Star Wars: Galactic Racer Review | Sidequest

Hello, and welcome to SideQuest. This is our video game show here at Geekverse. I am your host, Dylan Moss, and I've got the Scribdun, Taylor Field.

How are you doing today, my friend?

Oh, I'm doing good, doing good. I am stoked to be here to talk about what we're going to talk about.

Yeah, it is Scrib, not Scribe, right?

It's Scrib, yeah.

Okay, I nailed it. Good stuff. Yeah, today we got a single topic episode.

We are going to be talking about Star Wars Galactic Racer, the newest Star Wars game, which.

is relevant because there was another one that came out in like August. What a year for Star Wars.

But yeah, we got Galactic Racer here, which is the latest, greatest, not just Star Wars game, but also maybe the latest, greatest racing game. I've heard many, many, many great things about this game, and I'm excited to hear you break it down, Taylor. I have not played it, although apparently you can get it for free with a Prime subscription, which I do bum my mom's Prime subscription to watch Star Wars. watch prime video. So maybe I could snag a copy of this game for free, I guess. But, uh, uh, yeah, that's a, that's a nice deal, but, uh, we're just going to get right into it.

So Taylor, take it away. I feel like I've seen this a lot of chat. You and Clay in the discord server are talking about this game a lot. Uh, but yeah, break it down. What do you think about this game? And, uh, yeah. How's it going for you so far?

Uh, man, I love the game. I really do. It's absolutely fantastic. And it feels good to actually roll credits on a game after being so long. Ooh, credits in a racing game.

Okay.

Yeah, credits in a racing game. It's a short, I mean, if you're good at the game and you aren't struggling, I mean, you can breeze through the storyline, no problem. But if you are trying to pick it up and you're struggling at times and you're just going to keep redoing the tours, it's going to take a good minute. But, fuck, when I rolled credits, it felt so rewarding because the game is challenging. I dove right into the story right away.

And basically, from the get-go, it just starts you off. Okay, you got your three types of speeders. You got your speeder bike. You've got, like, your air speeder. And then more like a skim speeder kind of thing. Like, if you remember in Last Jedi... those speeders they had on that red white sand planet crate.

It was like, yes, I can picture that.

Yeah.

So those are more like the, the, um, the air speeders, I guess the, um, and then you've got your speeder bikes like on Endor and the forest moon. And then you've got, yeah, just the regular one, like, uh, on a new hope Luke's, uh, speeder. So those three types of models, the pod racing and the storyline comes later. Um, uh, this will be spoilers if you care or not listeners, because this is, yeah. Anyways, But you can also do the multiplayer. The multiplayer has pod racing right off the hop.

It has tours you can do, just single, like, races, online races, everything like that. So it's got kind of everything that you want to get into the nitty-gritty with. But the main story is where that's where, like, it's juicing because it takes place post-episode 6. And so you're going on, like, different planets and whatnot, but your character, Shade, is basically... He lands on this planet... gets brought in to do a race. And this, your rival, the main guy called Kestar Bull is, he's basically the top dog in this league and you got to beat him. And so basically there's three acts and in each act, you're basically doing a tour. And in each tour, there's in act one, it's like, I think three planets, four planets.

And then when you go through, you can kind of pick your path. You start doing your, your race where it's like 12 racers and you got to come You can come any position and you move along. And mind you, you have one league token that you get every time you go in. And so if you do poorly, like if you do an elimination round where if you don't come in the top three, you'll lose that league token.

There's other different races you could do because it's a horizontal line going across. But you can go up, you can go down, and you can choose your path of what races you want to do. You can race experimental racers. You can do timed races. races or you can do the elimination get in the top three or just the standard like 12 spot races and you kind of go as as you go and some races have more reward others are just standard so like the elimination come top three or you you lose your token you got to restart the tour you get higher rewards in that and what those rewards are when you beat that race and when you beat every single race and the better position you're you come in then you can choose a part

and to upgrade your speeder, and then you can get tuning points. And so how it works is your speeder has basic stats, drifting, cornering, acceleration. Ramjet is your boost. And then you've got like shield and energy. Energy is basically activating your abilities because you can also, when you win the races, it's like customizing your speeder as you get further along in the tour. So you get faster and faster and more upgraded, right? Instead of starting off right from the beginning being super maxed.

Right.

And it's nice because no two builds are ever going to be the same because the more you win, the more parts you unlock after you complete a tour. So you'll get like a whole deck of different parts. And so when you're going through all the races, you'll get, um, uh, let's say like, Oh, if you do a perfect landing coming down, you'll get shielding for 10 seconds. You can put that as like a part in there. Uh, you can get, um, your Ram jet won't warm up or an overheat as fast. Um, There's several just little things.

I've heard about like an autopilot ability.

