Bears Can’t Drift
SHORT REVIEW: PC VERSION
Bears (Brian) Cant Drift: The Wacky Karting game for all you crazy kids.
Once upon a time, the world of gaming was awash with cute mascot kart games. As the years tumbled away, the innocent cynical cash grab of the cute mascot racer fell from favour. In the end, only Mario Kart stood tall with competitors shrugging their shoulders with hands in pockets, smoking around a fiery dustbin.
Anyway.
Let’s check out Bears Can’t Drift… I mean its got a great name and who doesn’t like bears? I do like a neat little karting game.
It’s utter shit.
Would you like to know more?
You’re thrown into the deep end without explanation. Ba-doing! Here’s a fucking Bear in a kart screams the game, go on mate, have a little drive around. Thankfully I’d played Crash Team Racing before and instantly figured out where to go and what to do. I’m confident the targeted audience of small impressionable children would have absolutely no problem at this point. I squint through the muddy graphics as I drive into, what some would consider to be, a race. I made the fateful decision to include Joey Jo Jo.
I hope you bastards appreciate that I had to turn this shit back on to get pics.
“Hey, Joey Jo Jo! This looks fun, it’s a fun looking kart driving game with Bears”.
Silence.
Do I shout again? Just as I’m about to…
“Yeah, ok”
We grab another pad and I hurriedly say…
“Kinda reminds me of Crash Team Racing and I loved that”, as a way of lightening the mood. I must admit, this does look a bit shit, but hey, it might be fun.
See those strange blobs on the camera? That’s inside the bears head in the kart behind you. Horrifying.
A few minutes pass and we are halfway through our first race. I have gone the wrong way at least twice by this point. Joey Jo Jo is leading the race somehow.
I saw a waterfall. “Bet there’s a secret shortcut through there!” I thought. But no, no there wasn’t. Fine, I’m only mildly disappointed at this oversight. At this point I come to a fork in the road. There is no obvious marking to show which way to go. I pick the ‘wrong’ fork. There is no outward sign, no “Whoops!” or sirens or helpful arrow to let me know. I just drop onto another section of track behind some other karts and notice that I am now 7th. RAGE. Also, mild migraine. Also, this game looks like someone tried to create motion sickness using only marshmallow-coloured objects. Various indecipherable, occasionally bear-shaped, pastel coloured objects. ALSO, my bear CAN bloody well drift! – Joey JoJo
I also wandered into the waterfall “shortcut”… fuck this game.
Kill it, KILL IT WITH FIRE!
We both angrily mutter.
Joey JoJo exclaimed “This hurts my eyes!” and she had to retire halfway through the race.
I should have finished this damn race by now, anyway. – Joey JoJo
I continue in horror. Bears glitch in and out of existence from the start line, the camera lurches like a drunken uncle. Forget the bugs, forget the eye watering graphics, forget the cute bears, I can’t tell where I’m headed! You can pick up weapons, throw them around, like you do, powerslide around and all that nonsense every kart game has, but none of it means a thing if you can’t figure out where you’re going in the first place.
Top tip, to quit the game, hit escape.
OH MAN, IT’S UTTER SHIT
I finish the race and try to forget.
15 minutes later JoeyJoJo remarked “That bear game really hurt my head.”
The good news. It is a Bear based karting game. The bad news is you might need a nice little lay down after playing for five minutes. If you do insist on playing a kart racer, then you’ve heard of that Mario Kart thing right? Or that Sonic Kart racer, that was pretty good. Maybe dig out that old console under the bed and pick up Crash Team Racing for a fiver. That was pretty great. Right, I’m off.. I feel a little sick now.
What is that thing?!