There’s one game that sprang to mind immediately as my first race of Make Way began – Micro Machines. The top down view is one aspect, but as we play it soon becomes apparent there’s more inspiration here, with racers eliminated by falling too far off screen, over the top weapons to use, and some floaty, arcade-like car handling that is equally keen to help us do a cool drift as it is to send us smashing into a wall.
It’s not just a modern take on those classic games, mind you. While there was the option to create our own tracks back in the day, here, Ice BEAM have taken that aspect and made it a core part of the actual gameplay.
Each race kicks off with up to four players (or AI opponents) picking from a random selection of track parts or items. Once done, we race to place our chosen piece down to build out the track we will then be racing on. Placing these down is easy, with some generous assistance letting us know where and when we can put a piece, and as each player drops their piece down the camera moves along to show the new end part to attach to.
Once all are down, we’re quickly dropped on the starting grid, where we then need to race the track we just built, with the aim being to get through as many checkpoints as possible and reach the finish line first.
Because each race is unique, there’s no need to worry about learning tracks or routes. It all comes down to reactions and how ruthless we will or won’t be with the others. We can physically jostle for place and push others off course, use some pick ups such as rockets or mines to attack, and battle our way to first place.
It’s not as simple as that of course, as after each round, all four players get to chose new parts or items to add to the course, and after each new set of additions we have to run the whole course again. The aim is the first player to get to 3000 points, and assuming we’re successful on a run we amass anywhere from 100 to 500 or more points, so you can imagine how long the courses can get.
The track pieces themselves are pretty varied, with simple corners and straights balanced out with loop-de-loops, spirals, shifting bridges, large fans, tesla coils, gapped sections and much, much more. There’s an XP system that unlocks new parts as we level up, and also allows us to have more extreme rulesets for the races, such as taking away the sides, or having hazard and items lay across the track.
All this is to say, it can get pretty hectic. Players are free to place their items and tracks down almost anywhere, and in any order, and so we can go from some gentile cornering to double loops into a jump while trying to avoid a gap in an instant. Frequent checkpoints are placed throughout the track automatically, and if a player falls off they will respawn at the next one to keep playing, forfeit of the points they would have gotten for passing the checkpoint properly.
The concept is great, and in practice it can be be a lot of fun, though with a few caveats.
Firstly, the camera. It being so close to action is fine, though I’d have preferred a minor adjustment outwards personally. Where I found issue is in how keen it is to fling around to follow the mishmash of course layouts. There’s a lot going on in a race, with four cars, weapons, and bungled courses, and the camera struggles to remain smooth while keeping up with the action fairly. Those far ahead can’t see where they’re going, and while in the Micro Machines this could happen too, it could be allieviated by learning the pre-made course layouts and was a fun part of the challenge. As there are no set course layouts in Make Way, this is all but impossible to do and so it just feels like those ahead are being punished by the slower drivers.
On sharp corners especially I find it jerks into place rather than smoothly panning. It put me off on more than one occasion, and it feels as though it affects the actual cars too; if I’m already at full left lock and the camera suddenly jerks to the right, that full left lock instantly sees my car sharply turn and usually fall off the course. I’m not dead certain of this, but it certainly feels like something is affecting the cars in this way. It’s also possible to be eliminated suddenly by the camera doing this, with those falling behind finding their buffer of space gone in an instant.
The aforementioned checkpoints can be a bit hit and miss as well. If first place is at the checkpoint and last place falls off, there’s a good chance they won’t respawn in time to join back in until to next checkpoint. Again, not a bad thing in theory, but I found this happened often enough to be noticeable.
These issues can be worked around to a degree in play, and with a group of friends in local or online play it will likely only add to the inevitable banter going on, but I can also see it going the other way and putting some off from wanting to keep trying.
So far I’ve mostly played offline against bots, but as I just mentioned there is an online mode that is fully cross-platform enabled. I’ve had a few online bouts with strangers, though it’s early days yet and I did find a few times the search came back empty. Hopefully it’ll pick up steam soon, and despite the aforementioned issues, Make Way offers a fun and different take on multiplayer racing.
Conclusion
Make Way offers something new and unique in the racing genre, and is perfectly suited to game nights with a few friends (and a few beers). Camera hang ups aside, the track construction idea is great, and it’ll no doubt be a fixture of our gaming nights for some time yet.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