The autopilot is really, really nice. And so there are different, you can get favors that do different things when you win races. And those come from characters and doing certain objectives. And then, yes, the autopilot is an ability that you can add in there. So abilities are status scrubber. So if you fly over lava, your engines start to heat up a lot more. If you get bumped or whatever, you can get damaged a little bit. There's EMPs, I'm pretty sure there are. And then there's acid as well that can kind of fudge you over if you drift over the acid. And freezing as well. Your engines can freeze up. So there's lots of different things in status issues.

And status scrubber kind of wipes that clean. And you can upgrade those abilities to be even better where they don't consume energy, that kind of stuff. The autopilot is fantastic. And I relied on that a lot. I'm not ashamed to admit it because when you're hitting those max speeds, there are some very minor tunnels that you're going through where you can't fucking, I don't know how you gauge it, man.

I really don't. So when you hit the autopilot, and autopilot's not perfect. It's wiped out. But autopilot has helped me keep my place in line and get me through some of those spots because it's a very limited 15 seconds ability.

I heard that it takes actual shortcuts and stuff too. It doesn't just go on the generic path.

It does. I'll activate it and I think, oh my God, we're running into this wall. But then the speeder drops down and going through this secret tunnel. I'm like, whoa, never knew that was there before. So that is one of my favorite things that's in there. But it does lead into cons. You have to make sure you're paying attention and it is so easy to get tunnel vision.

When you are hitting these super fast speeds and you're drifting around corners, you're going through small little tunnels, you... you get that tunnel vision. You aren't paying attention to your ramjet. So when you have your basic acceleration and your boost, like your surge, ramjet is that extra thing you can click onto, and it's just like full throttle.

But you'll see a bar charging, and if that bar gets all the way into the red zone and surpasses the red zone, your speeder explodes. And you have to make sure you're paying attention so that you can ease off that.

I love it.

Yeah, you have to ease off that at the right time and just kind of keep the momentum going. Or you get those parts where if your ramjet's building up and the bar's filling up and you do hit a jump and then land, all of a sudden you can have a part that eliminates that accumulated ramjet buildup and it goes back to zero. So you can just keep it going, right, depending on your build. But as I said, tunnel vision, if you're not watching that, that can bite you in the ass. And the other thing, too, is if you're not watching the autopilot ending... you guys, your car is already like drifting. And then all of a sudden, like you think the autopilot is still on, but then you collide right into a wall. You got to pay

attention to know when you're going to take control over again. Uh, which again leads me to something. I, this is my biggest con with the game. My only con pretty, pretty much. I wish that they had a way to toggle it off because when you're racing, of course you can destroy other racers. They can destroy you. You can ram into them and, and do all these different things. You can drop mines behind you and be super shady, but, When you destroy a speeder next to you, it does a slow motion where immediately the camera pans off your speeder, goes towards the character that you just smashed, and it shows their speeder blowing up and exploding. And then the camera goes back and pans to you while the race

is still moving. When I first saw it, I thought, this is a really cool mechanic. I think it's cool. I get to see the guys I destroy. But when you're going really fast, you're on that third and final lap, and that happens, and you're coming up to a corner... it fucks you up royal.

That's insane. I can't believe that that happens. Because, like, the computer players obviously are not affected by that.

No, not at all. And, like, you get locked in. I can't stress that enough. Like, you're honed in, you're locked in. And so for something like that to happen, it pulls you out. And if you're pulled out of your headspace in this situation, it's not okay. So that's my biggest con, I would say, with it.

Have you seen chatter about that online? Like, do you think that's something that the... devs have probably seen and we'll like fix it? Or is this like a Taylor specific issue?

Play shared my pain of this issue and he tried looking for a way to toggle it off. Couldn't find it. But, um, I haven't seen anyone complaining about it online. I've only seen people just saying they're having a lot of fun, uh, with the game. But, um, yeah, that, that's just gotta be my biggest issue. It's just, it's, it's terrible. I don't like being pulled out of it. Um, Cause yeah, it's just so freaking annoying. Oh my gosh. Um, but yeah, getting back to the, like the story aspect here with like Kestar Bull, your opponent, um, I won't go into tons of spoilers because I don't want to ruin it for, for you and you play the storyline, but, uh, there's, there's some, go for it.

Yeah.

Um, He hates your guts, you know, and then you just, you want revenge on him. So you start, you, you know, go work up the races. And so when you get to the end of that first tour, that's where it was like, okay, this is where it's the real deal. Cause when I got, I started the tour, I got to the very end and I kept losing and get, when I was doing the, getting the top three or be eliminated matches, I kept trying to do those because the rewards were bigger to upgrade my speeder. So I was doing those, but I kept losing. Finally, I figured out, oh wait, I got the autopilot, got some other stuff, and I was starting to click with the maps and everything.

