Positives:
- The driving overall controls good with solid drifting mechanics.
- 21 different race tracks to choose from.
Negatives:
- Items are mostly garbage and have almost no effect on the races.
- Enemy AI is close to rubber banding, making it almost impossible to win as the slower racers.
- Doesn't do anything at all to stand out from the competition.
-----------------------------------
''Kart Racers were really popular in the late 90's and early 2000's. Every mascot- and brand needed their own game in this genre, and Disney was no exception to the rule--so much so that the big mouse himself even got a game developed by Rare of all studios. But in a time period with so many great kart racers, Mickey's Speedway USA manages to be good... but not good enough to be anything special. It's as basic as a kart racer can possibly be, and that unfortunately results in it not being the first game of this genre on that platform I can recommend. But I want my reviews to be independent from its competition so I'm not going to compare it to the other racers of this time. Comparing it to Diddy Kong Racing--a game made by the same developer a few years before--is obviously going to have a clear winner that dunks on the other, but that's not what I'm here to do.
The game has your usual modes like Time Trial, Battle Mode and of course, the main Grand Prix where most of the time is spent (unless you are a time trial maniac). The Grand Prix is split up into multiple cups with four races each, all on different difficulties. Aside from the speed increase with each cup, I can't really say there was an actual difficulty increase since the AI is always very... uh, specific. It's actually tough to describe because they're not really those kind of AI that keep bombarding you with items, but they are always somehow very close behind in a nerve-wrecking way and are literal masters of avoiding your items. Close to rubber banding, but I also never really lost to them--that is, unless I picked slower characters like Minnie and Daisy who genuinely could not win against the AI unless they were really lucky with items. Problem is that the items in this game? They are really, really bad. The homing items only worked if you were far behind them but not close to corners, the non-homing item was surprisingly tough to aim, and everything else... exists. And the items being so bad is a double-sided coin because the enemies can't really use it against you, but you also can't really use it against them. Once you're behind, it's a literal coin-flip on whether you can surpass them again or not. Also, the boost item not working over grass and the like triggers me more than it should.
I do really like the controls though, and that was often more than enough for me to win the races. Drifting felt satisfying to do, albeit a bit tougher for characters with less handling but that makes sense. There is actually a character with absolutely terrible handling but if you can somehow manage to stay on the road with him, he actually becomes the most broken character in the game. Definitely a necessity for the staff ghost times in the Time Trial mode because they are very pixel-perfect and sadistic. No idea who got hurt so badly as a kid on the schoolyard but maybe tone it down a bit.
Anyhow, I'm getting off-track, even though there is surprisingly not that much to talk about. I guess I could talk about the tracks themselves but just like the game as a whole, they are very basic. None are really bad, but for a game that is inspired after USA cities, there are surprisingly few tracks that actually take advantage of the themeing. Washington D.C. has the White House to race in and is therefore also one of the better tracks, but Los Angeles is just a figure-8 track. Now, I'm not a expert on the continent of freedom but I'm pretty sure Los Angeles is known for anything but just being a figure-8. I guess I like the latter tracks more in general because they actually had a bit more drifting involved, like the snowy mountains of Colorado. Early tracks on the other hand are a lot of just driving forward. But to not sound too negative, there aren't really any bad tracks; none just stand out. And that brings me back to my opinion on the game as a whole being very generic. It definitely works and you can have fun with it, but it's too basic for me to remember it long after I've last played it.''
- The driving overall controls good with solid drifting mechanics.
- 21 different race tracks to choose from.
Negatives:
- Items are mostly garbage and have almost no effect on the races.
- Enemy AI is close to rubber banding, making it almost impossible to win as the slower racers.
- Doesn't do anything at all to stand out from the competition.
-----------------------------------
''Kart Racers were really popular in the late 90's and early 2000's. Every mascot- and brand needed their own game in this genre, and Disney was no exception to the rule--so much so that the big mouse himself even got a game developed by Rare of all studios. But in a time period with so many great kart racers, Mickey's Speedway USA manages to be good... but not good enough to be anything special. It's as basic as a kart racer can possibly be, and that unfortunately results in it not being the first game of this genre on that platform I can recommend. But I want my reviews to be independent from its competition so I'm not going to compare it to the other racers of this time. Comparing it to Diddy Kong Racing--a game made by the same developer a few years before--is obviously going to have a clear winner that dunks on the other, but that's not what I'm here to do.
The game has your usual modes like Time Trial, Battle Mode and of course, the main Grand Prix where most of the time is spent (unless you are a time trial maniac). The Grand Prix is split up into multiple cups with four races each, all on different difficulties. Aside from the speed increase with each cup, I can't really say there was an actual difficulty increase since the AI is always very... uh, specific. It's actually tough to describe because they're not really those kind of AI that keep bombarding you with items, but they are always somehow very close behind in a nerve-wrecking way and are literal masters of avoiding your items. Close to rubber banding, but I also never really lost to them--that is, unless I picked slower characters like Minnie and Daisy who genuinely could not win against the AI unless they were really lucky with items. Problem is that the items in this game? They are really, really bad. The homing items only worked if you were far behind them but not close to corners, the non-homing item was surprisingly tough to aim, and everything else... exists. And the items being so bad is a double-sided coin because the enemies can't really use it against you, but you also can't really use it against them. Once you're behind, it's a literal coin-flip on whether you can surpass them again or not. Also, the boost item not working over grass and the like triggers me more than it should.
I do really like the controls though, and that was often more than enough for me to win the races. Drifting felt satisfying to do, albeit a bit tougher for characters with less handling but that makes sense. There is actually a character with absolutely terrible handling but if you can somehow manage to stay on the road with him, he actually becomes the most broken character in the game. Definitely a necessity for the staff ghost times in the Time Trial mode because they are very pixel-perfect and sadistic. No idea who got hurt so badly as a kid on the schoolyard but maybe tone it down a bit.
Anyhow, I'm getting off-track, even though there is surprisingly not that much to talk about. I guess I could talk about the tracks themselves but just like the game as a whole, they are very basic. None are really bad, but for a game that is inspired after USA cities, there are surprisingly few tracks that actually take advantage of the themeing. Washington D.C. has the White House to race in and is therefore also one of the better tracks, but Los Angeles is just a figure-8 track. Now, I'm not a expert on the continent of freedom but I'm pretty sure Los Angeles is known for anything but just being a figure-8. I guess I like the latter tracks more in general because they actually had a bit more drifting involved, like the snowy mountains of Colorado. Early tracks on the other hand are a lot of just driving forward. But to not sound too negative, there aren't really any bad tracks; none just stand out. And that brings me back to my opinion on the game as a whole being very generic. It definitely works and you can have fun with it, but it's too basic for me to remember it long after I've last played it.''