The moustachioed man has returned once again to grace the asphalt with his crew of dinosaurs and princesses, so I feel it’s only natural that this week we dedicate some time towards the brave explorers of a severely under-rated genre – the multiplayer driving combat ‘em up.

Mario Kart is all about high speed multiplayer carnage, be it local or online. Everything is to play for, and the games provide a great ‘proving ground’ for friends and foes alike to compete for that first place position. You can expect great local and online multiplayer gameplay with plenty of power-ups and whacky courses in these unsung titles.

Krautscape – PC

What it is – Krautscape takes the manic action of a multiplayer driving game and gives it wings. Each track is procedurally generated, meaning no two races will be the same. What’s more, players can simply take a leap of faith off of the track and soar across huge distances in an effort to steal first place.

Why you might like it – There’s a great opportunity for some fantastic victory stealing to happen in Krautscape. The ability to soar across the game world means that even when you’re leagues ahead of the competition, you can never be too sure if someone isn’t about to sneak in ahead of you. Because of the way the track is generated, there are times where even the person in first place doesn’t know where they are going as the track is only generated when someone passed through each checkpoint gate.

You can buy Krautscape on Steam Early Access, and follow development on the official site.

Bears Can’t Drift – OUYA

What it is – Bears Can’t Drift is appropriately named for what lies within. You play as a bear strapped to a go-kart, seemingly hellbent on defeating all of the other bears to the finish line of a race through the woods. Featuring 2-4 player local split-screen multiplayer, Bears Can’t Drift offers some enjoyable competitive party racing on the OUYA.

Why you might like it – You mean other than that there are bears racing each other in go-karts? Okay, how about using giant bazookas to fire fish at each other? The track is littered with pick-ups and speed boosts, giving you that Mario Kart vibe from start to finish. It’s worth noting that the current iteration of the game only supports either solo play – for those who just hate everyone around them – or local split-screen multiplayer with the possibility of AI in future versions.

You can download Bears Can’t Drift for the OUYA here, and keep tabs on development via the developer’s Twitter account here.

Silas – PC

What it is – Silas combines the manic fervor of kart racing with a hearty dose of FPS shooting and destructive power-ups. The game supports both online and LAN multiplayer, and also includes a sizable amount of single player content.

Why you might like it – If you’re in the market for a game that requires precision at the drop of a hat, Silas is definitely up your alley. Most of your arsenal has to be manually aimed, and when you’re traveling at breakneck speed that isn’t always as easy as you’d think. Combine that with flying cars and level specific hazards that can wipe you out without a moment’s notice and the end result is a great entry to the ‘multiplayer kart racing whilst shooting your friends’ genre.

You can pick up Silas on Desura here.

Skydrift – PC, XBLA, PSN

What it is – Skydrift is what happens when you combine airborne dog fighting with the desire to be in first place. Soar across canyons, glaciers, and volcanoes as you shoot down your friends and strive to be the top gun.

Why you might like it – Okay so it isn’t a kart racer, but I’d argue that it shares more with Mario Kart than you’d think. There are a dozen manic pick-up weapons, speed boosting rings, whacky levels to race across and a number of different planes to choose from. If you were a fan of Diddy Kong Racing, this will probably appeal to you more, but I’d urge you not to dismiss it just because your vehicle doesn’t have any wheels.

You can pick up Skydrift on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade (Xbox 360), and Playstation Network (PS3)

Distance – PC

What it is – Distance is a self-proclaimed “experimental survival racing” game, which will see you dodging hazards and rival players as your progress through the vibrant neon cityscape laid out before you. Utilize a futuristic car to navigate across the dangerous terrain with the ability to boost your speed, jump across gaps, rotate your vehicle at will, and glide across chasms as you race towards the finish line.