So I was able to beat them. Get to the last race of this tour. And the last race of the first tour is you go up against Sebulba, which was super exciting. And again, it's not a pod race at this point. It's just a speeder race. And so obviously I lost on him the first try. Lost on him the second try. Third try I got in there, it's like, hell yes. I beat him, and it felt so good because... I was upgrading all of my stats and my speeder kind of together. So the drifting, the cornering, everything.

But for that final attempt, it was like, okay, I maximized my ramjet and I maximized my acceleration so that I could recover faster and I could just be fast the entire time. And it worked. I beat him. And so then he kind of just becomes this character on the side that you walk around and you see him in the like drinking and whatnot. You go talk to him.

And he starts telling you about his pod racing stories. And you get to play pod racing missions as Sebulba against, like, all the dudes from Phantom Menace. So, like, oh, what are some of their names? Oh, my gosh. I should remember their names. But I'm sure you remember some of those weird aliens in the pod race. Those guys. Those iconic goofballs. Those iconic goofballs, yeah. So you get to play against them. It's fantastic. And it's just Sebulba reminiscing.

Because in the storyline, pod racing was outlawed by the Empire. When the Empire came into power, they were like, no more pod racing.

Too dangerous?

Yeah, dangerous, bad, we don't want it. So they got rid of it. So Boba's reminiscing, and it's great. And you're starting to see a different side of this character a little bit. Not like he's being turned into like, oh, he's really a good, down-to-earth, happy guy or whatever. He's still an ass. But he's kind of like a respectable ass because at this point, like you could tell he's in his twilight years and he is just like, he's reminiscing.

He loves the racing and whatnot. And I dare say it's almost like he was humbled after he lost for mannequin in Phantom Menace.

That'll happen. That'll humble you for sure.

Oh, for sure.

Young child like that.

That's right. But after that, you... you get into your next race. When you beat the second tour, you get to the point where, okay, you get to face off again against Kestar Bull. And, uh, when you beat him, uh, he manages to fan dangle his way and taking over the whole championship racers, galactic league, and kicks out like the old boss who is kind of supporting you and helping you makes you look like you're, you're, you're a fraud and has, you have to start from scratch basically for the third tour. And he takes over the whole league and it's like, Holy shit, this is crazy. And when he does that, it's funny because there's this scene where he's like, I'm the new leader of the Galactic League.

I'm going to make this the best racing league the galaxy has ever seen. We're bringing back pod racing. And he comes out in Sebulba's pod racer and Sebulba starts to just cough and lose his fucking mind. Like, what the fuck? That's my pod racer. But after that, Sebulba takes you under his wings. And then he started setting you up for pod races against some of his former colleagues and whatnot. And it's just awesome. I was eating all of that storyline up. And, of course, you get to the end when you face Kestar Bull again. And, yeah, it's just a great, satisfying ending. Yeah. And on top of Sebulba, the characters, all fantastic. I think... Her name was Hibi, and she's, I can't remember the name of

her species, but we've seen that species before in the Solo movie, and then I don't know any other games that have it. But anyway, she's like your tech, your mechanic. So when you do a tour and you've got like three planets, you get upgrades after you complete each race, and then when you finish one planet, you fly to the next one, and when you fly to the next one, you get to go and walk around the staging area So you've got your mechanic there, you've got other characters you can interact with and talk to, but your mechanic, that's where you go up and you can basically pay credits that you win from races and use those credits to upgrade your abilities even more, buy new parts, just do a whole whack load of more upgrades to your

heart's content as long as you have the credits, the money for it. And then also in the staging area too, in between planets, you'll have other characters come up and they'll... want to be like one V one, you rival restart stuff like that. And you can get extra little perks and bonuses. There's a little races you can do too, when you talk to characters and whatnot. So there's lots of fun little things to kind of like expand on with that. Um, and I've, I've quite enjoyed that. And hence my name, Scribdune. Uh, what's his name? Uh, was it, uh, God, Biddy Blast. So this guy has like taken the internet by storm. Have you heard about these memes? Um, The what?

Is this the tiny guy?

Little guy? The tiny little guy, yeah. I'm sure you're aware of this guy. Yeah, Bitty Blass. And he's just... Look at that picture.

Oh, my God. You see that one? Three down. Yeah. What in the world is that?

It's amazing how he's taken over the world by storm. Like, he's... I didn't clock with him right away. I thought he was funny because I was reading his lines because he's talking, and his voice is really outrageous. It's like a high-pitched bird squealing, and he's speaking in Huttese. He's not speaking English, but one of the things he says, you should get Bitty Blast tattooed on your arm because in a few years it will be worth a fortune. He's talking about his own his own name.

Yeah. And, uh, yeah, he's just, he's such a, he, why would that be worth it? Fortunately? Cause you're going to like sell your limb that has a tattoo on it.

Exactly. That's, that's what he thinks.

Yeah.

