Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9 out of 10.

Table Top Racing is a car combat racing game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita. The game has an excellent pedigree as Nick Burcombe; the head of the Liverpool based indie developer Playrise Digital launched his career by being part of the development team working on the original and iconic WipEout on PlayStation, which brings much needed experience to take the game onto another level of quality.

There are four game modes including: championships, drift events, special events and quick race. The championships have 4 separate titles with each one having more events to compete in and more stars to earn, such as the Twin Cam Challenge being a bronze championship comprising of 7 events and a total of 21 stars to earn, while the Spark Plug Cup comprises of 9 events totalling to 27 stars to earn and the Turbo Championship comprising of 13 events and a total of 39 stars to earn, which is eclipsed even further by the Piston Grand Prix bring a platinum championship comprising of 15 events and a total of 45 stars, although the Spark Plug Cup, Turbo Championship and Piston Grand Prix will remain locked until players have earned enough stars from the previous championship in order to unlock them. Each of the 4 championships contain multiple events in their respective final championship deciding event, which concludes with a podium in which the bottom three cars are thrown into the bin and the top three are proudly paraded on the podium and a listing of the final championship standings before being rewarded with prize money and new vehicles.

The drift events challenges players to score as many points as possible from perfecting their drifting skills as they enter and exit each and every corner of the track, while special events consist of a variety of event types covering the entire spectrum of event types and are unlockable all the way through to requiring a particular vehicle for entry and having attained a certain level anywhere from level 1 up to level 50, alongside the quick race mode which gives the option to choose any track from the eight tracks with the choice of forward or reverse configurations totalling to 16 tracks along with straight racing, time attack, car combat and elimination event types.

Multiple event types varies the gameplay between straight racing, time attack, car combat and elimination with six cars in the straight races, car combat and elimination; two cars in pursuit or just your car in hot lap and time attack, while they are capable of having their own stipulations regarding which power-ups and weapons are available for use.

Players can earn coins by finishing the race as high as their potential can reach, by completing a time trial as quickly as doable or scoring as many drift points as possible in a drift event, which is really important as the coins are used to purchase upgrades such as better cars, tyres and car upgrades to improve a certain element of the car performance, such as increased speed, grip, acceleration, armour or turbo with the upgrades costing more coins as players progress up the ladder of available car upgrades. Upgrades will be required to win particular races as progression is made through each type of event. For instance one gold star will most likely be earned for each of the drift events with the required car to enter them, therefore resulting in having to upgrade the tyres to drift tyres for 10,000 gold coins in order to improve the performance and even then it will be a struggle to earn the second tier of gold coins within each one.

Players have to earn XP to level up in order to unlock new events in drift trials and special events, which is achievable by finishing the race as high up the field as possible or by hitting an A.I. opponents’ car with a weapon, therefore meaning that players could finish a race in sixth position, but still earn XP from having hit a car with a weapon that was carefully positioned on track or locked onto.

The track design is quite varied with a surprising level of detail built into the surroundings of each of the 8 tracks with each track having a forward and reverse configuration to double the number of tracks to 16, which is more than just running the same track in a different direction as playes have to approach the cornering and acceleration differently in comparison to the normal configuration.

The car blueprint is just as varied as the track design as there are 17 cars available to unlock or purchase ranging from an ice cream van to a mini-van, trucks and even sports cars as well as comedy vehicles such as a bunny and a hot dog van with every vehicle having its own parameters of maximum performance.

There is a real sense of speed to each car which only increases as the cars are upgraded further asplayers attempt to keep the car from crashing and tumbling over onto its side, while also avoiding the possibilities of not drifting too far or being bumped by an opponent off the edge of the track, which are all given scenarios that could potentially put pay to chances of winning the race.

The car combat elements are an excellent design choice as it provides a new layer to the gameplay as there are a number of power-ups and weapons such as mines, EMP blasts, lock-on ranging missiles, speed boosts and more besides, which are collected in boxes that have a question mark on each side of them to maintain the notion that the power-ups and weapons are a random selection that introduces a luck of the draw element with the potential of the next power-up or weapon you collect turning the tide of the race in your favour during car combat races.

There are three camera angles with the first providing the closest view from behind the car, while the second providing a view from further back, which is perfect for the players that prefer to not have the camera angle too close to the car and the third camera angle is a top down view, which is the ideal throwback for any fans of such games as Micro Machines and more recently MotorStorm RC as the camera is zoomed all the way out to such a point as though the action was being viewed from a helicopter. However, the game is somewhat lacking a first-person camera, which could have been mounted to the bonnet of the car with an additional first-person perspective from the eyes of the driver.

The controls are well mapped to the Vita with the control scheme consisting of pressing X to accelerate; pressing square to brake; pressing triangle to change the camera angle; pressing O to look behind the car; pressing R to use a power-up or weapon pick-up; hanging the direction of the left analogue stick or alternatively pressing left or right on the d-pad to steer; moving the right analogue stick forwards and backwards as alternatives to accelerating and braking respectively and pressing start to display the pause menu, while the touch screen is used as an alternative to pressing O to look behind the car.

