Developed by VooFoo Studios, Mantis Burn Racing is a top-down racing game inspired by titles such as Micro Machines and Rock n’ Roll Racing. Featuring bumper-to-bumper action with solid controls, it aims to bring back a genre that many gamers know and love. Over the course of its career mode, I had a ton of fun playing it.
To start off, one of the most important aspects of a game like this has to be its gameplay, and I’d say Mantis Burn Racing is quite enjoyable in that regard. I’d keep telling myself “just one more race,” before I put the game down, and every time that one race would turn into ten. The controls are tight even though I mainly just use the right trigger and the racing feels satisfying. There are times in other games where it just doesn’t feel right driving a car, whether it’s because the cars control terribly or the feedback is awful, but in Mantis Burn Racing, I’m happy to say that the racing is great. In addition, I appreciate the 3D graphics the game uses which gives the tracks a sense of depth and detail that most top-down racers lack. The visuals that it sports are gorgeous for this type of game.
Each vehicle within its own class (Rookie, Pro, and Veteran) feels unique, however vehicles classified by their weight all handle similarly. A light weight Rookie car drives, accelerates, and drifts differently from a medium weight Rookie car, but that difference blurs within each weight class. A heavy Pro car is almost indistinguishable between its heavy Rookie counterpart. I would have liked to see a bigger difference between cars in their own weight class other than being faster. I would end up defaulting to the light weight car whenever I could because the heavy cars were sluggish by design.
There are seven sections in its career mode, broken up between Rookie, Pro, and Veteran, all with an increasing amount of events to do. Rookie and Pro have three seasons each while Veteran only has one, but Veteran has enough events combined to equal a couple of Rookie seasons. Rookie cars can only be used in Rookie events, and so on. This is an understandable decision, however I would have liked to go back and use Pro or Veteran cars in other events once I beat them for the first time. It feels like an unnecessary restriction, especially given that there are already so few tracks and cars.
The biggest problem in the game is the lack of variety across the board. There are only nine cars total and two main locations that each have just a few tracks to play. There are many times where a race takes place on a familiar track but in reverse. After playing for a couple of hours, I had already seen every track in the game and even gotten an achievement for it. I had also already bought every car in the game as well. It will take players longer to be able to use the Veteran class vehicles, but really once you’ve played through about half of the game, you’ve played through it all.
The RPG system for upgrading every car tries to balance out the fact that you have nine cars to choose from, but it doesn’t change enough of the gameplay to make it truly effective. You can unlock upgrades for the engine, suspensions, gearboxes, etc. and while they change the stats on screen, they don’t seem to have any meaningful impact on the gameplay other than the speed of the vehicle. I would also recommend not being like me and fully upgrading the light Veteran car to make it as fast as possible because you will probably have trouble handling it around the corners and bends on every track. Even though I personally don’t find the RPG system that helpful overall, I’m sure someone will be able to utilize it better than I can.
I waited to put my review out as it was impossible for me to find an online multiplayer match before launch. There were only one to two public lobbies for me to join when I went to test it out, and I had to wait until they were finished with their races that were already in progress. Once I was in a match, the racing played out exactly like in career mode, albeit with real people instead of NPCs. That said, there wasn’t any noticeable lag, so the experience was smooth. Besides myself, there were about two to five other people in the lobby at any time. While I can see the online multiplayer being a great way to play with friends, I feel like it’s better to just go with the career mode as you can’t control any of the event types, tracks, or vehicle classes if you are not hosting the match yourself.
Summary
It’s not a game that will appeal to everybody, as I’m sure many would prefer a AAA title such as Forza, but Mantis Burn Racing is wonderful if you want a racing game that’s a bit different. It stands out from the typical racing game you see today and it’s much more affordable. Although I have some minor complaints, its strengths greatly outweigh them.
VooFoo Studios set out to create a fun racing game, and they certainly achieved that. I grew up with racing games such as Burnout so maybe I’m inclined to like them, but I can see a lot of people spending several hours with Mantis Burn Racing. It doesn’t exactly break the mold, but if you’re looking for a modern top-down racer that’s incredibly addictive, this is it.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.