Music Racer: Ultimate | Xbox Series X Review

When I first saw the trailer for Music Racer: Ultimate, I was intrigued. I do love a good ol’ arcade-style racing game that’s easy to pick up and play. Combine that with my love of music and rhythm games, and there was no doubt I would be drawn into this game. While it is definitely easy to pick up and play, and is definitely music centric, the game’s title is actually vague and in some ways misleading.

Seeker

From developer AbstractArt and published by Sometimes You, Music Racer: Ultimate is described as a bright and colorful rhythm-based driving game. However (as I alluded to in the intro) it’s hardly either of those things, at least in the traditional definition of those genres. Sure you control cars that drive along a road. However, you aren’t really driving and you’re certainly not racing. You aren’t racing against opponents or a clock, and you aren’t in control of your vehicle in the way one would normally expect.

As for calling this a rhythm game, it’s not that either. Rhythm games by traditional definition are based on a timed sequence of musical sounds either created by, or as a reaction to, direct user input. By that standard, that’s not what happens when playing Music Racer: Ultimate. This game is actually more like an endless runner, set in environments comparable to an iTunes visualizer.

Road Runner

The main objective of this game is to hit as many beat notes as possible that are randomly generated and placed on the road. Each beat note you hit adds points to your score. Speed is determined by the tempo and beats per minute of the song you’re driving to, so there isn’t any braking or accelerating to speak of. You also don’t steer your vehicle either, instead you’re simply shifting from lane to lane to hit the notes. You have the option to use either the control stick, D-Pad, or even just by simply using the top shoulder buttons. The game’s mechanics are overwhelmingly simple. 

When playing a course, you must hit as many beat notes as possible to rack up enough points to unlock new tracks and new vehicles. The game features four difficulty modes: zen mode, cinematic mode, then a standard and hard mode. When playing this game on standard mode, you must hit the beat notes while at the same time avoiding hazards which are also scattered on the road. Hitting these won’t end your game luckily, nor does it slow you down in any significant way. It merely just breaks your combo streak, resetting back to zero.

At the end of the race, points earned are calculated by the total beats hit combined with your highest combo streak. Zen mode is the game’s easy mode and removes the hazards entirely, and cinematic mode is just the game playing itself, if you just want to watch a pretty light show.

All the Pretty Colors

I will say this, Music Racer: Ultimate oozes in the retro futurist style it was going for. More often than not, it felt like I was playing in “The Grid” from the Tron films, which is fitting since one of the unlockable vehicles is a lightcycle. The points you accumulate through playing the courses, you then use to spend on unlocking new courses and vehicles. Playable vehicles consist of some iconic 80s cars like the aforementioned lightcycle, the Pursuit Special from Mad Max, and yes…even my beloved DeLorean Time Machine makes an appearance. However, these serve as nothing more than a change in aesthetics.

As for the courses themselves, they’re vibrant and colorful and do actually change along with the music, just like any media player used in the last 20 years. The two standout courses I did enjoy resemble old vector graphics, with a neon colored grid and triangular neon lines meant to look like a mountain range in the distance. Basically the title screen from Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. These courses are aptly named ‘Retro 1’ and ‘Retro 2’.

I should mention that this is actually an updated re-release of a game from a couple years ago for last gen platforms simply called Music Racer. So what makes this the “ultimate” version? Well, first on the technical side of things it can run at both a 4K resolution along with running at a full 120 frames per second. But the big draw and newest feature is the ability to play to your own music. However there’s a catch, a rather huge catch.

Certain Restrictions Apply

You can choose music from three different sources. First there’s the in-game music which is serviceable enough, featuring around 35-40 tracks mostly of the synth pop variety but hardly any of them standout. It’s these songs that were also available in the original Music Racer release from two years ago. What makes the game “ultimate” is with the addition of the next two sources.

The next source is from a streaming platform integrated into the game, but it’s not in the same league as the big names like Spotify or Pandora. It’s a newer service called Audious, which is one I haven’t heard of before playing this game. Audious features mostly up-and-coming artists that aren’t signed to a record label that uses a blockchain/NFT system, so that’s a hard pass from me, bruh.

The big snag here is that the game’s menu only gives you the option to either search for songs from a list of trending tunes or you search for songs by artist only. Since this service features only unknowns, how can I search for an artist if I don’t know who’s on the platform? It’s an odd Catch 22 that could’ve been avoided by at least having a browsing option. The tracks you do choose are then downloaded to your console’s temporary RAM storage that gets erased immediately after completion of the level.

Lastly the third source is where players can pick their own music to play to. This was the biggest draw for me when I first saw the trailers, but I quickly realized that I should’ve read the fine print. I assumed there would be an option to link with a Spotify or Pandora account, since those two services are available in the Xbox Store. But nope that’s not the case, instead it requires you to link with your own WebDAV server. What is a WebDAV server? I don’t know, I tried looking at how to easily set one up, but that right there was already more work than I was willing to put into this game. You can imagine what a huge disappointment that was.

The game’s best selling point is one I couldn’t nor was willing to make the effort to experience. It’s a shame that custom music integration still has to be a complicated ordeal, when Microsoft figured it out perfectly 20 years ago with the original Xbox.

The Takeaway

It should be pretty clear I can’t recommend Music Racer: Ultimate. I saw what it was trying to do, but it just fell flat to me and the novelty wore off after only one or two races, and I saw all this game had to offer in the same amount of time. I’m sure if I actually could use my own songs I’d be more lenient, but it’s still an endless runner at the end of the day, disguised as a rhythmic racing game with barely any gameplay. So little in fact that it has a mode where the game plays itself, which makes playing it practically pointless.

At least it looks pretty, and at least it’s a cheap game, priced about the same as your standard phone app. But even with all that you can easily skip this one, regardless of it having a DeLorean!

To hear me talk more about Music Racer: Ultimate, be sure to listen to Episode 389 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:14:37 time stamp.

This review is based on an Xbox Series X/S copy of Music Racer: Ultimate provided by Evolve PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on Xbox One and PlayStation.