Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 Review – An Underwhelming Kart Racing Game

This Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 Review covers the third installment in a series that most fans have eagerly awaited for a long time. The first two games seemed to be a big success with fans of the franchise, and the third installment follows the same basic groundwork laid down by the older titles and tries to improve upon the formula.

The game features an iconic cast of characters and has some noticeable improvements from the older titles, but it still lacks in some areas.

Story And Setting

The game stays true to its roots and puts an emphasis on fun over-the-top gameplay. There isn’t a story mode or a campaign of any sort in the game, and that is not bound to change. The game knows what it is trying to achieve and doesn’t stray from it at all, which is the racing.

There isn’t a story mode or a campaign of any sort in the game, and that is not bound to change.

As for the setting, the game features a plethora of locations from iconic Nickelodeon shows. Tracks like House of Catdog and Jimmy’s Lab hit you with a gust of nostalgia as you see the memorable locations from shows that you grew up with. There are a ton of more locations just like them, and the game features 36 unique tracks, each with their own charms. 

Gameplay

The main gameplay of Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 revolves around racing around a collection of whacky tracks from various franchises from the studio’s history and using quirky-looking karts while doing so.

Speaking of which, the game now has the option to customize the karts, instead of having predefined and fixed vehicles for the characters. It offers players the freedom to customize their karts as they see fit, from the paint jobs to the parts, you can mix and match to your liking.

But customizations don’t decide how the game plays out, and unfortunately, the gameplay itself is lacking, to say the least. The racing mechanics don’t feel as fleshed out as some of the other racing games out there, and the driving is basic and has a very low skill ceiling. Combined with the performance issues, it makes for a tedious experience overall.

The racing mechanics don’t feel as fleshed out as some of the other racing games out there, and the driving is basic and has a very low skill ceiling.

The items and weapons in the game feel like they have no feedback and the players using them get no sense of satisfaction from using them. Once you have played a handful of races, the driving itself starts feeling incomplete and unpolished, which is a serious problem for a game that is entirely about racing. The driving feels unresponsive at times as well, and sometimes this ruins your immersion.

If you are playing the offline mode, you have the choice between four major modes. These are Slime Scramble, Time Trial, Arena, and Challenges. The Slime Scramble Mode is the mode that you will be playing the most.

It uses a point system to determine the winner over the course of four races per circuit, and it also gives you Slime Tokens that you can use to unlock other characters. But the game makes you grind a lot for these tokens, and you have to do somewhere around 17 to 18 races to unlock just one character. 

If you talk about the online mode, then I am sad to inform you that it is nearly non-existent. The matchmaking mode is bugged out and you can easily spend hours in the mode without any luck. In case you do find someone to play with, the experience will be underwhelming as it is riddled with problems.

A few glitches we encountered were related to time trial mode, where the ghost will steal your coins. Well, that sounds like an easy problem to fix, right? In case you decide to play without the ghost, your time will not be saved at all.

The matchmaking mode is bugged out and you can easily spend hours in the mode without any luck.

Another infuriating factor is that you cannot skip the result screen. This makes it so that races have a lot of downtime between them and there is just a window of time where you are unable to do anything except look at the screen. 

On the positive side, the game now has the much-requested voice acting for the characters. Hearing the characters speak adds a lot of charm to the game and makes the experience more enjoyable. But that is as far as the positives about voice acting go because the number of voice lines is nowhere near enough.

Characters will start repeating the same lines over and over again, and hearing the same lines repeatedly makes the experience annoying after a while. 

Visuals And Performance

In the visuals department, the game looks great. Bamtang Games have managed to create a good-looking title while keeping the charm of these characters intact. Looking at some of these Nickelodeon characters come to life as you play with them really makes you appreciate the visual design and art direction, which is also true for all the tracks. All of them feel unique and charming.

Bamtang Games have managed to create a good-looking title while keeping the charm of these characters intact.

The same cannot be said for the performance of the game. For a game of this level, it should be no problem to achieve 60FPS on consoles but that is not always the case. Although I personally did not face issues on PC, multiple other PC users have reported issues with the game stuttering and lagging, solidifying the fact that it has poor optimization. 

Verdict

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 is a gift for the hardcore fans of the series, but for casual gamers who might be new to the franchise, this entry isn’t the best place to start. The game feels uninspiring and bland when it comes to the gameplay and doesn’t offer much in terms of variety.

The customization and voice acting are a welcome addition but those things alone cannot save the game. It also suffers from some bugs as well which might be a deal breaker for some people. 

If you can look past all of these shortcomings, you have a grindy game to look forward to. Just unlocking all of the characters will take an insane amount of time and by then you might lose all interest in the thing It is a game that could have used more polishing but the lack of time or budget left us with an incomplete project.

This has been my Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3 Review. While you’re here, consider checking out some of our other articles.

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