Wednesday, 14 June 2017

Toybox Turbos


Who remembers Micro Machines? Those tiny cars furiously driving around a pool table, trying to take each other out of the game with anything at hand, be it a giant hammer, a pool ball or even an opposing car as a blocker.

Toybox Turbos is the spiritual successor to Micro Machines by which I mean pretty much the same game. Both are developed and published by Codemasters and both follow a similar theme; Top down racing around unconventional tracks like breakfast tables, pool tables, science rooms etc. Toybox Turbos is one of those games that is always good to have, its great for parties or groups of friends and even playing solo as its quick, easy, colourful and above all, fun.Veteran racing game players wont have an advantage here, the specifications of  the car are non existent but that doesn't mean tactics aren't rewarded; Taking a car on the inside will give you the lead but also let your opponents sit in your slip stream to gain some speed on you, and when weapons are involved all bets are off. The weapons you have access to Toybox Turbos offer different effects but they all mainly slow you opponents down; The hammer allows you to smash another car to smithereens but limits you to a handful of uses before it disappears. The magnet is a great way of getting back into the race if you've dropped behind, it locks onto a car in whichever direction you're facing and rapidly draws you nearer to it, my personal favourite way of using the magnet is just before you're about to go over a jump as you get to lock onto a car in front of you and launch yourself off into the distance. The machine gun is what it sounds like. Its a rapid fire gun that last for a short period of time,  but it does lock onto whoever is in front of you and, if hit enough, will blow them up. The EMP is probably the least effective weapon as it only hits cars in your general vicinity, as opposed to something like the machine guy, but for a few seconds it does slow down the effected cars and send them veering left and right. The land mines are fun. You can pick these up mid race or, if the race has gone on too long, they will spawn on the track randomly. Land mines cause the car that hit it to flip into the air, losing speed and maybe not even landing the right way up,  I  had a lot of fun trying to do some sweet flips whenever I hit one just to make it look like I meant to drive into it.

There are also pitfall built into the tracks. Land mines aside, on some tracks you will come across fire, maybe from a Bunsen burner or a gas hob, and this will give your car a boost in speed which could win you a point, but could just as easily blow you up if you hit anything, including other cars. The car you hit however is now in the same situation you were just in, so it could end up as a chain reaction of cars being lit on fire and blowing each other up.
The cars are all cosmetic so there isn't really a case of the fastest car or the most resilient to damage, but some of them have fun horns like the Ice cream truck or the Milk float. Others, like the Mini or the Double Decker bus, have normal horns but there is humor value in watching a Mini, an Ice cream truck, a Digger and a Double Decker bus line up to battle it out.

The objective is to get to ten points which is done by getting ahead of the pack, at which point the bottom of the screen will start eating the last place car. Each time this happens, first place gets two points, second place gets one point, third place loses one point and last place loses two points.

All in all I think Toybox Turbos is a fantastic game and will always result in laughs, especially when alcohol is involved.

Thanks for reading and keep checking back to Game Changers fore more gaming news and updates.

No comments:

Post a Comment