Why you might like it – Probably the most removed from the original Mario Kart concept, Distance takes a more serious stance on the racing genre. The graphics alone are enough to make you want to drool, with cascading bright neon lights strewn across the world like it was taken straight out of a Tron film. That doesn’t mean this is a no-nonsense racer though, as there’s enough whacky antics for you to crash into, including buzz-saws that can split your car into pieces. If you’re after something less cartoon-like but with the same level of frantic mayhem, Distance is one for you.

Distance is currently in beta and you can pre-purchase the game on the official site here.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The setting is the most interesting part of the game, a cel-shaded island paradise that wouldn’t have been out of place on the Nintendo 64 or the Dreamcast. The laid-back cartoon physics of the puzzles are certainly reminiscent of Banjo-Kazooie, and the faux-Caribbean structures and music pleasantly recall Samba de Amigo. These qualities aren’t good enough to distract from the fiddly gameplay, which on the first level is repetitive and more than a little tedious.

Since your flying whales can’t actually interact with the environment, you’re dependent on the other characters to do your dirty work. This generally involves picking them up, and then using their unique gadget to drag something, push something, or flip something over. This is fine when you just need to put weight on a floor switch or move a large obstacle. But when multiple puzzles are nailed together in separate rooms, the game becomes a frustrating marriage of fetch quests and unavoidable backtracking. I have to go over the stream to push the little guy onto the switch using the magic animal flute, then I have to come back over the stream and switch to the grappling plunger so I can rotate the lever that moves the ski lift so I can get the second guy over to the second switch. But wait, the second guy isn’t on the lift yet, so I have to switch back to the flute to push him into the seat and then switch back to the grappler… And now I’m ready to download Daytona. There’s intriguing potential for two simultaneous players to cooperate for puzzle solving, but imprecise control and an annoying crosshair reticule don’t make me anxious to try that feature out.

Will kids warm to this game with no licensed characters and no marketing outside of PSN? That’s for parents to decide. Ten years ago this game would have merited a budget release on a disk for $30. Is it worth $14.99 to download the full game? Let your child try the demo first and see if she asks for more.

© 2011 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Eufloria

A disembodied voice commands you to plant trees and spread seedlings around a white, featureless universe. ‘Go forth and multiply’ is the command, and you’re tasked with establishing a presence on big round asteroids found all throughout space. But you’re not the only plant life form in the world, and so you’re challenged to fill the emptiness and not to surrender to the other plants who are encroaching on your property.

It might not be fair to compare Eufloria to other RTS games. It’s not aimed at the market that plays Warcraft, Starcraft, or any other imitator. Abstraction is the order of the day, in that every mechanical component of an RTS is stripped down to the most basic presentation. Units are ‘seedlings’ that look like dots until you zoom in on them, and even then there’s very little customization to do. Bases are ‘trees’ whose function differs depending on where you build them, and again you can’t otherwise customize the type of base that gets built.

The main strength of Eufloria is also its most glaring weakness, in the way that information about your success or failure is communicated. By centering combat around bases only, it becomes very easy to evaluate how well you’re doing. Units are always associated with a base, and while they can travel from one base to another they don’t actively engage enemies except in the context of attacking or defending an asteroid. So moving your cursor to an asteroid immediately tells you how many of each unit are present and whether you’re winning or losing. While that makes for efficient play, it also robs the game of the nuance that’s unique to the genre. Without the complexity of customization, without the build-up and gathering of varied resources, the whole affair becomes a binary, black-or-white decision making process. That will divert but not hook new players, and will do nothing to retain veteran RTS gamers.

Other RTS experiments on consoles have produced deviations from the standard play format that might some day come together in a transcendent game. Tom Clancy’s Endwar has a method of geographic delineation similar to Eufloria. Robocalypse had a unique icon-based command system that hasn’t been imitated. And Sega’s Stormrise has a imperfect but inspired method of moving units around. Eufloria will be considered another one of those stepping stones in the long run. There’s a demo you can try first before you decide if it’s worth the full $9.99.

© 2011 – 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.