intense. Most of my custom races were spent trying out the multiclass format on loads of tracks to see what chaos I could create and it’s simply the best time I had in Pretend Cars Racing. Solo developer Patricio Marin is already working on a sequel to this 2023 release and I hope this is expanded upon alongside some AI improvements.
Aside from some aggressively naughty AI, there is little to complain about. It takes a while to get used to the nudgey handling and sometimes it’s more of a reward to cut chicanes rather than race them properly but these are all minor nuances that become part of the tactics to win a race. Custom race allows you to set up longer races if you’d like them and whilst damage and pitstops would have been an “even better if” – I think it is a wise omission given the carnage that the longer cars cause on the narrow tracks. Pretend Cars Racing is a decent game for its price point and is well worth picking up even if a sequel is on the way. You’ll get plenty of hours of racing out of it before that arrives and you’ll be ready on the grid for round 2.
Review copy provided by the developer. Pretend Cars Racing is out on PC.
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