[2/20/24]

Rocket League trading died for this. Not cool.

When the Big Bang live event happened, the three modes that were revealed all had their own segment showcasing them. Among them was Rocket Racing developed by Psyonix, the same team behind Rocket League. It's not those old Fast & Furious arcade games, but it'll do.

The controls are the most important part, and this falls into the list of arcade racers heavy on drifting. The drifting is good, but only if you're actually pressing the drift button to hit a tighter one. The Mario Kari Wii-ass automatic drift doesn't feel that good, and most tracks are built with the manual drift in mind. You can hit some really good drifts, but they're only on really wide turns. Being able to press the button multiple times for course correction is nice, but the boosts you get from it really only start getting good at the point where the gauge widens. Anything else and you're wasting time. Since this is also based on Rocket League, aerial control is important, too. You get an air roll that you can use to latch onto surfaces or get more air. It uses the same button as drifting, but in the air. Gotta mash that button. I guess drafting exists, too. You crash from the smallest collision at just the wrong angle, too.

Track design benefits from wide turns as I said, but with a handful of themes and variants having glowing red danger zone spheres and boxes, it all feels the same. The early maps sucked.

Psyonix gonna Psyonix, and so the music is of the same breed that Rocket League has. I just put on a DnB playlist, because I got sick of the music real quick.

Out of all three new modes, this was the one I had a hunch was going to be the weakest. With everything we saw from the event, it was easy to assume that the gameplay potential had already been hit. Disappointed to know that I wasn't wrong.

Played a fair amount of this but I feel like the game is lacking in it's current state. The core mechanics are a lot of fun but I wish there were more modes or more reasons to play. Ranked feels kind of pointless to grind through other than unlocking the harder tracks. I got up to Platinum before putting the game down, but I was still consistently getting top placements so I'm sure I could have gotten quite a bit further if I just put the time into it. Maybe I'll come back to this in a year to see how it's developed, but there is just not enough in the game right now, which is a shame because the core gameplay is quite fun.

[Gameplay]
The concept of a Rocket League arcade racing game is as you would expect. with Mario Kart-style anti-gravity (Sort Of) just like driving on the sides of a stadium in Rocket League and allowing you to jump over obstacles or jump onto the walls. Unlike Mario Kart, the car selection does not affect the gameplay, meaning no matter which car you use or skin, it doesn't affect the speed or stats. Reaction time is key in Rocket Racing because one major element is speed. Players can trigger speed boosts by drifting, using the boost pads that the tracks provide, or manually activating a charged boost from their gauge. (57s)

Rocket Racing does allow you to customise your own cars, which can either be obtained through the battle pass, item shop, or by connecting Fortnite & Rocket League to the same account, which can allow you to unlock the octane from Rocket League. Did you know that any Rocket Racing cosmetic in Fortnite can be used in Rocket League as well? The Options are limited at the moment but I do think that Rocket Racing does have the potential to expand since I think Rocket Racing has the biggest potential in terms of crossovers since cars from iconic movies/TV shows/Games could be brought into Fortnite such as The Batmobile from Batman, which could be customized to the player's favourite version of the character, The DeLorean from Back To The Future, The Ectomobile From Ghostbusters, The Ford explorer from Jurassic Park, the KITT from Knight Rider, The Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo, & get this, despite Disney not being in a good light towards western audiences right now, with Jack Skellington in Fortnite, I think it is possible to get Lightning McQueen from Cars could come to Fortnite for the Rocket Racing mode, I would definitely Buy That. I definitely think that the crossover potential has expanded with Rocket Racing and I am curious to see what Epic Games does with it in the future (1m 48s)

[Tracks]
Rocket Racing has 26 tracks you can access, ranging from novice, advanced, and expert difficulties. It is essential to practice each track as you climb up the ranks because you may not know what to expect from each track going into them blind. In Rocket Racing, tracks are unlocked as you climb up the ranks. The ranked queue will automatically match you to tracks that match the rank you are on. When you reach Diamond rank, all tracks, regardless of difficulty, will be unlocked. (38s)

But what are the tracks themselves like? Well.... In my opinion, the tracks are a bit generic. I'm not gonna lie, each track does make good use of the gameplay mechanics, but the only reason I would consider it generic is the lack of diverse themes within the tracks themselves. Half of the tracks in Rocket Racing are desert tracks, which does get a bit repetitive for me only because when it comes to Rocket League, each stadium is unique in terms of layout, theme, and goal animations. Rocket Racing lacks a diverse track selection, but hopefully the tracks we have to start with are not the only tracks we end up getting. Don't Forget, Fortnite has Unreal Editor on PC now, and If Epic Games implements Rocket Racing into it, users can create their own tracks, which can expand the track selection by like 100x the number of tracks we have already (1m 19s)

[Summary]
Gameplay: 8
Graphics & Performance: 9
Tracks: 6
Content: 4
Difficulty: Moderate
Audience: 7+
Perk: Play Then Sell

Final Score: 6.7/10 (Alright/Average)

