Xenon Racer is a new arcade racing title by SOEDESCO which is set in a futuristic world where you drive electric vehicles powered by a special Xenon Gas. Most of the world has switched to flying cars however a special tournament is taking place for road cars called Xenon Racing Championship and you are one of the participants of this tournament and your goal is to become the champion. This is our review of Xenon Racer.

In pursuit of that, you will be driving some of the most advanced racing vehicles ever made in the entire world. Each of the car in Xenon Racer is fitted with an ERS system which can be charged and then unleashed for a massive boast allowing your car to push its engine to the maximum. Players will need to drift around the track and pick up ERS boosters placed on the track to fill the ERS gauge and use it to boost ahead of the competition.

Xenon Racer features plenty of content for every type of racing fan. If you are a hardcore racer, you can jump in the full-on campaign mode where you will face some of the best drivers to become the ultimate champion. If you are a casual racer, jump in free mode and play a few quick races to kill some time.

Head to the Edge Mode and you will find different singleplayer modes where you can practice as much as you like. You can run races against the time and participate in different events such as Elimination, Time Attack, Checkpoint Attack and a Free Mode where you can simply explore each track without any worry of a ticking clock or AI.

Track Design is very good and you have different locations to race on from all around the world. Each track is unique and players will need to set up their car accordingly to cater to the track. You can race on futuristic tracks set in locations such as Boston, Tokyo, Shanghai, Miami, Dubai, and Cote D’Azur. Each location has different track variations and it helps to keep the races fresh.

The game is very well optimized and although it comes with two modes, one favoring performance and one favoring frames, the game does not drop too many frames. I reviewed the title on PS4 and it was performing without any hiccups. The best thing about these modes is that both of them are in 4K so even if you play in performance mode, you are still getting exceptionally good visuals.

The campaign mode is called Xenon Racing Championship where you take part in the World XRC Hybrid Prototype Tournament. Here you will find a lot of events that you can complete to unlock new cars and modification parts. As you progress in this mode, you will unlock better cars, more tracks and even more performance parts giving you more freedom over the type of builds you can have in your garage.

There is also a Split Screen mode in Xenon Racer which a lot of modern racing titles have completely forgotten about. Split Screen is one of the most fun racing modes because you can jump in the game with your local friends at any time you want. If you have more than one racing fans in the same house, fire up the title, jump into Split Screen and battle for the first position.

Car design in Xenon racer is exceptional and each car has a very unique look to it. Most of the cars look like modern-day LMP1 vehicles with a touch of the future. The vehicles are very pretty and each vehicle will show unique mechanics on the road as well such as one vehicle might be excellent at drifting but might be weak in reaching maximum speeds or may suffer from low acceleration.

Each car comes with its own strengths and weaknesses however you can counter them to a certain extent. Xenon Racer offers a very detailed garage which allows you to swap out different parts of your car to make it better or worse when it comes to a certain stat. For each car, you have to watch out for five different stats which include Acceleration, Top Speed, ERS, Handling and Drift.

In the garage, you have different part options such as Front Wing, Middle Wing, and Rear Wing as well as Rims, Tires and paint jobs. You can completely change the look of a vehicle at the end of the day with all the modification options. Each part when you swap out with another one will affect your car’s performance.

This comes in handy because you will need to adjust your vehicle’s performance according to the track that you race on. Certain tracks prefer higher speed while some will need better handling and more acceleration. Each car in Xenon Racer comes in two variations, one is the normal version while the other one is a performance variant which is more focused towards racing.

You can check out the stats difference in the performance menu in the garage and determine whether you want to change to that part or not. This will allow you to change the performance of any vehicle to your liking whether you want to make a car more drifty or focus more on handling or top speed. Choose parts which suit the track. Sticking to a single setup will not always work out for you.

Xenon Racer also features a damage system. Every time you hit the track boundaries or your opponents, your car will take damage and if your car’s health drops down to zero, it will respawn in the track making you lose positions. I will advise you to avoid hitting the track too much but you will end up hitting a lot and respawning a lot too as a result because of Xenon Racer’s stiff car control.

Relating to Xenon Racer’s stiff handling, I will recommend that you focus more on making the car slide easily rather making it even stiffer. Xenon Racer seriously suffers when it comes to car control and handling. If Xenon Racer has a weak point, it is car handling because at some points the cars simply refuse to drift or turn.

The handling alone makes Xenon Racer a very tough choice to go for. Sometimes during long turns, if I crashed into the wall the car would just keep on dragging along the wall and I will end up getting my damage to 100% forcing a respawn. You can crash all you want, respawn when your damage reaches the maximum and still you can finish the race however do not expect to win any races like this.

The drift mechanic is also not very effective because sometimes my car entered the drift when I was exiting the corner which made me crash into a wall at the straight section instead of initiating before a corner. Sometimes you will still end up hitting walls while drifting. When you slow down, the car simply refuses to turn so your best bet is still to drift around turns. Even the AI kept crashing into walls for me at certain tight turns in the game.

I personally love the game design and if I ignore the stiff handling, the game is a solid arcade game. You have everything an arcade racer needs in Xenon Racer. It has a decent car collection, it offers car modifications, the track design is amazing, the soundtrack is upbeat and even the visuals are good. To top off everything, it features a lot of game modes to play. However, it all boils down to the stiff handling because the gameplay is where a racing game shines.

Verdict

3DClouds has made a solid arcade racer with Xenon Racer. It looks good, it has excellent content, it is beautiful to look at and it certainly wants to deliver. The only downside I find in this game is the extremely stiff handling because at certain points the car simply refused to turn for me. For a racing game, its gameplay is the most vital mechanic and sadly, Xenon Racer suffers a lot when it comes to gameplay. If the handling is improved in a future patch, you have yourself a solid arcade racer that is bound to keep you entertained for hours.

Final Score: 6/10