Living World Racing Updated Demo

As Mario Kart demonstrated a long time ago, racing games do not have have to concern themselves with realism or accurate car physics to be fun. In order for everybody to enjoy the races and have a good time, the developers must put a lot of effort into the competitive mechanics of the game, which means giving the players plenty of options and numerous ways to get in the lead.

Living World Racing definitely follows this idea and makes things as surreal as possible, using funny-looking animals as drivers and a weird combination of boats and hovercrafts for vehicles. The tracks are sprinkled with power-ups and traps that can turn the tide of the race at any point, as well as give you the upper hand when you need it the most.

As far as the actual races are concerned, you start off by choosing the desired driver from a long list of wacky animals, including hamsters and mice. Once that's settled, you can also decide upon the preferred track and even oscillate between different weather conditions, depending on your state of mind. Once everything is set up, you can head on and have some fun together with the other players, or the AI.

The races are about as wacky as you can imagine, especially since the boats float above the ground and you do not really have to worry about the actual track, except in corners. However, they do not go too fast on their own, but you can always find boosters around the track and significantly increase your speed over short distances, just enough to manage some spectacular overtaking maneuvers.

In case playing nice does not yield any favorable results, you can always pick-up a variety of weapons and use them directly on the opponents, such as carrot missiles or pumpkin bombs. While the first variety can be used over long distances in order to severely incapacitate the target for a while, the pumpkins can be strategically dropped behind you, in order to act as mines for anyone who drives over them.

In the end, Living World Racing can be quite racing, especially when played with friends. However, the vehicles are not that interesting and they are somewhat slow, which makes for very dull portions of the track, in case they are devoid of boosters.