Cause he'll be like the number one racer kind of a thing. But the, the funny thing about Scribdune is just mean like scribble down, you know, that's, that's what people are kind of just like having, having a heyday with scribble down, scribble down. But, um, he's, he's one of many of the interesting characters. Um, but, That aside, also in between these staging areas here, you can have their backers. So they'll basically go and talk to this hologram thing and say, okay, there's three different paths you can choose, and you'll get a big payout, you get a bunch of upgrades, and you basically have to pass two people within two seconds, like 20 times throughout this next tour, different stuff like that. basically to please your

backers and get like a high rating from them. Um, so that's another cool mechanic that they have in there. Um, when you're loading into a race, it's really fun because you don't have to do this, but you have to, you can, if you have more parts, uh, in abilities into your speeder, you can see like, okay, there's like a loading thing where it's like hit a X, a X really quickly. And you do that. And then it's like, okay, your guy flicks on the switches for that part. And then you can hit like LB, RB, LB, RB, up, down, up, down, AB.

And then it activates another part and you don't have to do this, but it's still fun. And it actually helps. I feel zone you in a little bit. And then when you do all that, then you hit the right trigger down to start your engines.

And, Wait, you don't have to do it?

What do you mean? No, it's not going to affect your abilities working or not. It's just a fun extra little thing just to kind of get you into it, I guess. So the sound effects are fantastic. They just go full send in this game. Because when you activate your engine, it just sounds brutal. This engine is just on its last legs. last limbs, but it's just, it's so crazy. And, and it just, it just floors it. Um, but yeah, this is, again, it's just kind of like a Mario cart startup too, because you have your, your acceleration bar and you want to get that acceleration, uh, timed, right.

So you just get that initial boost right at the start, just like Mario cart. Um, and then I'm trying to think of other little mechanics. Like the planets all have very different things going on. You use your Ram jet, your engines overheat fast. If you're on a snow planet, your engines with the Ram jet, they're not going to overheat fast. It's going to slow down cause it's so cold, but then they've got these heaters that you can drive through to cool your, or to warm your speeder up if need be. Um, and then, yeah, there's corrosion from acid.

There's lava, which will just charge up and overheat your engines really, really fast. You got to pay attention to that. Um, and then when you're on crate, that's actually a cool dynamic because the red dust that flares up from behind ships gliding over the ground, if you're directly behind that, it'll fuck your engine up and slow you down. So you have to actually get out of the way and kind of like overtake your opponent, uh, not by being right behind them, following them on their, on their tailcoats. Um, yeah, so stuff like that, that's, it's just small little quality of, uh, life, uh, and whatnot that I really appreciate.

What else is there?

So you said there's three types of vehicles, like, in the base game, and then there's, like, the pod racing as well. Do the three vehicle types feel drastically different? Like, I imagine the bike would feel a lot different than, like, the other ones, right?

The bike is very different, and, yeah, they... They do feel very drastic, actually. I love the original Speeder. It's my favorite. I love that very much. It's robust. The Speeder bike, so there's four boosts. There's your accelerator, there's your afterburner, there's your ramjet, and there's your surge boost.

And the Speeder bikes are actually given a fifth one that the other ones don't have. And then they're fast. They handle corners very well, but they're very light too.

And then you got destroyed pretty quick.

Yeah. Yeah, they do. Then you got your other one. That's that skiff speeder, air speeder kind of thing. And that one, that one throws me for a loop a little bit because it's, um, it's got like a wing kind of thing going on the front. And when you're racing and you're trying to go around a corner, it does a full like this. Oh, and it's like, that really throws me off. Yeah. I like when I'm doing a drift and I'm going like, like this on angle and, I don't like when the whole thing is perfectly vertical.

Does the wing like dig into the ground?

No, no, not the, it's, it's still floating. Yeah, no, nothing is digging into the ground at all. Um, but some of those, some of those corners make it very difficult to just kind of handle your vehicle being like this vertically and, and managing to go around and whatnot. So it's definitely not, not my favorite, but there are certain advantages to it, of course. Um, and you upgrade each vehicle differently. And the customization is actually really neat because you can buy different speeders. There's like a variety of different models you can buy. And so when you buy a new model, you can just play in that model.

That's fine. Each model does not have different status effects or abilities or whatnot. That's all the same. And you upgrade in the Tour. It's just cosmetic. But the neat thing about it is if I buy a new speeder, I can play in that speeder. Or I can go to the customizer and I can be like, okay, well I want like the front left and the rear engine of the speeder and combine it with the other speeders that I've bought. So you can really deck it out and make it your own, change the color, change the dirt and the grunge on it and everything like that.

Really make it your own vehicle, which is fantastic. I really, really enjoy that. There's not much for character customization. It's just, it's as is. And when you go online to play, uh, the higher your online rank gets, then you unlock the racers that you've played against in the single player campaign.

And so each one of those racers that you unlock and you play as those characters, a multiplayer, those racers individually have different abilities that you can, um, you can use. And that's just doing the regular, like quick drop in dropout races. If you want you can do just like the single player tours. They have that in multiplayer as well.

