Yesterday morning, I was playing a racing game that included an eliminator race. For the uninitiated, an eliminator race is where a clock ticks down like that of a Royal Rumble, and whoever is at the back of the pack is punted out of the race. Then I returned to Gear.Club Unlimited 2‘s similar mode and thought about why it is that I just wasn’t enjoying a large portion of what it is I was playing. Admittedly, it may have been a little unsportsmanlike to put Eden Games’ Nintendo Switch sequel/port of a mobile racing game against the monoliths of Burnout 3: Takedown and Revenge, but that’s the yardstick you are measured against in this house.

For context, Eden Games made one of my favorite driving games of all time, because Test Drive Unlimited 2 was The Crew 2 before The Crew 2 was a glint in Ubisoft’s eye. They also made Alone in the Dark, but we don’t talk about that time because (oddly enough) it should be left alone in the dark to die. My point is that I have liked their racing work before, so it only makes sense I’d do so again, but something is holding it back. Why don’t I love this sequel to the Nintendo Switch non-free-to-play port of a free-to-play mobile version, the former of which, was recently ported to the Xbox One?

Confused by that sentence? Good, that will be all you’ll get from me today as I explain why a perfectly-fine racing game just isn’t good or great. Gear.Club Unlimited 2 is an arcade racer that isn’t doing much that is special, other than providing Switch players the fully barged Mercedes to drive around middling tracks that aren’t as unique as they wish they were. It has driving mechanics that both tries to stand on the edge of being a simulator and has the lack of weight an arcade racer has. There is a classic-PS2/3 sense to the driving, but not the fun of gaming giants like Burnout or even the mid-00s Need for Speed series.

My biggest problem is simply the AI’s racecraft being rather primitive, despite the possibilities of “rubber band racers” like many kart racers or even a good portion of Need for Speed. Why does it concern me though? Well, the UI is also primitive in terms of how racing games have done things for the last 15-20 years. We’ve all seen the name and distance marker whip around the bottom of the screen in racing games. It was a staple of racing games before we added lap-time leaderboards to the top right or left of the screen.

I think it is the speed at which it bounces from left to right and right to left, for such a long distance that gets on my nerves so much. After second-place is more than 450 meters behind, the quite large name and distance marker trailing me begins to lose opacity. By that point, I’m 10-seconds ahead in the race. 100 meters, maybe 50, would have been a better indicator of danger going into a corner, but nearly 500 meters up the straight and around the hairpin bend, they aren’t as threatening. A large portion of the game isn’t threatening major skill challenges either.

I hate the phrase “casual” to describe games, but that’s who Gear.Club Unlimited 2 is aimed for, which isn’t a bad thing. Nevertheless, even with that broad appeal spread out, I don’t know who specifically to suggest Gear.Club Unlimited 2 to. You have fully licensed cars, high-end and low, with rather prosaic backdrops racing up and down curvy scenic Californian byways and snow-capped hills. The in-game high-performance racing series is on go-kart tracks full of nonsensical connecting points, as if they were assets clipped together like jigsaw pieces. From the outset, you can feel the plastically manufactured nature without a standout point to hold aloft as why to play it.

Immediately I’ll jump to the point that even the Xbox One, with superior hardware over the Nintendo Switch, has issues technically too. Load times are surprisingly long, despite the aforementioned simplicity of maps and AI. When at the back of the pack, you may see some frame-rate issues, even down as low as 720P when attempting to economize the work the game is desperately trying to do. Optimization and further conservation of the game could have improved the experience a little, not causing the player to wait as long to do everything they hoped to do.

The thing is, despite my gripes with the overall performance or ability to make me want to be here, I do like Gear.Club Unlimited 2 as an example of still being able to make non-kart or totally sim-racing games. It may not be the best racer you’ll play, it won’t be the best racer I’ll play in any given hour, but it is enjoyable if you can get past performance issues and shallowness. The story is summed up best with, “You are a racer, go race!” All done with text boxes as if it were a visual novel.

If there was one thing I’d rather was improved instantly it would be the racing line: The green, yellow, and red line that tells you that you are on the right trajectory and you are at the right speed to make the corner. In the corner, it is bright red and clearly visible. If you are on a straight, coming out the other end of a tunnel, driving on snow, or basically anywhere that it is green, you’ll have a hard time finding it. That is is really fun ($2.50 sarcasm charge) when you are supposed to be on that line to defend your position in the race. It is the optimal line for a reason, so you’ll want to know where it is at all times.

Overall, Gear.Club Unlimited 2 is a bit of a dinosaur to modern bigger-budget titles you’ll find on several platforms, including the Switch with the Grid series. However, for what it is dated in, there is always some fun to be had over a short and straightforward race. The biggest concern is the performance all-around, making some segments more bothersome than they need be. Rumor is that the Switch had greater issues with loading and frame rates, which begs the question of why it was released in that state at all. Given the choice, I’d opt for something else, but I still don’t think Gear.Club Unlimited 2 is the worst to be played.

An Xbox One copy of Gear.Club Unlimited 2 – Unlimited Edition was provided by Microids for the purposes of this review.

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Gear.Club Unlimited 2

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• The series events are lengthy and fun enough.
• Generally fun, but simple overall.

Cons

• Technicall issues: Load times and frame-rates.
• How faint the Racing Line is most of the time.