Splash Cars [Xbox]
Developed by Paper Bunker and EastAsiaSoft, Splash Cars is an isometric 3D driving game where you drive around each level, painting everything in your wake. The goal is to paint as much of the level as possible, with the levels getting larger and with more hazards as you progress. You’ll find various street-cleaning vehicles that will clear away any paint you’ve put down, but painting these will turn them into allies, as long as you don’t inadvertently destroy them. There are police cars that will chase you down, and after taking so much damage - either from them, or just by bumping into things around the map - your vehicle will break down.
The controls feel strange at first, with the bumpers or analog sticks allowing you to turn left and right, but with you continually driving forward. It takes a little bit of getting used to, and with some cars being quicker than others, you’ll find that as soon as you get used to the controls, you’re having to adjust again for the speed increase - since you’ve got no way to slow down or accelerate through your own choice, which is a frustrating decision to say the least. The game originally came out on mobile, which probably fits the control scheme better, however - it’s now on console, so tweaking the controls would have been appreciated!
There are other vehicles available for you to unlock, with different paint jobs available to be purchased too. These all have their own stats, with hardiness and speed, as well as fuel efficiency, being the key factors to weigh up when choosing. The more you play, and the more miles you cover, you’ll unlock other upgrades that will help you out across the levels such as slowing down cops, new power ups and increasing how much fuel you’ll get from each pick up. You’ll earn coins as you play, which in turn can then be spent on new paint jobs, and these threw us off a little as well. When you click ‘Paint Me’ on a car, it will show two prices, with a more expensive ‘Early Access’ price, and a lower price that you’ll need to ‘unlock’ the car first, by having enough of the blue tokens.
The visuals are pleasant enough, with nicely detailed cars within the menu screens, and a decent variety of custom paint jobs available, but the levels just don’t feel unique enough when compared to each other. They’ve got the same few buildings, with the same few trees repeated around the map, and the same few cop cars and trucks chasing you around. The soundtrack is very arcade-y, however it does become very draining after you’ve heard it for the 100th time - and during levels, it’s actually very minor as the loud droning of your engine and the wailing police sirens drown it out a bit.
Overall, we liked the concept, but found it to be quite a shallow experience that left us wanting more. The levels are very samey, with only their size increasing, and with the difficulty of later levels relying on bulky police trucks smashing into you repeatedly, slowing you down the more you get damaged (a vicious circle, might I add), it quickly becomes frustrating. Earning enough coins to unlock new vehicles, as well as reaching the level coverage quotas in order to unlock later levels, is a bit of a slog, requiring you to replay levels over and over.
Available for £5.79 on the Xbox Store, it’s a budget title that is decent enough to pass some time, but feels more suited to its mobile roots. If it’s a game that you like the look of, then maybe keep an eye out for a discount - but as it stands, it feels like it’s just a little too lacking for what it is. There’s also a multiplayer mode where you can face off against a friend to paint more of the map than the other, which adds a little bit of variety - but sadly not enough.
In the end, we decided to give Splash Cars the Collecting Asylum rating of 5.5/10.
Are you interested in Splash Cars? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to EastAsiaSoft for the Splash Cars Xbox review code!