So it's like five planets. You got 12 online players. Exactly.

Yeah.

12 people that you're playing with and you just, after you win a race, you can get the upgrades as you would in the single player, put them in your speeder and just go from there. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. What, what's an example of a character ability that like what's the character ability? That's not a vehicle ability.

Um, So, I mean, they are vehicle abilities, but they're just limited to the characters. So when you do the drop-in races and you unlock these characters, you pick your character based on what vehicle abilities you would want. So it could be like this guy comes with the status scrubber, this guy has the autopilot, that kind of stuff. Okay.

Just for the ease of drop-in races.

Have you done a lot online yet or are you mostly focused on.

The same thing? I have. I did a whole bunch. The downside was there was a little update and I updated and it broke the multiplayer so the update literally just closed off the multiplayer menu and said you have no access to these services. I was like, well that's fucked.

Was that like everyone had that issue or just your game?

A lot of people had it at the start and then it just finally hit me after I did this update which is unfortunate. But I got to a high enough rank online so I'm I'm okay for now. They've got, um, the pod racing online as well.

Yeah.

How's the pod racing? I feel like you haven't talked about that a whole lot. How does that differentiate from the base game?

It's very, very different. And doing like the, this, the campaign, knowing that the final tour was going to be a pod race at the end, made me really anxious because every time Sebulba dumps these pod racing, uh, tests on you, it's, it's extremely, um, It's wild. Uh, the pod racer handles very differently from the speeders in my opinion. And, um, it's just very, uh, how would I say? Uh, it just feels very sensitive when you're taking corners. Um, when I'm driving the speeder and I'm drifting, I feel like the weight is in the back of the speeder and it feels a little bit more balanced and manageable. Like you were driving a vehicle. When you're driving the pod racers and you're doing drifting, you feel the weight in

the front of the vehicle. And it really.

It's like pulling you around.

Yeah, that's exactly it, right? Because that's where the engines are. They're at the front of the racer and they are pulling you and you're sitting in the back. And so the way my brain registers as like an actual driver in real life and then driving the regular speeder, it's weird to think of it with all the weight in the front of the vehicle when you handle those turns, right?

It's very, it's just, it's a little mind boggling.

I'm guessing it's like all the same maps, right?

Same maps.

Yeah.

Yeah. And again, some of those maps like Tatooine, Beggar's Canyon, where they race in the Phantom Menace, that is an absolute delight actually just playing on that level. But some of the maps though, they do have night versions as well. So you'll play the daytime on some, and then they also have the nighttime variants. And playing in the dark is brutal. There's some, There's some parts of these maps where you really can't see the turns, the left or right, and you may not know exactly where to go. And it's a bit agitating. A little bit more direction on where you're supposed to be driving would be appreciated in some of those levels. But all in all, it's... It is what it is. But the pod racing itself, it

feels very, very different from everything else. And I think they nailed it pretty, pretty well. You're not customizing pod racers. I was kind of hoping that you would get to do that. But the big kick for me was I wanted to have pod racing in here. And yeah, they've got it. So it's a good time.

Are you doing a lot of it? Are you liking the challenge that that brings? Or was it more just like, ah, it was fun novelty to try it for a few rounds. But then you kind of just go back to your main racing modes.

I go back to my main racing modes, my speeder, but I haven't given up the pod racing as of yet because there's a lot of single player like time trial stuff. Like if you can get under a minute, 30 seconds, you get gold. And then after that silver and then bronze, if you get like depending where you finish the race at. So there's a bunch of different trials that I want to get through and do with the pod racing with the other speeders. So that's kind of my goal. I also need to go back and do all of Sebulba's memories that he's kind of going through.

Cause there's all of these different pod racing things he's, he's covering. And I just, I have a hunch that one of his memories is going to have, you'll see Anakin pod race or something in there. And that would just like be super cool. I would love to see that.

They got to have that in there for sure.

I hope so. And one of my other worries was that we wouldn't get DLC in this game because which I'm pretty sure we are, unlike Star Wars Squadrons, they put that game out and they said no DLC of any kind. You're just, this is what it is. You're getting it. That's that. But this game has so much potential.

I would love more like another campaign. I'd love it if they added more pod racers and more speeders and vehicles and all that kind of stuff. Because there's so much potential for what they've created here.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know how many steps there are like to link your... Amazon account to get this game going on. I don't know if you have to download Amazon Luna. I've never looked into that service at all. But in theory, if that's pretty easy to get set up, you'd think that they would have a pretty sizable player base because obviously a ton of people on Prime and Star Wars' big IP. So that seems like a big potential there. They're kind of almost giving it away. It's like the most popular Game Pass game of all time in theory because it's like just has a lot more users than game pass oh for sure but again people are not paying for that so it's always a two double-edged sword i guess in a situation like that yeah.

