Super Toy Cars 2 review for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

The nicest thing that can be said about Super Toy Cars 2 is that there?s a lot of it. Lots of cars to choose from, lots of upgrades for each car, lots of cups to choose from in career mode, and lots of variety in the races within each cup. If you want to play it, you?ll be spoiled for choice.

I don?t know why you?d want to play it, though, because Super Toy Cars 2 is an absolutely terrible game, in every respect from its performance, to its soundtrack, all the way down to the racing itself. This game is a failure in every way.

All of these things are evident from the get-go. The game struggles to display the cars as you?re picking your first one, and everything looks muddy. The graphics continue to look awful once you get into the race, and you?ll feel like someone smeared vaseline all over your Switch?s screen.

Then you get into the race, and you quickly discover that your cars handle terribly. You?ll struggle to take any turns without careening into the walls — and, unfortunately, this doesn?t improve even after you upgrade the handling. In fact, occasionally my cars would struggle with even going in a straight line. There was one memorable moment where I was zipping along, no one nearby, no obstacles in my way, and I suddenly flipped out and had to reset myself.

Improbably, the game?s technical performance one-ups that for terribleness. The pop-in is easily the most obvious manifestation of that. One of the modes requires that you smash as many other cars along the track as you can, Burnout-style. This would be awesome, if it weren?t for the fact that the cars are only occasionally visible — you can see them blink into existence ahead of you, but that doesn?t mean they?ll still be there a second or two later when you?ve gotten closer. Another time, in a straightforward race, I had a car crash right next to me against an obstacle, except according to the track map, there were no other cars anywhere close to me on the track.

To top everything off, there?s the execrable soundtrack.

Now, I?ve got nothing against indie rock. In another lifetime, back when music blogs were a thing, I wrote about all kinds of indie bands daily for a couple of years, and I also promoted a couple of shows per month. I?ve heard all manner of genuinely bad music, and I always tried to see the best in it no matter what. The songs here, though…they?re a whole other level of awful. They seem to have been taken from some kind of royalty-free, Creative Commons compilation or website judging by the credits, but they?re the kind of garbage that gives royalty-free music a bad name. They range from offensively bland and generic to irredeemable crimes against music, and all of them will make you want to play the game with your sound turned all the way off.

Mind you, that means you still have to see Super Toy Cars 2, and that?s probably just as much a punishment as listening to its soundtrack. There?s nothing good to be said about this game, and under no circumstances will it be worth your time.

Eclipse Games provided us with a Super Toy Cars 2 Switch code for review purposes.