SpeedRunners (PS4) Review

 SpeedRunners (PS4) 8.5/10

"I'm the fastest runner in New Rush City!"

Hello everyone and welcome to another game review. Today I'll be looking at SpeedRunners. Developed by Double Dutch Games and published by Tiny Build, SpeedRunners was originally released for the PC on April 19, 2016 and then ported to PS4 on July 5, 2017. This is a 2D side scrolling racing game with a lot of charm and great multiplayer gameplay. I’m gonna keep this short, so let’s begin.

So surprisingly, there is a story mode for this. You play as our hero SpeedRunner as he holds his title of fastest runner against 4 other runners. I wouldn't really call this a story as more of a series of events to help show the player this strange world. Story mode is separated into 4 chapters. Each chapter focuses on a specific runner that's out to beat our hero. After you beat each chapter, a small comic is unlocked which shows you how the "villain" came to be. Like how Gil is an undercover cop that's trying to take down the SpeedRunners so that law and order can return to New Rush City. 

This story is not to be taken seriously at all. The game gives off massive 1960's golden age comic book vibes, with the wacky villains, designs, and dialogue. There's so many shitty puns in the game that you can't help but laugh and facepalm yourself every time you see one. Story is short, sweet, and to the point, but I wouldn’t mind a bigger campaign where you go up against more runners.

The overall aesthetic of the game helps give it a very unique look compared to other games in the industry. Everything is comic based minimalism and I love this look. Each character has a very unique design yet so simple. My favorite design has to be SpeedRunner, Falcon, Cosmonaut Comrade, and Sherlock Bones. Whoever designed these characters knew exactly what they were doing. SpeedRunner himself looks like XLR8 from Ben 10 and Falcon looks like Chicken Foot from Invader Zim. I also love the attention to detail for these characters' movements. Whenever Falcon jumps, he flaps his arms like a chicken. Whenever Gil starts to fall, he dives like a shark. I kept losing to Falcon because I got so distracted by this fat guy in a chicken suit flapping his arms and trying to keep up with everyone else. Fucking hilarious!

Sound design is a mixed bag for me. The music for the game is good, but gets very repetitive, very fast. Once you start a race, the same song plays every time. Sure once the race drags on, it starts getting more intense, but the game needs more variety. On the other hand, the sound effects and even the menu music is great. Again, the sound design gives off major comic book vibes. There is no voice acting in this. You'll have to read all the dialogue and tips in the game.

Gameplay is where this game truly shines. First you pick your player, then your track, then you're off. Each track is a building for you to run through. You'll be jumping, sliding, tackling your opponents, and using items and boost to get your opponents off the screen. That's right. There is no finish line. Each match is an endurance test. If you're too slow and your character gets off screen, you lose that round. Once there are two people left, the screen's edges start glowing red and start getting smaller. This is where the game gets really fucking intense as your trying to survive the race as well as knock your opponent back. If all four people are still in the match after some time, a timer goes off and the screen starts getting smaller. After every match, you'll gain experience points. Gain enough points and you'll unlock new characters to play, new skins, and new levels to race in.

Before each match, you can customize your character and the game. Change different skins, different trails for when you get super speed, which items will appear, etc. Despite all of this, I wish there was more to the game. More characters (I know there's free DLC and the PC version has exclusive characters), more items, more maps, just more content. There's so many characters for the game, but there's only four chapters for the main story, which is a downer. I literally beat the story in like less than an hour. I do need to bring up one skin though. So there are Golden skins in the game. I unlocked Golden Cosmonaut and his gameplay is different compared to everyone else. First off, when you start a match, you are frozen, giving everyone else a head start. When you start running, you are overall faster than everyone else. You also have a shorter boost meter and access to a special item. This item is bullshit and is only here to fuck with the player. I see this skin as more of a cursed power sort of deal. Yes, you are faster than normal, but there are a lot of trade offs because of this. Lowkey funny as hell to play, but also infuriating depending on which level you are racing on.

There is multiplayer for this game too. In fact, that's the main selling point for the game. I genuinely enjoy the multiplayer for this game. It's not like Call of Duty or Mario Kart or any of that bullshit. In SpeedRunners, you can clearly see what exactly is going on. No hidden bullshit or anything. This is probably my favorite multiplayer game to date. I enjoy this more than Smash Ultimate and other massively popular multiplayer titles.

So my main problem with the game is what I just said early. The game needs more content. You can't expect me to play this for hours on end with so little variety to the game. More characters, more levels, more items, more music, and more story are needed. Other than this, this is a very fun game and a great game for parties. You can do four player local, which I wish more games did. Despite the lack of content for the game, you can easily get lost in this game for a couple of hours. The gameplay is very strong here. You can easily pick up this game on all platforms for roughly $3-$5. I recommend it for a party night or if you want something light to play before a big game release (like what I just did lol).

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.