Mad Tracks is basically a mini-kart racer with some party games thrown in for good measure, the key words being “mini” and “basic”. Mini because the cars are little toys that race around places like a dining room table or a child’s bedroom. Basic because the racing is really simple and the power-ups underpowered and superfluous. The mini doesn’t really add anything to the game outside of the mini games and the basic means you’ll blow through each race without much trouble in about a minute each. So let’s just forget about the racing (even if you buy the game you’ll forget about the racing pretty quickly) and take a look at the whether or not the party mini games make the game worth purchasing.

The mini games all play off of the fact that the cars are small toy racers. Some are pretty boring such as one that has you going off a short ramp to land on a dartboard and another that has you racing around a tabletop to knock toys off of it and onto the floor, but others are more interesting. There’s a mini-golf game which has the players racing to be the first to push a golf ball into the hole, a foosball table where two teams of two compete to knock the ball into the other team’s goal, and a pool table where you need to sink your balls before your opponent does. These are fun the first time through, but eventually the control and ball physics will drain away your enjoyment of them. The cars don’t handle all that well but the races are so forgiving that it doesn’t matter much when simply trying to get from Point A to Point B the fastest. However, when you’re trying to point your car at the right angle to hit a ball it quickly becomes annoying. Matches often breakdown into opponents sitting on opposite ends of the play area doing three, four, or five point turns so that they can line themselves up to hit their ball. Making things more frustrating is the fact that the game’s physics model is completely inconsistent. There’s just no way to know where a ball will go when you hit it and how far it will travel. After spending the time to line up your car for a shot it is frustrating to see the ball roll off in an unexpected direction.

You can blow through every race and mini game that Mad Tracks has to offer in under an hour and the multiplayer play isn’t compelling enough to keep you coming back after your first couple of games. Mad Tracks promises to provide additional tracks and games via future downloads, but I doubt you’ll be motivated to spend any additional money on the game after paying to download it in the first place.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 50%. Mad Tracks is pretty short on gameplay, which is probably a good thing since the gameplay that is there isn’t very exciting.