Cubed Rally Redline Review

No Can Win is back with a new take on its debut title, Cubed Rally Racer. This is Cubed Rally Redline, which takes the theme of the original: boxy cars in an isometric view racing around low-polygon tracks, and changes it up into something more akin to Temple Run. The car drives at top speed endlessly, and players must shift between five lanes to avoid hazards and pick up fuel tanks, coins, & drift icons.

Those drift icons are really the most important part of the game. Fuel is necessary but is regularly available, and the coins just unlock new vehicles. But the drift icons are necessary to get high scores: they start the car drifting, and as long as the track stays twisty, and the player doesn’t shift lanes, then points will build up. As well, the point values for drifting eventually increase as the car drifts more, so focusing on collecting these is very important to advance up the leaderboards. Though the car is going forward constantly, a brake that slows down time is also available, though it takes a few seconds to recharge. However, it serves as the best way to keep the car from crashing at high speeds into plants, barriers, or cows. Yes, the boxy cows are back.

The problem with this lane-based gameplay in an isometric view is that getting perspective of where the car is in relation to oncoming obstacles is difficult. Something that might look like it’s a lane over from the car’s current path is often actually right in the way. That’s what the brake function is there for, to help assist with this problem, but it seems silly to have to be constantly using it to compensate for what feels like a flaw in the gameplay. Also, the formula seems to leave too many moments where the player can just kind of sit back and pretty much just watch.

However, despite these flaws, the game does iterate on both the original Cubed Rally Racer and even on Temple Run to create something new. Racing to frantically shift lanes to avoid hazards and keep going has moments of intensity, and while the perspective does get in the way occasionally, there is fun to be had here, especially for those craving some new Cubed Rally action.