And i'm i mean i am pleased at how popular this game is becoming i'm seeing a lot of people really, uh, enjoying it and hopping on the bandwagon and getting pretty, uh, pretty stoked for it, which makes me very happy because I think there's a lot of room for this game to grow and, uh, just kind of keep taking off, uh, as long as people are indulging and, and supporting it. Um, but yeah, the, uh, I think Travis was saying Kyle was interested in this game and he's, he's a bit of a racer. He likes the racing stuff. Um, And I can appreciate that the races, they don't always feel long.

A lot of the time it's like two laps or again, it's just a quick time trial, like minute and a half kind of thing. And so it just feels like you get in there, you dish out and you're good to go. When I first started out, I won't lie, like I got decimated. It was really, really bad trying to figure out how to keep up and how to make my speeder better. But once it clicks, it is very rewarding. Once you figure out how to kind of handle yourself.

Um, yeah.

And I, I just, I went hard over the Thanksgiving weekend, like really hard. I got to the point where we're driving late at night and I started to see speeders next to me on, on the highway from Vernon, you know, it was like, Oh, this, this isn't, this isn't good. This is probably not healthy.

That could be dangerous.

I think it could be dangerous. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm definitely keen on checking this out because I listened to a review, uh, from someone who I share a lot of gaming opinions with, typically. And he was like, you know, I'm pretty jaded on Star Wars stuff, but this game is so good that if you've ever liked a racing game, you should play this game. That's how high the praise was for him. This is just truly one of the best racing games ever. I feel like the mechanical depth of it sounds really engaging. The builds and having the run-based thing of trying different builds out and trying different runs. seems like really satisfying the fact that you mentioned too like all these different car types feel very they're probably it's probably not right to call

them cars i'll call them racers to call them racers uh all these different racers have like a very different vibe i think it's cool because i mean in mario kart like i've never liked the vibe of the bikes to be honest but i think i would enjoy like the challenge of the freaky weird controls of a pod racer like that kind of sounds fun to have that level of mastery but then you can also just go back to the races that are a bit more straightforward and intuitive to use. So yeah, the variety seems super good.

It does. It's, it's, um, it's nice that everything just really feels like it has its own identity and it's not just like, okay, the air speeder versus like the, the like small speeder thing. Like they all, easily could have just been a change of, you know, a coat of paint, something like that, different, like cosmetically speaking, just different and have a couple little things, but no, each one handles very, very differently. And it's fun when you do those online races and you can see, okay, three people are using the small speeder. One guy's using like the bigger speeder. Like everyone just has their own, their preferences and whatnot. And they all bring different things to the table. And again, when you're doing those builds, no

two builds are the same. Like I was saying, um, And you've got some that are offensive, right? Some people are just really, really nasty out there. Other people are defensive, and other people are just built for speed, and they're just gone, right? So there's lots of fun things like that.

Yeah, that's sweet.

Man, I feel like, because I think this game was announced at Game Awards last year, right? Or was it Summer Game Fest?

I think it was last year, yeah.

Yeah, so announced maybe around a year, a little less than a year ago, and then it comes out, and it's a big hit. Uh, and yeah, I feel like like zero company was a huge hit and that was like star Wars in a new genre that hasn't really done before just in August right there. So I feel like star Wars is kind of like on a hot streak.

And it's funny that those two games back to back were like announced after like star Wars eclipse and like the KOTOR remake and all these things. So they've kind of had like that shorter shelf life in a way. And they're finally like out and out and about and people really like them and they seem really great. I mean, I really loved outlaws, which was what two years ago now, last year, two years ago, I think. Uh, I know I was kind of an outlier there in terms of how much I love that game, but yeah, it just seems like Star Wars games are on top of the world right now. And they're like all over the place genre wise, which is really cool. So a lot of variety going on too.

Yeah. I'm, I'm very thankful for just the amount of games that I feel like we're, we are getting right now. And I mean, this is one that I, I knew I was kind of, I was latched on like zero company definitely has my attention and I, I I'm, I'll get around to trying it of course, but there was just something about this one that was really kind of pulling me in. Uh, like I was playing the, uh, Star Wars racers, that old, old N64 one. Cause they have that on Xbox games pass and they've, they spruced it up. They made it visually a little bit of an upgrade.

Yeah.

So it looks, it looks pretty good. Um, and I've enjoyed playing that, but now this one is just, it's the bees knees. And there's a lot of things in here, which you can, You can detect, like, okay, it's got that Mario Kart vibe to it, but it still does a really good job at being its own thing. Yeah, yeah.

I feel like there was more I wanted to say on it, but I can't remember.

Well, you can keep thinking. Yeah, another thought I had was, you.

Know, Game Awards is coming up pretty soon, and I feel like that's the best racing category is always.

a bit dry of a category.