Fortnite's Rocket Racing isn't quite the perfect racing game yet, but it may need a bit of time to improve. The biggest issue I have with Rocket Racing is the track diversity & the lack of car variety, which does have huge potential crossover-wise but only time will tell what the future of Rocket Racing will hold. With Lego Fortnite being great & Rocket Racing being alright, their is only one other Fortnite game to review, and that is Fortnite Festival which will get it's review in March

genuinely just a very fun racing game put into fortnite that feels polished and is a little addicting sometimes if you're trying to climb the ranked ladder. it doesn't take too long to get used to and is really easy to pick up and play. also a good way to get some levels for the battle pass since you're heavily rewarded for performing well and ranking up. i do think some of the tracks all blend together a bit and it's hard to tell which track you're about to play on unless youve memorized the track names. also maybe by chance this was just my experience with the game but i did find it odd how the random selection of tracks didn't expand until i got into higher ranks, i feel like way more of them should just be playable from the get go no matter what rank you are. i get that some of the tracks are listed as higher difficulty than others but even still i think it would help with variety and getting better by having most if not all the tracks playable when you start playing this mode. im sure in the near future though the track list will greatly expand and there'll be a lot more to pick from no matter the rank. also one other thing that bugged me a little was that load times between races felt a little long especially when each race only lasts about 3 minutes or so and the wait time between each race is like 1 or 1.5 minutes, hopefully something else that gets addressed in future updates to the mode

Peca em o que todos os jogos de corrida pecam, você tá em primeiro até, ou alguém, jogar uma caixa de nitro em você, passar de Bullet Bill por cima de ti, você escorregar na banana, ou como é no caso desse jogo, alguém vir na sua roda dianteira e fazer você dar um 180° (sim, é fácil desse jeito) aí o cara que tá na sua frente ganha um impulso pq vc bateu na traseira dele (por algum motivo, isso da vantagem pra ele) então você bate na parede de frente E MORRE sem motivo, então até você renascer você terminou a corrida em 8° pq você se achou o bomzão do jogo e quis dar um drift pra pegar um boostzinho de velocidade.
Em suma, jogos de corrida não são pra mim, a partir do momento que eu cometo um errozinho eu arruino toda a minha performance, então jogos competitivos em geral não são saudáveis pra mim, mas o pior é que eu me diverti jogando, quero que saia logo mais mapas, pq quando eu sei jogar, eu humilho as crianças de 9 anos que jogam esse game😎

Embarrassingly bad netcode and collision detection issues only serve as icing to a cake that hasn't baked for long enough. There just isn't enough depth here to actually encourage dedicated playtime outside of the easy battle pass XP that it rewards with few ways of meaningfully competing and outmaneuvering other players outside of getting lucky if they happen to screw up. Unlike LEGO Fortnite and Fortnite Festival which at least have the groundwork for something more interesting to potentially come in their futures, Rocket Racing is lacking something that could meaningfully keep the mode going long-term unless something changes fundamentally at its core. Whether that's adding items or something, I don't really know, but I just can't see myself wanting to actively play this for fun outside of an easy daily or two for the foreseeable future if something doesn't change soon.

Rocket Racing in my opinion is the weakest of the three new games included in Fortnite. It's not bad or anything, it just doesn't have much going for it. The gameplay loop is very simple as it's a 2-3 lap race where you collect boost through drifting and jumping on walls. The flying and wall-clinging mechanics are neat and all, but it really doesn't scratch my itch. And the tracks themselves mostly look the same too, and there is only one music track that plays throughout every race. It gets boring pretty fast and I doubt there's many people playing it right now.

To be honest Rocket Racing should've been a side mode to Rocket Leauge instead of Fortnite. Especially since most Fortnite content isn't even usable here. Dare I say this, but the taxi racing in Yakuza 5 is more interesting than this.

Don't get me started on the 4,000 V-Buck car (It's 2,500 now.)

Of the new superfluous modes added to "Fortnite" recently, this one is easily the best. But that isn't saying much.

It can actually be really fun when you get into the groove of it, and you're racing against some people who really know what they're doing. But sadly, as a bonus mode that clearly has no real future, it feels incredibly limited and nowhere near as interesting as it could be.

I played a good number of ranked races, and I mostly saw the same three our four tracks over and over again. Some tracks are fun, but they all just wear out their welcome pretty quickly.

The mechanics themselves are honestly pretty great (and this is coming from someone who generally doesn't really like racing games). Jumping on walls, drifting to build up boost, everything feels awesome and really involved. And when you know what you're doing, you can really change the outcome of a race with a single move. But sadly, there just isn't much beyond that.

I honestly don't know why they decided to make this a bonus mode in "Fortnite". The only thing "Fortnite' related to this is the jpg of your skin that shows up throughout the race. My favorite aspect of this, is that the skin of whoever ends up in first place will always look pixelated because its too zoomed in. That really shows the quality of this thing honestly.

If this wasn't just an extraneous mode to "Fortnite" and was instead its own thing, this might have been something cool. But as it stands, its basically just a battlepass xp grinder and nothing else. I already reached rank of gold, and I will only play it again if I want to just shoot a quick amount of xp into my battlepass without having to play a full match of battle royale. A sad fate for something that could have been at least kind of cool.

fun at first with some fun tracks, good controls, great drifting and boosting and flipping, but god it gets disheartening later on by the time you reach gold or diamond rank (because ranked mode is really the only game mode) when you spend the entire race being bumped by 50 other cars aggressively targeting you and by the time you actually do make it to first, the game will just consistently make you crash on literally nothing, i mean flat road will just sometimes kill you, its busted. and then even though you finished the race literally in front of the rick sanchez like 30 feet behind you, he'll still place ahead of you because ping or some shit.
if this game was more balanced and actually functioned, i can see this as being one of the best racing games out there, but as is... no

All things considered, not a bad racing game. The problem is that the fun varies pretty wildly from track-to-track. The "expert" courses with plenty of obstacles that force you to drive on the walls and ceiling or fly around the course are fantastic because they utilize the Rocket League mechanics that make this racing game unique. Unfortunately, only a handful of courses require that so most the time it's kind of just a generic racing game.

Also, the F2P format could use some work. In paid racing games, there's plenty to chase after as far as car parts, custom stuff for your vehicle, etc. This is little more than a racing minigame and there's no real progression to chase.