Top Racer Collection (2024) [Switch] review

My first customer was a lunatic. My second had a death wish.

-Karl Benz

I’m a pretty far cry from a Car Bro. It’s been my Achilles heel in many a manly conversation or macho crowd. Surrounded by dudes holding beers and talking sports-ball, I’ve often found myself at a loss trying to sort out the difference between a carburetor and a carbohydrate (idk which of those is a car part, tbh). I think some cars look cool, but that’s the extent of it. So imagine what it takes for me to get excited about a “car game”. It takes the Top Racer Collection.

I knew these games as Top Gear but here they are known by their Japanese title, Top Racer. This remastering re-release brings together the original Top Racer trilogy of titles: Top Racer, Top Racer 2, and Top Racer 3000, plus the all-new Top Racer Crossroads, representing a retro selection across Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Amiga systems from 1992 to 1995.

For those interested in a bit of history, Top Racers didn’t appear out of nowhere. They’re the successors to the Lotus series of racing games, which spawned as early as 1990 on Amiga and Atari systems. If Top Racer ever seemed polished from the start, it’s thanks to this inheritance, no doubt.

What you’re getting in this collection is a “warts and all” style remaster. The screen ratio is the same as it’s always been. The pace of the Pole Position-ish type graphics is as cornea-melting as ever. Top Racer 2 still seems way too chunky on the road. The music is as incredible as it has always been (minus the curiously absent, excellent intro theme from 3000).

However, this being a retro release, the expected extras are here alongside the campaigns and versus modes: background wallpapers, screen filters of various quality, quick race and time attack modes, online races, and save states for the more ridiculous rounds out there. But you’re not here for the bells and whistles. You’re here to hit the asphalt and hit it fast. The Top Racer Collection accommodates.

I was able to hop into a race quickly and set up multiplayer without much fuss. I immediately headed for Top Gear 3000, which was perhaps my favorite racing game on the Super Nintendo. Before I get there, let me swiftly break down the other entries in this library of velocity.

Top Racer is the simplest of the bunch, which makes sense given it’s the first in the series. It was an SNES game that hit the console in its second year. Some sluggishness and choppiness are expected, but the remaster plays it smooth. I beat a few tracks around the world like Las Vegas and then upped the difficulty. The feature most interesting to me about this series is absent from its debut; there are the familiar nitros and auto or manual transmission and pitstops, but there’s no customizability during campaigns. Instead, players choose one of four cars at the start, each of which has its pros and cons. Very arcadey.

Top Racer 2 fills up the whole screen in single-player, rather than doing split-screen whether there’s a second player or not, and it feels bigger than ever for it. Unfortunately, the car also feels a lot heavier. That might not be the right word for it, but what else can you expect from a guy who has to explain to the mechanic what’s wrong with my car by making guttural noises in imitation of an engine?

However, the globetrotting Top Racer 2 introduces an economy and cash system that lets players purchase upgrades. This customization feels so much better than simply selecting a stock vehicle and the third game in the series would take this to a whole new level.

Before I get to 3000, though, I should mention the new Top Racer Crossroads. This seems to be a remake of the original game that plays and looks just like its remaster included in this collection, except players are presented with a different selection of vehicles to choose from which go much, much faster. It’s Top Racer at a higher speed than ever before.

Anyway, Top Racer 3000. The reason why I’m writing this review.

See, I need a gimmick, like with Rock n’ Roll Racing or the familiar mascot-driven kart racers. Top Gear 3000 leaves behind the vistas of San Fran and the dust of Australia for space. This is a sci-fi racer, as the title suggests, featuring a galactic event that throws players across the cosmos to unknown planets and star systems. I don’t even know what a liquid polymer titanium nuclear gearbox is… but it sounds cool!

This futuristic racer is a borderline CarPG (car game and RPG, get it?) with a very robust system of upgrades and even weaponry. Tracks are bendier and hillier than ever, but they also split and there are jumps with extra cash to collect. Magnets, energy theft, warps, this game had everything but Koopa shells. It’s not quite the bonkers battle system of a kart racer, but it had the gall to be sillier than its predecessors, appealing to the sci-fi guy in me where the car guy had always felt left out. Yeah, someone could argue it’s “barebones” for a remaster, but on the flip side, that means it’s authentic.

One more history tidbit: Top Gear 3000 made use of the DSP-4 chip for the Super Nintendo and it was the only game on the system to do so. It allowed for splits in the track. If I recall correctly, this made 3000 a punk to try to emulate over the years. I’m glad to have it at my fingertips courtesy of the Top Racer Collection any time I feel the call of the road. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to showing my kids how much I know about cars driving in Alpha Centauri.

Special thanks to QUByte Interactive for supplying us with a copy of Top Racer Collection for review.

PIXEL PERFECT

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Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage or Mage Cast.