It's like, okay, like Forza wins or like Mario Kart wins or Gran Turismo wins. And I feel like there's not, there's not really like an interesting conversation to be had there. And the new Forza did come out this year, right? And so I'm curious if this game, uh, will capture enough hearts because it seems like quality wise it's there.

And I feel like Forza kind of came in when I feel like I didn't really hear people talk about that that much when that came out this year.

So who knows?

Maybe, uh, maybe this game could, could sweep the game awards and best, best racing game, best racing, uh, Racing's like in a combo category, isn't it, at the Game Awards? Like racing simulation or something like that?

Something like that, yeah.

Yeah, so I don't know what it would be up against, but hopefully they can pull it off. That'd be pretty cool.

Oh, I do not doubt it whatsoever. Really? Because I just.

Beyond the new Forza Horizon?

Yes. Okay.

Yes.

I've just been seeing popularity with this.

It does have the recency bias compared to... Forza Horizon, which came out in, like, May or March or whatever.

It does. And I think this, the big kicker here is just your builds that are so unique. Yeah.

That is very atypical for games like this. Like, usually while upgrading your car, it's like, okay, you get, like, an engine that has, like, 5% more power or something.

But these are, like, pretty drastic changes, it seems like. And I feel like that's pretty unique.

Yeah. There's another con. I mean, I don't see. I don't see it as a major con because I'm not looking to do 1v1s. But online 1v1s, I believe, are not a thing in here. You can invite people to your party, but you're doing group races, not 1v1 races. But that being said, it does not mean that they're not going to implement them later on. I think if enough people push for it, which I'm sure they will, they'll add it.

I've never wanted to 1v1 in a racing game ever in my life, other than, I guess, Gauntlet in that specific use case.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I've had people ask to 1v1 me in COD, but.

Yeah, yeah, but not in, like, a racing... Like, have you ever had that happen in Mario Kart Online, you know?

No, and Mario Kart doesn't have a 1v1 mode, does... No, does it? No.

I mean, yeah, I guess if you, like, went custom settings, you could do it, like, in local play, but.

Definitely not online. Yeah, I guess local play. Yeah, not online.

I guess unless you, like, have a lobby that just doesn't fill up with anyone. But even then, they would, like, stick CPUs in there or something.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah. Just one of the things that could get added later on.

Is there a split screen in this game?

No.

Okay. So. I guess I'm trying to think gauntlet-wise. Like, could we.

Because we could get, like, a double monitor set up, especially because, like, it's got... It's free on Prime, so we'd only.

Technically, none of us need to own the game to get it booted up.

Yes.

So that could be a thing.

If not, at least we'll bring it... This could be a.

This would be a great 3 a.m.

Game, I feel like.

Oh, for sure. I mean, we'll have it booted up.

That show will wake you up. When Taylor.

When your eyes are starting to drift, which I've seen happen on many a 24-hour stream, I feel like this is the game to... What's the boost called again?

The ramjet.

Yeah, I feel like this is the Taylor Field ramjet to get you woken up.

Oh, absolutely. If we don't end up hooking up with multiple consoles, there's always the way of just, okay, let's do time trials. Let's see if a person sets that time record. Can someone beat it kind of a thing?

That could work, yeah. Yeah.

I should say, you reminded me actually, when you're doing the online tours, and they have a similar... uh, betting system in the multiplayer online. So the, on the single player tours, um, you start a race and you can bet like, okay, I'm going to bet a thousand credits that I, this guy is not going to come first.

And it says like, he's predicted to come first. And so he will fucking fight to get that first place. And if you don't feel confident in that bet, you could do 600 on the guy that's going to come like fifth place and you just got to beat him or there's like ninth place. So there's that. And then that is, um, transitioned into online, where an online, you can bet on yourself like, okay, I'm going to bet on myself that I'm going to come either in the top nine, the top six or the top three. And it's really fun to, to make those bets. Cause on top of that, when you get to the last race, you can bet on who's going to win. And so you can see the last five races for in everyone's like history bar of the 12 people loaded into this

tour online. It'll be, like, some people could be, like, five, six, one, two, or whatnot. But if you see someone who's got, like, consistent ones and twos, then you can place your bet on them. I'm not sure exactly what it gives you, if it gives you, like, parts or something that are unlockables. But it's just, it's a fun thing to do when you see a guy and, like, you're going to bet on him and whatnot. I had one guy bet on me, but he took his bet off because... yeah it wasn't great the.

Online is hard like in between races you did that no it was it was at the last race um and i was six in the rankings and i it pinged he's like oh someone bet on you that you'll come in first it's like oh this is hype and then they took it off my name i was like.

Oh damn damn yeah but it's hard to compete when you see buddy at the top of the list with one.

One one yeah is that the way to like because you know some games like don't have in-game chat, and, like, they ban offensive language and stuff. So people have to, like, get creative in terms of how they, like, insult other players. Is that what that guy was doing? He was, like, trying to mess with you? He was trying to get in your head.

