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IGN Review of Mini Desktop Racing
Matt Casamassina and I essentially drew straws for both Offroad Extreme: Special Edition and Mini Desktop Racing, but much like a fifth grade school fair it appears everyone's a winner today. Everyone, that is, aside from the poor saps that end up getting Mini Desktop Racing in their stocking this holiday season. The game is brought to Wii by Conspiracy Entertainment and Dada Design Interactive, the same people that also released such budget titles as Ninja Bread Man and the aforementioned Offroad Extreme. Normally we'd discourage speaking in generalizations, but at least for the time being it's obvious that the companies are out to make a quick buck, and their products should be avoided like the gaming plague, as it's nothing but shovelware.
It takes about five seconds to tell exactly what happened with both Offroad Extreme and Mini Desktop Racing; two games, one amazingly simple – and broken – interface and design. Just like Offroad Extreme, Mini Desktop Racing uses the same small icons, the same shoddy IR cursor control, and even makes up the interface with the same load bars and bland text; they're nearly identical next to each other. Both games run in only 4:3 and 480i as well, so just like Offroad you'll be stuck with the lowest of the low display quality with Mini Desktop Racing.
If there was an A and B team working on these two games, however, Mini got the A team; though that hardly justifies bragging rights. In general the game controls better, but it's still one hell of a frustrating experience, as you'll hold the Wii-mote facing forward, and tilt the long way as if playing Wing Island. Why they opted to tilt the long way rather than playing like 100% of the other racers on the system is beyond us, but it's pretty uncomfortable and needlessly odd to say the least. The game's credits mention no game designer at all though, so that explains a lot. That being said, at least it's "less broken" than Offroad, which is a small step in the right direction.
©2007-12-10, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
It takes about five seconds to tell exactly what happened with both Offroad Extreme and Mini Desktop Racing; two games, one amazingly simple – and broken – interface and design. Just like Offroad Extreme, Mini Desktop Racing uses the same small icons, the same shoddy IR cursor control, and even makes up the interface with the same load bars and bland text; they're nearly identical next to each other. Both games run in only 4:3 and 480i as well, so just like Offroad you'll be stuck with the lowest of the low display quality with Mini Desktop Racing.
If there was an A and B team working on these two games, however, Mini got the A team; though that hardly justifies bragging rights. In general the game controls better, but it's still one hell of a frustrating experience, as you'll hold the Wii-mote facing forward, and tilt the long way as if playing Wing Island. Why they opted to tilt the long way rather than playing like 100% of the other racers on the system is beyond us, but it's pretty uncomfortable and needlessly odd to say the least. The game's credits mention no game designer at all though, so that explains a lot. That being said, at least it's "less broken" than Offroad, which is a small step in the right direction.
©2007-12-10, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved