Game Reviews

Monkey Racing

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iOS
| Monkey Racing
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Monkey Racing
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iOS
| Monkey Racing

Remember when all you had to do was put a monkey in your game and it would be awesome?

No, I don't remember such a time either. Some developers seem to think that's the case, though.

Take Monkey Racing, for instance.

Monkeying around

I'm tempted to start by saying that this is another Mario Kart clone, but that wouldn't strictly be true. Monkey Racing only pays lip service to Nintendo's classic franchise.

Mario Kart has always been concerned with tight, nimble racing around some of the most ingeniously twisty courses ever designed. Monkey Racing sends you through a series of bland, gutless point-to-point stages that barely require you to steer at all.

In fact, your main incentive to change direction is to pick up the power-ups that are over-judiciously scattered throughout each level. These are limited to just three varieties, and they require virtually no skill to execute.

Doody kong racing

Homing rockets will find their target provided you're roughly on the same line as your opponent, while the close-proximity attack will take out anything in, well, close proximity.

The other special is a dull old shield that will block incoming attacks. You can also run over a temporary speed booster, which is about the only way you'll inject any real pace into these races.

A combination of the lack of any requirement for racing skill and these frequent, overbearing power-ups, means that Monkey Racing isn't really a racing game at all.

It's more like a level-based endless runner (bit of an oxymoron that, sorry) where you simply need to press buttons at the right moment. I'm tempted to say that even a monkey could play it.

There's the illusion of racing gameiness with a between-races upgrade system, but really, it's not fooling anyone.

Add in a throughly charmless art style, and you're left with one of the flattest, least inspiring iOS kart racers of recent memory.

Monkey Racing

Stripping the kart racing genre of all of its vital elements, Monkey Racing is a thoroughly flat and soulless experience
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.