Can’t Drive This [Xbox]
Pixel Maniacs’ Can’t Drive This is an unusual twist on driving games. You can play alone or with a friend, and the objective is to build roads and/or drive on those roads as efficiently as you can without stopping, otherwise you’ll explode - think Keanu and Sandra in Speed. Whilst playing with a friend, one player will be in charge of road-building, whereas the other will have to navigate the track quickly and carefully so as to not fall right off the edge. Playing alone changes the dynamic up quite extensively, in that this “Lone Racer” mode (the only one available to play Solo) becomes timed, and you are the track-builder and the driver. Having to switch between building and driving is fine, but the timer becomes a complete bummer as whilst there are holo cubes available to be picked up along the way to increase the timer, these are quite few and far between, so you’ll find yourself running out of time really quickly, which is more than a bit frustrating.
Playing with at least a second player is where you’ll get the most enjoyment from the game, and it makes for a far more strategic, fun experience - particularly due to the removal of the timer. The communication required between players to ensure that drivers don’t drive faster than the builders can build, and vice versa makes this feel well suited as a party game, where all of the people watching can shout at the screen, egging on both players. As well as the single player mode, Lone Racer, there are three other game modes available to play with friends: Yardage, Game of Drones and Capture the Egg, which are available as local or online multiplayer.
Each of the three multiplayer game modes play differently, with Yardage being the main one where you just see how far you can go with one driver and one builder, done either locally or online. Game of Drones is similar, but you’ll have drones firing at you to up the ante a little. And finally, Capture the Egg is like your typical Capture the Flag mode, but with an egg. This mode is locked to four-player, and four-player is only available locally, so unless you have four people at home all interested in playing, you might not get much of a chance with that one which is a shame, as opening it up to online would have been far better.
Visually, Can’t Drive This has a very toy-box like appearance- with road pieces being well designed and detailed. These range from standard road, to ramps with speed boosts and flaming hoops to jump through, or dirt trenches and piles of boxes, all of which have the ability to help or hinder you. Placing these pieces is permanent, so making sure you make a driveable track is key! You can customise the colour of these tracks, as well as add different surface patterns to the road itself. Your vehicle is also able to be personalised, via a variety of unlockable costume items, colours and decals, ranging from party hats and googly eyes, to wigs and chunky spoilers. There are a bunch of tutorial videos - sorry, slideshow presentations! - to watch to get to grips with how the game works, which are pretty funny, and giving you a reward for watching them all incentivises you to actually take the time to watch them. The audio of CDT is very arcade-like and really reminds us of old SEGA games like Crazy Taxi and Sonic, with a rocky vibe.
The controls are fairly solid, and easy to learn whether you’re playing as the driver or the builder. Whizzing round the tracks and jumping through hoops feels great, but what Can’t Drive This is missing is that feeling of satisfaction at the end of a run that pushes you on to do more. There’s just not enough variety to keep you fully engaged in the game, which is a shame.
Priced at £16.74 on the Xbox Store but with a 10% discount available for the next 6 days (at time of posting), it feels a little expensive for a game with not a lot to pull me back in continuously. It’s definitely more suited as a party game, or a game to play with the kids as the lack of a worthwhile single player mode is really disappointing. I’d honestly love to see this get further updates, and pack out the solo offerings as I feel it has so much more to offer there. Even an option of having a start and finish line, and a set number of randomised pieces - that you can’t see in advance, and can’t change once placed - and then it’s up to you (no time limit) to place everything to get you the distance. Or for more longevity with the online options, why not have a mode where a driver/builder team go up against another, and fastest to build to and reach a certain point on the map wins? There’s so many ideas that they could have went for here, and I really hope we see more get added in future.
In the end, we decided to give Can’t Drive This the Collecting Asylum rating of 6.5/10.
Have you played Can’t Drive This yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Pixel Maniacs for the Can’t Drive This Xbox review code!
