Original Release: Cascadia Games, 2016, PC
Given Apogee’s blessing but made by a small indie outfit, this attempt to revive cult kart racer Wacky Wheels didn’t quite land
Wacky Wheels HD (PC, Cascadia, 2016)
Where to Buy: No longer commercially available, officially released as freeware on Itch.io (with donations requested)
Review by: C. M0use
The Torque 3D open-source engine was popular with hobbyist game developers and shoestring indie companies about 15 years ago and one of these outfits, Cascadia Games, made a kart racing kit for it that roughly emulated the SNES’s famous “Mode 7” sprite scaling. They put out several of their own kart games with it, and eventually leveraged this into acquiring the rights to do a sequel/remake of Apogee’s cult 90s kart racer hit Wacky Wheels.
They seemed to have some sort of weird deal with Apogee (which is STILL trying to sell the original game for $5) that only allowed them to trade on the Wacky name for four years, so it was only available on Steam from 2016 to 2020 before having to be pulled down. However, the lead developer has since put the game up on Itch.io for free. HOWEVER, the online multiplyer was apparently reliant on servers and Steam connectivity that no longer exist, so that aspect is gone.
I do appreciate the effort to keep the game available but it’s all for not much, as the end product was just a somewhat generic low-budget racer with Wacky Wheels trappings. You somehow still get the framerate and choppy control of the original game some 22 years later, but with stiff low-animation HD sprites overlaid and new track designs. Remixes of the original music too, but more dance-y (and oddly mixed, often simply getting drowned out entirely by in-game sounds).
As with the original you pick from the roster of eight animal racers and go through bronze, silver and gold races. “Duck Shoot” is also included but it may no longer be working in the free release, though the manual also warns that Windows versions other than 8 may have problems running the game (though it otherwise worked fine on my Win 10).
The manual also cautions that controllers other than Xbox may not be recognized, which appeared to be true with my newer PS4 knockoff. Oh well, keyboard control is faithful to the original experience anyway.
The whole appeal of that original experience was having a passable version of Super Mario Kart on PCs, and one that offered modem play to boot. So there really wasn’t much point in reviving this franchise save for sheer nostalgia; I appreciate that Cascadia seem to be major and genuine old-school kart racing fans, and I don’t think this was just a nostalgia cash grab, but it just didn’t come together very well. It’s basically competent but feels too much like a clumsy old DOS racer to make it as a modern title, but without any of the retro charm or appeal (will run on a potato though).
Links
Tale of Wacky Wheels 3D’s demise
Videos