I’m a believer

I have always been a sucker for kart racing games. I enjoy good ones, and even not-so-good ones. There is just something about getting an outlandish cast of characters and racing around unique tracks. There have certainly been some obscure ones, but Dreamworks All-Star Kart Racing might take the cake here. Who was really clamoring to race as characters from Kung-Fu Panda and Madagascar? Still the developers have done what they can with the license they have, and we end up with a competent, yet somewhat bland kart racing game that will struggle to find an audience.

Let’s start with the roster. I will admit when I first got the game, I was expecting a lot of Shrek characters, but was quickly reminded of all the movies that Dreamworks has had over the years. There are some weird choices here too. The Bad Guys, Boss Baby, and even Trolls. Yeah, those Trolls, not the quirky 80’s horror movie Troll. There are a lot of deep cuts here too. Of course, Shrek and Fiona make an appearance, but we also get Oogway from Kung-Fu Panda and Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon. There are certainly plenty of characters and they even have decent soundalikes doing the voices, but sadly their lines are extremely limited, which means they get annoyingly repetitive.

MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $29.99

The main mode is the Cup mode, and it contains five cups, each with four tracks spanning the full Dreamworks universe. This means there are 20 tracks in total and to be fair, they are pretty well designed. Sadly, the music included for each one is a generic track that isn’t pulled directly from the movies. This makes sense as most of these films contain licensed music, and for a game of this magnitude I wasn’t expecting them to license bands like Smash Mouth.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Mario is certainly beaming right now. One thing that Dreamworks gets right is that it feels great. Almost as if the developer took all the mechanics and physics from Nintendo’s flagship title and mirrored them down to every nuance. Drifting works the same, the karts feel like they have the same weight. The weapons are similar, if forgettable. Playing the game is fun, and that is what matters the most when it comes to these types of games. Everything just feels fun to play.

I was not a fan of how difficulties work. There are different speeds on the menu, but this is a misnomer. Instead, these are more like difficulties. If there is a difference of speed it is minimal. I couldn’t tell the difference between one and the next outside of getting stomped by the super aggressive AI. This game can be rough at higher difficulties, so I suggest finding the one that works for you and sticking with it.

Visually the game matches its modes, it is vanilla on all fronts. The characters are recognizable, just not very impressive. The tracks look fine if uninspired. The game just doesn’t do anything exceptional. As I mentioned earlier the music is completely arbitrary and the lack of licensed tunes really hurts it. This game just doesn’t stand out in any facet as far as presentation is concerned. I did boot it up on Xbox One to see how things are holding up over there…and just don’t do that. It is rough.

Dreamworks All-Star Kart Racing is the definition of fine. The game plays well and the tracks are fun to traverse, but who was clamoring for a kart racer featuring Shrek and Puss and Boots? This is the hardest sell as Dreamworks has some interesting franchises, but not sure anyone was begging for games built in this universe. Still if you find yourself playing it it is the most non-offensive game I have seen in a while. It does what it sets out to do, it just doesn’t excel at any one particular thing.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.