A little bit? Oh, maybe. That would make sense. Some people, like, there's a lot of people on here that are very friendly, and, like, community-wise, it's incredible. Like, oh, good race. You know, you did very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's other people that are just... They're mean, you know, they're aggressive and they're very mean.

Yeah, that's like Rocket League.

Like there's obviously one of the emotes is nice shot, which, you know, in theory you could do when someone gets a nice shot. But also people will just spam it when you miss a shot and then you feel terrible, right? And they're just using the game's what's supposed to be nice, positive chat against you.

I've been.

Every game has to find their own in-game language to shit talk because it always comes back to that, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, this game sounds amazing. Star Wars Galactic Razor. Anything else that has not yet come up?

Oh, my gosh. I mean, the story is great. Characters are great. The mechanics, like, it feels nice. It feels like they really put a lot of passion into this. They put a lot of attention and detail into it. And aside from a couple things they've got to fix, like, we've got to toggle off that. That bloody kill cam.

That sounds insane that that's in there. And I'm curious, like it's hard for me to picture how that could even be in the game. So until I actually played and see that happen, it's hard for me to even believe that that's.

When you see it, if you don't get it before Extra Life, Extra Life will let you try it out and you will just be like, Taylor, what the fuck is this?

Yeah.

Watch me lose a gauntlet match to Travis like that.

Oh, it could happen.

The belt. Yeah.

Yeah.

That would be insane if that happened. I can't believe it. I was going to say something else. Now I can't. I don't know what it was.

Oh, yes.

Here is my last question for you, Taylor. What is the better game? Star Wars Galactic Racer or Halloween? What's your game of the fall?

You're going to put that on me?

Okay.

Because I feel like you were as impassioned here as you were just two or three weeks ago.

I was, and I'm still really, really heavily into that because I guess this is a great time to bring it up. October 27th, we're doing a Halloween stream. Nice. Me and Travis, because they're adding their first round of DLC. They're adding Michael Myers from 2018, Michael Myers from Halloween 5, The Revenge of Michael Myers. I think that's what it was.

And they're adding a new map. The new map is pretty cool because it's the farm based on Halloween 5.

Oh, we love a farm.

We love a farm. Oh, yeah, for sure. So they dropped a trailer kind of showing the layout of the map and everything like that. So look forward to that. I'm excited to get into it. But, ooh, what is the better game? I mean.

Big question.

With my lifestyle, you know, with two kids, everything going on, Galactic Racers is so nice because I can do a race. And then I'm done. If I'm doing just the galactic tour, like the single player stuff, I can pause if I need to. And it's great. And I can get out of my system. It's fantastic. If I'm doing Halloween, you can't pause. Myers is coming at you. You can't pause that.

You're locked. You got to stick it out. So that being said, oh. What a brutal question. My heart leans to Halloween because I just feel like I have that Friday the 13th bias in there.

You don't have to decide until Game of the Year season. So you have until December or whatever to make the final call.

I just wanted to put you on the spot a little bit.

I'll take that time then. I'll take that time to think on it. Because both are definitely high up there. And obviously, I'm not getting one over fours, which is, I'd love to. But you are getting GTA, right? I am, yeah.

There you go. So you're going to have, yeah, you've quit the fall season.

Quite the fall, quite the fall. And there will be Ocarina as well, but I don't think I'm going to open it. I think I want to just keep it sealed intact and just have it like a nice shelf piece for a while.

Oh, it's going to be like that Short King's tattoo that is worth however much in a few years. That guy? What's his name again?

Short King's.

No, what's like Bliss Blopper? What's his name again?

The guy who's the... Oh, Scribdune. Bitty Blas.

Bitty Blas. Bitty Blas. He's the short king, right? Yeah, the short king.

That's right. Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha.

So that's going to be like your Ocarina of Time.

You're just going to save it for.

That's right. I'll probably feel the temptation to rip it open once the team gets to be of... of age to understand it and I don't want to go through it but until then I'll just keep it sealed you know keep that nice Ness sleeve over top of it that just looks so beautiful you know shout out to the Canadian exclusive pre-order bonus.

Mint well what you could do is once she's old enough you could just sell that one because it'll probably be worth a lot more because it's still sealed and then just buy it digitally for like half the price.

Or something actually that's a really good idea make some make a huge profit yeah I like that that's good good pitch two in.

One All right, Taylor, thank you so much for joining us on this episode and breaking down Galactic Racer. I don't know when the next episode of SideQuest will be. Me and Travis are going to be doing an episode on Star Fox Adventures. I have now rolled credits on the game, but I'm going to save those thoughts for when we do that episode. That might be next week, maybe the week after, at some.

Point in time when Travis has rolled credits on the game as well. But we will be back when we are back. Have a good one.

Bye-bye.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer Review | Sidequest

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