Old School Racer
Platform: Xbox Live Indie Games (Xbox 360)
Price: 80 MSP / $1

A brief trip down nostalgia lane.

Gameplay:
This game will take you down memory lane if you have ever played any of those older PC games such as Elasto Mania, Trial Bike, or even the more recent Trials HD game for the Xbox Live Arcade. It has a very simple formula; basically, go from the start on the left side and cross the finish line on the right side without falling off of a cliff, landing on the biker's head, or falling into obstacles such as fires/spikes. The controls make it a very user-friendly game that is very simple to pick up and play: right trigger accelerates, “B” brakes/reverses, “X” does a boost, and left and right on the control stick change the leaning direction of the biker. The game is not a simulation and is instead a simple physics-based arcade racer that takes you from left to right.


The game offers some fun physics based challenges.

Old School Racer is a pretty solid title, especially at the price of 80 MSP, whereas a similar game such as Trials HD on Xbox Live Arcade runs about 800 MSP. The game offers 15 regular levels (5x easy, 5x normal, 5x hard) which are simple straight forward off-road races, as well as 5 "wacky" levels which contain moving platforms, gravity changers, large rolling balls, and so forth. The 15 regular levels offer a tiny bit of challenge, but realistically you can easily complete each one within a minute. The wacky levels on the other hand are a bit more challenging, which caused me to use a lot of trial and error approaches to the obstacles. Personally I had more fun with the 5 wacky levels than the 15 regular levels due to the variety and the increase in difficulty. Finally the game offers 5 "challenge" levels, which basically set a simple goal such as "do as many back flips as you can before crossing the finish line" or "rotate the right control stick to jump as far as you can" and it records your results, giving you the opportunity to go back and beat your previous scores.
Though the races in Old School Racer can be easily completed in less than 30 minutes, the game throws in either five or ten "tokens" into each level, which can be collected to unlock new bikes in your garage. The bikes are all literally the same thing, with the exception of different stats. The tokens add extra time spent with the game, but it does not take very long to get 100% in this game. Overall the gameplay in the game is very solid as I cannot point out any major flaws. One thing the game could definitely use is a mini-map, it got a little frustrating at times not knowing what is in front of me on a new level, which causes me to die and try it over a few times even though it is not a challenging obstacle at all. The simple physics engine works perfectly, and provides for a pretty decent time.

Graphics & Audio:
The graphics in Old School Racer are good. The terrain and the background are all brightly colored, and it all has the old school 2D racer feeling, just like the title says. I really enjoyed playing this game because it does not try to be a serious off road dirt biking game, it tries to bring back the memories of the similar racing games from many years ago. The audio on the other hand could use some work, the background music is a really strange choice of "beach" music. The sound effects are really basic engine noises and nothing more, not even any collision noises.


A very colorful "old school" setup.

Replay value:
There is not very much replay value in this game. You can easily complete all of the races in less than 30 minutes, and you can go back and collect all of the tokens which will add an additional 30-40 minutes to the total play time. You can always go back and try to beat your previous scores and times, but unfortunately I did not have the motivation or interest to go back and do the same levels again. The game could use more levels with more variety.

Overall:
Overall, this is a very solid indie title. It highlights a lot of the best things about the 2D motorcycle racers of the past and provides for a very fun experience. Unfortunately the lack of variety in the already small selection of levels makes it a very short game that can be beaten very quickly. The graphics, the setup, and the physics in the game are all spot-on. The level design is great, and I actually enjoyed the five wacky levels more than I did the fifteen regular levels. The lack of a mini-map makes a lot of the levels rather frustrating the first times through though. It is a great game, especially at the low price of 80 MSP, but the low price does not feel like it makes up for the small selection of levels.

Pros:
+Very good execution of the classic 2D racing formula
+Bright and colorful graphics that bring back a lot of memories
+The "wacky" levels are extremely fun and challenging

Cons:
-Very few levels
-Low replay value

Old School Racer quickly races by, scoring a 7/10.

it somehow reminds of the motocross game in my nes..its kinda blurry in my mind..i cant seem to remember completely.

Nice review gotta say though, it had loads of replay value for me. i've probably spent about 15 - 20 hours on it trying to beat various high scores from other online users, i'm surprised your game didn't sync with anyone and get their scores, everytime i've been on there has been someone else on at the same time to transfer scores with.

Actually that is strange, I was connected to XBL but I never saw any scores besides my own.

I find it interesting how the official Xbox page fails to mention it has such a feature but I do remember reading a review that said it had it. From my experiences with XBLIG leaderboard games, it sometimes takes a while for the scores to appear. In one game, it was only after I had owned it for a few days and spent a couple of hours with it that I saw a good chunk of the scores whereas for other people, they had shown up earlier...

@ ghegpatatas, I think you're referring to Excite Bike (NES) as it did remind me of it too although they're only similar in appearance. I'm not a big fan of these bike games so I wasn't too impressed but it at least seemed to be more polished than some of the browser games that have the same premise.

I contacted the developer about the scoreboard and they replied saying there is slight bug with the online leaderboard, and sometimes the scores don't update for some reason. They're bringing out an update patch soon.

Here is a video someone posted about a cheat in this game, it shows the score board working at 55 seconds in. These are definatley other peoples scores on their board coz thats me at position 5 Skxawng.

Yeah I definitely hope this gets fixed sooner than later, that would most definitely lengthen the amount of time I spend on the game on my own.