Bears Can’t Drift?! review

Bears Can’t Drift?! is a kart racer akin to Nintendo’s Mario Kart or Beach Buggy Racing, which is multiplatform. As of this writing, there’s no Xbox exclusive or multiplatform kart racer that comes close to Nintendo’s popular series. The game features local split-screen multiplayer up to 4 four players along with solo content. Is Bear Can’t Drift?! the one to fill the Kart void on Xbox One? Let’s find out.

Bear’s Can’t Drift?! is a simple, friendly, easy to pick up kart racer where players race to head with A.I. controlled bears or against other friends. As with most kart racers, players can pick up power-ups. There’s a bee, an owl, a salmon and frog-like head (which after reading up on the game is meant to be a friggin’ Hedgehog). The bee serves drops a honey pot while the salmon, for some reason, is a rocket launcher, the Hedgehog gives players a few seconds of invincibility and finally, the owl gives a short boost. Those are quite unique and interesting power-ups to give you the upper hand against the competition; they’re actually fun to use.

The game is easy to pick up and play; press the gas button, race around a track, pick up power-ups and earn first place. However, the controls, on the other hand, feel loose as a goose which makes taking turns feels slippery which can prove unnecessary challenging and frustrating. Also, because the tracks are wide, it’s easy to lose sight of the right path and end up in the out of bounds terrain… in reverse.

Once you’re done with the “career” (I use that term loosely), you can tackle Time Trials (pretty self-explanatory) and Picnic Mode. The latter, which isn’t clearly explained, is a battle mode where players need to pick up as many food icons as possible. Using power-ups against them will have them drop their food so it’s ready for you to pick up.

Menu navigation is cumbersome as hell. Instead of the traditional choice-based menu interface, you have to drive around and select the options you want. I actually accidentally selected Easy mode with no way of easily backtracking and changing my choices. All menu navigation is done via “racing” in the world hub and it’s just frustrating and cumbersome leading to some players quitting *before* actually starting the game. It’s also a nuisance trying to figure out how to change your driver. A game shouldn’t have such clumsy menu navigation.

On a positive note, the environments and tracks are well-designed. While admittedly, it can prove confusing driving around as some tracks design can be lost in environments, they do feel unique and actually fun to ride around on; it’s just unfortunate that the controls won’t make you want to play to finish a race. The race track design is definitely the game’s strongest point, unfortunately, races can feel like they drag on forever. Most races are only 3 laps, but it sometimes feels like 20 laps. This is not the kind of game you’ll binge on for hours on end; you’ll probably do a race once every blue moon. This could also vouch for the fact that it’s made for kids who sometimes can have short attention spans.

Bear Can’t Drift?! oozes of charm; it’s bright, colorful; it’ll make you smile; another case for it being mostly a kids game. Each environment looks great, unique and varied; racing around snow-themed levels reminds me of playing games as a kid during snowstorms. Honestly, it’s the game’s best appeal. Soundtrack wise, this is quite bad. The winning fanfare sounds like the developers shoved a microphone down their computer’s throat; basically accidental 16-bit sounds. Oddly enough, the karts don’t make a sound. The score while racing around is a cutesy little theme which gets annoying after a while.

So is Bear Can’t Drift?! worth your hard-earned dollars? No, because it overall feels like a glorified demo. The core idea is there (I mean kart games are fun, so bring on a new one!), but unfortunately, the package falls flat. This is far from being a Mario kart level of game as Bear Can’t Drift?! is clumsy with questionable controls and full of frustrating menu UI design. The game has very limited, albeit unique, power-ups and options. There are other, better kart alternatives on Xbox One, don’t fall for this.