Practice makes perfect in Super Woden GP
Super Woden GP is one of those games where I can very much tell that it’s a good game, and one that had clearly had some care and attention paid to it. And yet it’s not a game that I could necessarily recommend to absolutely everyone, because it’s also one of those games that has very obviously been designed with a specific type of player in mind. And by that, I mean more specific than “person who likes racing games”.
Super Woden GP is an isometric perspective racer that aims to bring about feelings of ’90s racers presented from a similar viewpoint. This type of racing game had a brief stint of popularity in the 16-bit home computer and console era in particular; it tended to be a good showcase for the impressive pixel art that these platforms were capable of displaying, while directing attention away from their shortcomings when it came to “true” polygonal 3D.
Even within this very distinct subgenre, though, there were different approaches. There was the heavily arcadey approach of titles like Gaelco’s World Rally, which features a lot of auto-correction on the car, giving it something of a “digital Scalextric” feel at times.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s games like the superficially similar Power Drive from Rage Software, which does not feature the aforementioned auto-correction, making it rather more technical and challenging to play. Super Woden GP definitely hews closer to the latter approach, albeit with an appealing modern “toy car”-esque aesthetic rather than traditional pixel art.
To put it another way, Super Woden GP is hard. Really bloody hard. To a borderline demoralising degree when you’re first starting out — particularly because despite it having the trappings of a Gran Turismo-esque game in its menu screens, there’s no option to upgrade your car and overpower the races you’re having trouble with. Nope, this is very much a game where if you want to progress, you’re going to have to get good.
A lot of this is down to the control scheme, which takes a bit of getting used to. Not in the sense that it’s unintuitive — it’s your standard “triggers to accelerate and brake, stick to steer” setup found in pretty much every racing game for the past few console generations — but rather that the actual handling takes a while to get to grips with.
Most of the cars have quite a heavy feel to them along with a tendency to slide their back end out if steering around corners too hard at speed — but also if you slow down too much, then the AI racers will almost certainly come screaming past you. As such, you need to find a good balance between being able to take the corners at a manageable speed and still being able to keep ahead of your rivals. In practice, this mostly means steering quite a bit earlier than you might otherwise think to in a game like this, then drifting spectacularly around the bend.
Without the auto-correcting of titles like World Rally, though, it’s very easy to overdo this in Super Woden GP. Your first few races will doubtless be frustrating experiences as you spend time ploughing into walls, spinning out, facing the wrong way and generally being absolutely devastated by even the easiest level opponents. If you’re anything like me, you’ll feel like you picked the “wrong” car to start with — and be placed in a position where you’re not able to get a new one because you can’t do well enough in the races to earn enough credits to buy another.
And then, given enough perseverance, something will click. You’ll nail the timing you need to get around a particular corner, and learn to spot the visual cues on the track that tell you when you need to turn. You’ll gradually come to memorise entire tracks. You’ll figure out the best passing places to go screaming past your AI opponents — because while they tend to drive mostly perfect races, they also tend to be quite a bit slower than you. And you’ll start creeping up the rankings.
You won’t suddenly go from complete and utter failure to the top spot. But you’ll improve, a little at a time. Your lap times will get faster. Your final results will be better. And you’ll start bringing in a trickle of in-game money, bringing you ever-closer to trying out an alternative car. And when you nab that new car, you might find that it suits you a whole lot better than one of the old bangers you’re forced to start out with.
Your journey doesn’t end there, though. You need “stars” to unlock new events and races, and those can only be acquired through podium finishes in the events. Certain events require a specific type of car, so that all competitors are theoretically on a level playing field; others simply have a maximum “performance rating”, so that all racers are in machines of a broadly similar power level. Some events are one-off races, others are multi-round tournaments. Once you’ve gathered a certain number of stars, you unlock long-distance endurance races and time-trial rally events.
There’s a lot to enjoy in Super Woden GP, for sure — and what is there is good. The reason I’m so hesitant to recommend it without reservations is that I suspect a lot of people will give up before they start to really appreciate what the game has to offer. You’re very limited in the events you can participate in at the start of the game, and in order to earn enough money to get new cars, you’ll likely have to grind these a few times — though while you’re aiming for your podium finishes, this will probably happen naturally anyway.
Not everyone has the patience for a game that demands practice and memorisation, particularly when it positions itself as an instant action arcade-style experience as Super Woden GP does. But in some respects, that’s simply a sign that Super Woden GP is doing what it set out to do. I feel like on some level, this game wasn’t trying to be World Rally or any number of other, similar arcade games. Rather, I feel like it was trying to create a similar vibe to something like an Amiga game.
What I mean by this is that back in the 16-bit home computer and console era, there was quite a strong distinction between the kinds of experiences you got on those two types of platform. Consoles were, for the most part, regarded as the place you went if you wanted quick, technically impressive thrills, while computers were the place to go for titles designed to draw you in for hours at a time. There were exceptions to this distinction, of course — look at console RPGs and explicitly arcade-style games on home computer at the time, for example — but for the most part it was true.
Super Woden GP feels like the sort of racing game you’d play when you got home from school and stay glued to it until dinnertime, at which point your Mum would yell at you for not doing your homework. It rewards persistence and commitment — and both of those can sometimes feel like they’re in short supply these days.
If you’re on board with what Super Woden GP has to offer, though, there’s an excellent racing experience to be had here. Just don’t expect to master it immediately, because this game is going to make you work for your victories.
Super Woden GP is out now for PC via Steam, Switch, PS4/PS5 and Xbox. Thanks to eastasiasoft for the review copy.
Join The Discussion
Rice Digital Discord
Rice Digital Twitter
Rice Digital Facebook
Or write us a letter for the Rice Digital Friday Letters Page by clicking here!
Disclosure: Some links in this article may be affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on them. This is at no additional cost to you and helps support Rice Digital!
- Letter from the Editor: passing the torch - June 30, 2023
- Super Woden GP 2 is looking promising - June 30, 2023
- Inti Creates is making a 32 bit-style Love Live action platformer - June 26, 2023
