NeoSprint review – world’s oldest racer

The latest attempt to revive a classic Atari franchise sees top-down racer Sprint take to the track once again, with eight-player local co-op.

Atari’s an odd brand. Despite being the company that helped kick off the entire concept of commerical video games, since the late 80s it’s been marooned in the wilderness. The failure of the Lynx handheld and misguided Jaguar console were followed by several corporate takeovers, none of which did anything to alter most players’ impression that it had become a sad shadow of its former glory… even if its logo still looked cool on T-shirts.

Still, in its day Atari was a force to be reckoned with, and when Sprint 2, its two-player isometric arcade racing game, was released in 1976 it was unstoppable. That was followed by Sprint 4 and 8, which simply added more players, and Super Sprint in the 80s, which is arguably the most famous version as it was treated to the most home conversions.

The series’ most recent release was Badlands in 1989, a post-apocalyptic remix of Championship Sprint, that had come out three years prior. And then the franchise went dark for a staggering 35 years – which may well be a record gap between sequels – before delivering today’s NeoSprint.

NeoSprint’s pitch is straightforward to say the least, in that it too is an isometric arcade-style racing game. Up to eight players can take part and they can do so on the same console and sofa, with all the banter and spilled drinks that implies.

Looking distinctly retro, with its cel-shading and smooth textures, it also uses analogue-style sound effects, your car having no audible gear changes, just a steady rising engine note as you accelerate, presumably to reinforce the sense that you’re driving a remote control car rather than a human-scale one.

That makes sense given the default fixed top-down view, which lets you see the entire circuit at all times. That means when you’re driving towards the camera the steering controls are effectively reversed, something that turns out to be far more intuitive and easy to manage than it sounds.

The fixed viewpoint also means your car would normally be blocked from view going under bridges or when driving past larger pieces of trackside scenery. To get around that, the blocking items turn transparent, letting you see your car through the scenery, but in the first of a number of peculiar design choices, only certain types of scenery do that.

When you drive behind trees or foliage they remain resolutely opaque, which causes accidental collisions, especially when you’re being buffeted about by the pack. Also, while you can see your car through the top of bridges, it’s a lot harder to make out the edges of the track, which again means that sections are obscured by other pieces of track – a frequent occurrence in its tight, twisty circuits – so it’s all too easy to crash into edges you can’t even see.

To add to the list of minor frustrations, there are both banked corners and parts of the track that slope up and down, all of which are tricky to interpret from a fixed perspective, but that make very noticeable differences to the way your car handles. From causing understeer going into uphill corners to making you corner as though on rails, when you hit a turn at the bottom of a slope, it creates yet more ways to fail that aren’t your fault.

Along with accelerate and brake, there’s a handbrake to assist in drifting around corners, which works just fine, albeit only with cars that have lower cornering ability. That becomes more important as you progress through the championships, with twistier courses appearing later on. These force you to change cars to keep up, matching circuits’ shorter straights and hairpins with cars featuring better acceleration and cornering rather than a high top speed.

Also included is a TrackBuilder, that lets you construct your own circuits, with both track pieces and roadside decoration unlocked as you make progress through the single-player championships. It’s well made and very straightforward to use, even if it can be tricky positioning the cursor from a diagonal viewpoint.

The real problem though, is that racing just isn’t much fun. The controls and handling model are so ruthlessly primitive that the process of driving isn’t particularly enjoyable. When you’ve left the pack behind it’s a bit dull, and when you’re in the thick of it, the unwelcome random factor of competitors bouncing off barriers and each other, means you can lose the race without putting a foot wrong.

That’s par for the course against your mates, but in single-player it’s mildly infuriating. It can also be hard to pick out your car amongst the melee, especially when races are against seven competitors. That’s partially mitigated by hitting a shoulder button to show an arrow over your car, but the fact that that’s even an option says it all.

The whole package feels undercooked, which is emphasised by the way Atari’s heritage is included. Rather than letting it inspire track designs or rival drivers, their old games are strewn about meaninglessly, so one driver has a uniform saying Jaguar on it, while another appears in front of a backdrop that says Centipede. As with much else about the game, it feels perfunctory rather than considered.

Along with the 130-race Campaign mode, there’s Grand Prix that lets you play a single cup; Free Race, which is a single track; and finally Obstacle Course, which is Campaign again but with oil slicks, road cones, and speed-up chevrons on the track – their addition doing little to elevate the disappointing core gameplay.

From its charmless cel-shaded cars to forgettable tracks and a lack of online racing options, NeoSprint has very little going for it. It’s barely a nostalgia trigger and it can’t hold a candle to modern equivalents such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – it’s arguably not even as good as the original coin-ops it’s trying to emulate. Hamstrung by its primitive controls and basic handling model, NeoSprint is crude, underdeveloped, and has almost nothing to offer modern gaming.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £19.99
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Headless Chicken Games
Release Date: 27th June 2024
Age Rating: 3

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