Well, someone on the development team for Mad Tracks is a big fan of Mario Kart because they are very similar. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the nice balance of weapons that Mario Kart has. I had heard good things about Mad Tracks before it was released on a couple podcasts I listen to so I had thought about buying the game without trying the trial first. I’m glad I did not because that would have been a waste of $10.

The game comes with 15 single player events and a pretty decent multiplayer offering. If the actual racing was fun it might be worth the cost since it looks pretty good graphically. But, the racing is pain. Instead of having the normal racing style where you pull the right trigger to go and left to brake they have added a power spring. As you hold down the accelerator the spring slowly drains. When it reaches the bottom you’re basically out of power and have to release the accelerator to get it back. Ideally you would release the gas during jumps and going down hill to get your power level back up, but in my experience there are not enough places to get your power back. I was regularly running out of juice at the bottom of big uphill climbs. At first I thought it was just that I was not use to the system so I replayed a couple races to try and get the hang of it and I still was having the same issue. Maybe someone can explain to me how this is suppose to work and I’ll give it another try, but as it is right now I don’t plan to try the game again let alone purchase it.

Additionally, there are 9 offensive attacks and 3 defensive (assuming you count an oil slick as defensive). This is great if you are always racing from behind because it is a lot easier to attack than it is to defend. On the other hand once you get the lead it is very hard to keep it. I’d suspect that most racers prefer to race from the lead (seriously, who doesn’t?) so this makes it very frustrating.

For those of you who do buy Mad Tracks keep in mind that they are planning on releasing 2 packs of DLC that will each add another 15 events for the cost or $4.37 each. That brings the total cost for the game up to $18.74. If they had charged $5 for the game then I could see charging an additional $3 or $4 for the add on packs, but at this price it is just ridiculously expensive for an Xbox Live Arcade game. Since they announced that these DLC packs were coming before the game was released it feels like they intentionally withheld parts of the game so they can sell them as add on packs to make more money. That is just annoying.

If you’re into kart style racers and you can get use to the strange acceleration system Mad Tracks is probably just what you’re looking for. For the rest of us save your money and hope for a better game next week.