- Use your environment against your enemies
- A fickle physics system makes it hard to get where you aim to go
- Level up and unlock vehicle cosmetics
Drive Ahead! Carcade is a new multiplayer PvP Apple Arcade entry in which you go head-to-head against other players in crazy car battles. Use the environment to your advantage as you zip around the arena, attempting to get your opponents to hit their heads before you do.
Drive Ahead! Carcade is a Spunky PvP Game
Tap the golden play button and join a match. You won’t know until a match loads whether it’s 1v1 or 2v2. In either case, the goal is simple: get your opponent/s to bump their head/s while avoiding a cranial crash of your own.
There are only two controls, left and right, for moving across the arena. Use your weight to knock over breakable parts of the environment or shift a platform to tilt in the optimal direction. You’ll also need to build speed to zoom up ramps and reach higher ground.
You’ll also get to take advantage of items like exploding barrels, which launch you across the arena, and cows and dinosaur eggs, which you hit enemies with. Be especially careful when driving over a banana peel as it can easily launch you outside the arena if you’re not careful, which counts as hitting your head.
Drive Ahead! Carcade: Too Hard to Handle
Carcade is all about trying to dominate the other team in fast-paced, physics-based matches. While the concept is pretty cool, the controls are surprisingly hard to get a hang of. The physics are very touchy, so it’s very easy to overshoot your goal and end up conking yourself in the head rather than your foes. However, if you don’t mind a real challenge, it’s still fun to zoom around, and when you actually win, you’ll feel pretty amazing.
You’ll gain a star every time your opponent hits their noggin. For 2v2 matches, you only gain a star after both members of the opposite team hit their heads. To win a match, you must gain five stars before the other team.
Drive Ahead! Carcade Offline Match Glitch
While it’s all about PvP, there is an option to play offline, so you can still get in on the fun if your wifi connection is spotty. However, there is an issue with offline matches loading. At times, after choosing Offline, you’ll find yourself stuck on the Setting Up Match screen. When this happens, tapping cancel to go back and selecting offline match again usually works. While the issue has an easy fix, it’s still rather frustrating.
Upgrading Your Cars
One thing that adds a bit of pizzazz to this PvP car battler is the cosmetic upgrades you can unlock for your vehicles. Win battles to increase your fame level. Levelling up will unlock new wheels, vehicle bodies, jumpsuits, and helmet skins. Unfortunately, the upgrades are nothing more than visual. Still, who doesn’t enjoy customizing their avatars?
Drive Ahead! Carcade: A Middle of the Road Experience
Drive Ahead! Carcade is a somewhat engaging, simplistic car battler. The fickle physics system makes landing the moves you’re going for extremely difficult. Still, you may enjoy manoeuvring your vehicles over bumpy terrain, up ramps, and into objects to launch them through the air if you’re not easily frustrated.
While the issue with connecting to offline matches can be annoying, cancelling and reconnecting usually fixes the problem. The vibrant 2D graphics give this car battle a silly vibe that melds well with the gameplay. Despite the challenging controls, Carcade is a decent experience with fast-paced matches that are good for playing on the go.
