When you’re making a karting sport however not bought the cash to splash on a licence, you are able to do so much worse than selecting rubber geese. There’s clearly one thing timeless about them, as our children had been extra excited to play this than any Garfield, Gigantosaurus or Nickelodeon kart racer. In my case, I used to be whipped up in some Wave Race, Hydro Thunder nostalgia, and was properly up for driving the waves to victory. Both means, there have been 4 gamers desirous to play this one.
We had been nearly excited sufficient to overlook the £24.99 price ticket. It’s the identical mistake that Joindots made with emoji Kart Racer: slapping an extremely excessive, unjustifiable price ticket on a karting sport that’s too meager to make it worthwhile. Or perhaps it’s not a mistake, as they’re making that mistake for a second time. There’s each probability they know greater than we do.
In some ways, Rubberduck Wave Racer is all the things you’ll hope it to be. It’s four-player domestically (no on-line multiplayer, natch, however we suspect we wouldn’t be getting a sport if it was included), with sixteen tracks which might be all refreshingly totally different from one another. These tracks are the fundamental template of a Mario Kart, permitting sufficient familiarity to creep in that anybody may decide up a pad and perceive what they should do. However the tracks have been flooded with water, and it’s via the eddies and currents of that liquid that Rubberduck Wave Racer feels authentic. At the very least, when you’re not sufficiently old to be introduced up on Wave Race 64.
Squint, and there’s a fairly good karting sport right here. It’s notably true of the degrees, that are leaps and bounds past these in emoji Kart Racer. They transfer round in a real 3D area, sloshing round corners and pouring over waterfalls. There are secret routes that – confusingly – aren’t at all times useful. They usually’re all dressed in a different way, as we discovered ourselves powersliding round water parks, volcanic caverns and what appears to be a Sealife Centre. Even the liquid adjustments. We’re undecided we’ll ever get to race on milk once more.
However lose the squint and focus slightly, and also you’ll discover a water-based karting sport that’s overloaded with points. You’ll be able to’t transfer for them. After each nook, you’ll donk into a brand new one.
We’ve by no means needed to dodge ramps in a karting sport earlier than. When you hit a leap you’ll be ridiculously airborne, however the large leap you make shall be slower than racing there your self. Worst nonetheless, when you land, you’re a skipping stone, transferring once more at a extra restricted velocity, with the added bonus of being uncontrolled. The digital camera additionally sticks to the bottom of your duck, so you possibly can’t see the place you’re going. Principally, hitting a ramp is a surefire method to lose locations, so you find yourself avoiding them as a lot as doable. Which – we’ll guess – shouldn’t be what the designers supposed.
Hit a wall, and also you’ll turn into one with it. You’re now a wall-duck hybrid, screaming ‘kill me’ on the passing opponents. We’re undecided why Rubberduck Wave Racer can’t deal with wall collisions, nevertheless it panics and scrunches you right into a single rubbery mass which you can’t get out of. All you are able to do is press B to respawn.
Respawning will get to turn into a hell of a drug. While you respawn, you might be transferring quick, if not sooner than you had been earlier than, with just about no distinction in inserting. It’s completely doable to win a race by spamming the respawn button. It’s not an issue we’ve encountered in a karter earlier than: it’s so unpunishing with its respawn button that you just quickly be taught to press it instantly after any hit in any way so that you just lose zero floor. It’s all a little bit of a cheat.
We’ve listed off a couple of of the curiosities which might be the constructing blocks of Rubberduck Wave Racer. It’s exhausting to say that it’s a nasty sport for all of those quirks, since you possibly can adapt and dwell with them. However it’s so idiosyncratically odd in consequence, to the diploma that we wouldn’t get some mates spherical to play it: we’d must print out a cribsheet so they may perceive its weirdnesses.
Take the cornering. Urgent brake is for fools. When you ever press brake, you might be in a sudden cease and it’ll take many, many seconds so that you can return to high velocity. As a substitute, you’re letting go of the accelerator, which manages to hold your velocity the place it was, but enhance the dealing with. There aren’t any downsides to taking your foot off the gasoline and sliding round a nook. Once more, you be taught it, however you surprise why it was like that within the first place.
It makes Rubberduck Wave Racer one thing of an eccentric dandy, which was lower than best for our children. They bounced off it like rubber, mockingly. The primary stage is, befuddlingly, one of the crucial troublesome, with a number of sharp turns, and Rubberduck Wave Racer does not do sharp turns properly. There have been fixed unsuitable turns, grinding in opposition to partitions (and changing into one with them, kill meeee) and failure, just because they hadn’t discovered to take the foot off the gasoline on corners, spam the respawn button, and numerous different bizarro ways. And who would know that? There’s definitely no enough tutorial. It’s important to come to those conclusions your self.
Scoring Rubberduck Wave Racer is hard. It presents as a inventory Mario Kart racer, albeit with geese on a log flume. However play it as Mario Kart, and you’ll find yourself jackknifing into corners and shedding lots. Be taught what it desires from you, nevertheless – and what it desires will typically make little or no sense – and there’s enjoyable to be discovered.
Avoiding jumps, plowing via obstacles, ignoring weapons and respawning like your life trusted it: these are usually not the actions of a sane karter. However grasp Rubberduck Wave Racer’s arcane arts and you’ve got a surprisingly well-stocked racing sport. It’s nonetheless nowhere close to price that £24.99, although.
