poured their passion into this project.
Their love of racing is evident in the
attention to detail they’ve lavished on
Circuit Superstars. As racing fans, they
were not content to have their cute-
looking vehicles bounce around the
track like dodgems, instead ensuring
that each of the different types of
vehicles behave differently enough,and reasonably accurately, to give you
a sense of really driving them without
losing any of the game’s immediacy.Skid marks
Don’t be disgusting. No, really. The
attention to detail belies our initial
impressions of a cutesy arcade racer- skid marks will stay on the track,
telling their own story of the race so
far, something the devs are focused
on as motorsport fans. In truth, it’s
all too easy to let your concentration
lapse, and send your vehicle speeding
into the barriers, but a little focus
will see you improve as you strive for
racing perfection.
The controls themselves couldn’t be
simpler, with just directional steering,
accelerate and brake to worry about.
Your success will rely on how well you
use the handling of each car to your
advantage. The cars’ performance is
primarily physics-driven, and while all
those important racing techniques,
such as knowing when to brake, slow
and keep a perfect racing line, will
all be essential to winning races, the
amount of drift, damage to cars and
collision physics are also important.
You can utilise pit stops, with an
adorable crew of tiny mechanics
ready to change your tyres and repair
damage at record speed – useful
when there are a few cars on the track
and bumps are unavoidable.
A number of vehicle types will be
available to race, from trucks and rally
cars to ’60s-style racing cars and
modern GTs. It certainly looks like it will
be totally brilliant against your mates
in couch multiplayer as you jostle for
position and try to hit those fastest
lap times. You’ll have to wait till 2020
to start your engines, though. Q
Top-down racers have always been
a lot of fun, although anyone old
enough to remember the likes of
arcade classics like Super Sprint will
recall how weirdly counterintuitive
the controls were, where you needed
to rotate your car rather than merely
adapt to the road. No such problems
with Circuit Superstars, which as we
can attest from our hands-on time
with the game, is an intuitive racer
with a toybox aesthetic but a toolbox
of motorsport realism behind it.
The game is being released by
Square Enix under its Collective
imprint, which nurtures indie developer
talent. Original Fire is the creative
force here, and three of the six-person
team are Mexican siblings who grew
up around motorsports and haveSquare Enix Collective publishes titles created by emerging indie talent, such as Forgotton Anne and Fear Effect Sedna
BELOW Don’t let
that Micro
Machines look
fool you, this
racer is
realistic.
Circuit
Superstars
Are you ready for micro-Forza?
Chris Burke
PUBLISHER SQUARE ENIX COLLECTIVE DEVELOPER ORIGINAL FIRE
ETA 2020“A lit tle focus
will see you
improve as you
strive for racing
perfection”
026 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
PREVIEW