Eclipse Games' Super Toy Cars on steam has mixed to negative views. I can see why it would be getting them, but do feel regardless of the issues it has it is a bit undeserved.

Super Toy Cars a mini racer game with inspiration from Micro-Machines and Mario-Kart. If you read my feelings on BlazeRush many also apply here. But since this one worked with my controller after little tweaking, I'm more open to the game.
Basically by default it mapped every button except Accelerate. Using xPadder fixed the issues I was having. It is perfectly playable with the keyboard, and I finished off the last 12 tracks in career mode with good ol' WASD.

The game look does feel a little unfinished. There's nothing quite wrong with it but it does have a bit of an immediate beta feeling to the UI, tracks, and some car choices. It is fully functional though and easy to navigate the way through it.

There's no story, just racing.

Everything is bright and colourful and textures are clear. It is easy enough to determine what is what and not get lost in what is happening without being overloaded in visual feedback. It just feels like something that could of used another few months polishing it up as it sits half way through something really cartoonish, and something pushing for realism but not getting anywhere near making it so.

Track designs themselves are fairly simple and easy to learn once you grasp the car controls, and they have a variety of obstacles and different weather effects to change it up a bit.

The music however is absolutely abysmal. Music that somehow sounds worse than something out of Flatout. And yes, I know Flatout 2 had higher grade licensed music, but I found that to be horribly whinny rock too.

Apparently this type is all the rage in racers and people strongly disagree with me that we peaked at OutRun.

Anyway, I eventually turned it off. There's only a few music tracks overall. Car sounds also sound very flat and quiet, even with the music off and SFX ramped up. Got a playlist on your PC or portable music player / phone? Stick with that instead.

The game has two main modes. Quick Race, and Career.

Quick Race is just as it sounds. Select a Track, a Car, a Race Style, and join up with 3 others in local co-op mode. There is an online mode too, but this just stalled the program as it could not find any waiting-to-join sessions. Internet Play is basically dead at this stage.

Local Co-Op is the split-screen of old. Since I'm on my own I was only able to experiment with testing running 2-players by my self. While playing this way is kinda stupid on your own, it proved it does work. And if you have a few friends around it is worth a go.

There's an in-game track editor to make your own maps for a Quick Race, and it has Steam Workshop support. While the editor is easy to use, it did twist up a few tracks more than I was expecting. Useful for getting the Long Drift achievement but as there's next to nobody to play with online, creating the tracks feels a little pointless unless you really get into the game.

Career starts you off with the cheapest car (that remains useful through the first 12 courses). Race in 6-stage challenges to earn cash to buy upgrades and new cars to compete in other levels.

There's a surprising amount of variety to the cars, but they all looked a little flat coloured to me. Over the course of the Career mode you unlock various paintjobs that do a lot to improve the flat look of the vehicle. If more were available it would of really made the game feel better.

I do like the variety as they do play differently. Though how the VW mini-van knockoff easily does flips is beyond me. And the Beetle knockoff over-steers too much. I liked the mini Jeep car but it is quickly underpowered in later races.

Blue Shell rules apply. And enemy AI can be a little moronic and unfair as it appears to gain speed advantages when it falls behind. The AI is smarter than other racers I've played recently however, and does a decent job of being near perfect while still making the rare mistake. It also requires near perfection as crashing and respawning can quickly shift you down to last place. If this happens in an Career level Eliminator style race, well, just say fuck it and restart.

Racing through the levels you can pick up various weapons to activate. Shoot a rocket on the nearest marked vehicle. Fire off a giant 8-ball that whizzes around the track until it hits something. Drop mines or sludge. And pick up boosters to make it in the final few seconds.

A large part of the game involves drifting to boost your nitro meter. Hitting enemies with weapons also appears to give you a small bonus, but this was a little random for me.
I hate drifting. It's not fun. It is fucking stupid.

And in this game it plays rather awfully too. The tutorial does not teach you how to really do it or give you time to practice, and most cars have a turning circle low enough that you'd never need it on the tracks. Out Drive may of had its own issues, but at least it got drifting right. edit - After playing the game to completion post this review: drifting gets better with the final unlocked cars. But I'm keeping my original opinion that it is really not that good early on.

Maybe I'm just old. Get off my lawn, you no good drifting kids and go watch your Fast and Furious movies.

Despite problems with controls, a feeling of being unfinished, unfair/moronic AI, and horrible drifting segments. I did kinda like it.

While deserving of some/many of the complaints, it is somewhat fun, and I'd imagine it would be better for hot-seat co-op. But the single player career mode was competent enough to keep my attention. Default price at time of posting is 10USD. If you've no other people to play with, pick it up in a sale and be entertained for a weekend as it wouldn't take long to experience all it has to offer.

Game Acquisition: Purchased on sale (Bundle Stars)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 27 March 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009

OS: Windows 7
Processor: 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256MB with Shader Model 3.0 support
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 512 MB available space \\ Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible

Additional Notes: On Vista64 the redistribution installer crashed. However aside from the issues listed about the game itself, no other problems were detected.