 

The graphics are excellent as they accurately model the materials players would expect to find on everyday surfaces, such as wood, table cloths, boxes, food, crockery and much more in the surrounding environments, while the car models also look just as great, alongside an amazing level of performance with smooth car animations and the ability for vehicles to truly provide a sense of speed, which only progresses as players earn faster cars and upgrade them to perform at their maximum potential.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great touch screen based user interface across various menus such as the main, garage, let’s race, various event, options and various gameplay menus, although it lacks any ability for navigation via the left and right analogue sticks, directional pad, face buttons and rear touch pad. The background of the menu screens looks very colourful and vibrant as they contain a panning image in the background that showcases one of the many tracks, alongside a number of vehicles and weapons being fired, which perfectly encapsulates exactly what Table Top Racing is all about.

The audio consists of sound effects and music which includes the roar and boosting of the engines, screeching of the tyres, weapons being fired and explosions from when the weapons hit their mark, while the music is a rather appropriate mix of guitar driven upbeat rock music composed by Tim Wright a.k.a. CoLD SToRAGE who is a prolific composer for classic videogames from WipEout to Formula 1 and Colony Wars on PS1 with more recent efforts including Gravity Crash Ultra on PS Vita.

The trophy list includes 14 trophies with 11 bronze, 2 silver trophies and 1 gold trophy. The easiest trophy has to be the Table Top Torment bronze trophy for falling off the surface of the table ten times, while the First Win bronze trophy for winning three stars in any championship race and the You’re Special bronze trophy for gaining three stars in any special event are both bound to be earned sooner, rather than later. There is a single online trophy called Online Winner for winning an online race, although if finding this a little difficult, then players can always try boosting with a friend. The hardest trophies are certainly the Master Drifter silver trophy for earning a score of 300,000 points within a one minute drift session; the All-Star Specialist silver trophy for earning three stars on all of the special events; and the Stellar Performance gold trophy for obtaining all stars in all of the championships. It is estimated that depending upon skill, a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips and that it would take between 8 to 10 hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are four difficulty levels including: rookie, amateur, pro and expert with the biggest differences between the rookie and expert difficulty levels being the increase in difficulty of the A.I. controlled cars as they will make far more aggressive overtaking manoeuvres with an improved level of performance that enables them to get more of the best out of their cars resulting in them being harder to catch and overtake when they are ahead and easier for you to be overtaken when they are behind with no rubber band in sight for the harder difficulty levels, while the players car’s handling will become harder to maintain especially with the earlier vehicles and tyres.

The online multiplayer component consists of online and ad-hoc multiplayer modes with options to host or join a game. Hosting a game allows players to select the track from the 8 on offer and if the track is navigated in a forward or reverse direction or a randomly selected track and direction totalling to 16 track configurations, the difficulty of the handling of everyone’s car, a car from any of the 17 that have previously unlocked and car customisation in your garage. The performance of the online multiplayer component holds up well and is without lag even when there is a full field of cars, which proves to be a genuinely entertaining scenario.

The ad-hoc game modes encompass all of the online multiplayer features, but rather than playing against an opponent from anywhere across the world; it is instead limited to a locality of around a hundred feet, resulting in ad-hoc being perfect to play against a guest who also owns a PlayStation Vita and Table Top Racing.

 

There are some minor omissions to the online multiplayer and ad-hoc that would have improved the experience as players are not allowed to choose any A.I. controlled cars to participate and they must wait for an opponent to join the lobby before the race can start, which means the lack of ability to be able to have a full field of five A.I. controlled opponents along with the lack of an option for players to join an online multiplayer race mid-race can be rather frustrating at times, especially when players are having to wait for another driver to join the lobby. Other minor criticisms which can certainly be looked beyond include there being no option to choose anymore than three laps, which limits the distance of the races to a rather small size, although some may feel that is wise to not have a never ending race; it would have been a good option for those who wanted more of an endurance challenge structure to their online multiplayer racing, while there is also no option to change the event type from car combat to straight racing or to limit the power-ups and weapons available within the race, alongside event types such as elimination and pursuit not being included in online multiplayer.

The online leaderboards focuses on world rankings, online rankings and biggest drift mode scores with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID) and their total amount of points accumulated with the positioning of each player based upon their total points, while also covering the fastest times for all of the 8 tracks in both of their configurations totalling to 16 tracks and a combined total of nineteen leaderboards.

The replayability stems from many areas, such as the fun of the car combat gameplay elements, unlocking cars from winning championships, earning in-game currency to upgrade cars, earning XP and levelling up by performing well in races, entertaining online and ad-hoc multiplayer and competitive online leaderboards will have players returning to the game for a long time to come.

Overall, if you are a fan of Micro Machines or arcade racing games, then you will certainly appreciate the throwback that is provided here and it must be said that for the vast amount of content; £4.99 is exceptional value that should be rewarded with an unquestionable purchase that you absolutely will not regret!

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Table Top Racing
• Developer: Playrise Digital
• Publisher: Ripstone
• System: PS Vita
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1-6 (Online Multiplayer/Ad-Hoc/Online Leaderboards)
• Memory Card Space Required: 533MB (Version 1.02)