Anki Overdrive Starter Kit Review

If you remember the old days of Scalextric racing car sets, where your cars would have to be manually slotted into the track and prone to coming off at every available corner, this is nothing like that.

We took a look at the Anki Overdrive Starter Kit, which comes with a wide selection of track for you to use, as well as two cars and a charging station which can simultaneously charge up to four cars.

Explained in the simplest terms I can conjure up, just so you can rush out and buy the damn thing as soon as you possibly can once you’re through reading this. This is a track racing game, that you play with up to four players (or play with with AI-controlled cars), You race around the track with different mode and objectives, from trying to stay in the lead to how many time you can destroy your opponents.

I have to admit, at first we were expecting just a run of the mill normal racing game, which would get a bit tedious after a while of playing. Oh boy, we couldn’t have been more wrong and we were thoroughly surprised.

First off, the cars just sit on the track instead of slot on. The track pieces magnetise together, making them extremely easy to construct and dismantle. The computers that are built into the cars stop it from shooting off the side of the track; the only way your car can leave the track is if you are knocked off by an opponent, and even then when this happened several times the cars were able to find their own way back onto the track and carry on as normal. You then race the using a mobile device (Android/iOS or Kindle Fire) to control the cars. Tilting your phone to the left or right veers you onto the four available lanes, and you can control your speed via the on-screen throttle, which you slide up and down to vary your speed. On top of all of this, you also get weaponry attached to the car, which you can upgrade or swap out as you earn XP. Located on the right hand side, you have two buttons to operate these weapons; one for primary attack the other is for a special attack. Each car has it’s own personal arsenal, really giving each player a unique experience and mixing up the gameplay.

After using our phones for a while, we decided to switch to tablets and both played using an iPad. Having the larger screen was really nice, but personally I preferred the phone as it was smaller and easier for the steering. My friend preferred the iPad though, due to the larger screen allowing for easier selection and control of speed and weaponry. Each player is required to have a phone or tablet (even an iPod Touch would work) but in this day and age, there aren’t many households without a couple of smartphones in the house.

The charging of the cars from drained only takes 10 minutes, and we found the battery life lasted between 30 and 45 minutes each time. With the charge time so short, it was easy to do things like make a cup of tea (we are British) or nip to the loo.

There is quite a list of devices that have been tested to make sure they are compatible with the Anki Overdrive racing system, but if you are not sure, you can find out by just downloading the app on the appropriate app store for your device, it will tell you if it's supported or not.

Once again, we have been very surprised about a lot of the features found in Anki Overdrive. With multiple game modes, this should keep you occupied for quite some time, there are ways just two of you can play and again will support up to four players at a time. But for those moments when you find yourself in the house on your own, have no fear, Anki have you covered on that as well, as there is an AI built in so you can compete against it. This mode comes with a story mode, which is split into six episodes to keep you entertained. However, if you do have friends and still want to progress through the story mode, you can do co-op against the AI with a friend.

Unlike conventional Scalextric, it is extremely easy to keep track of the game. Before starting matches you can adjust the score limit, whether it’s laps or amount of opponents destroyed. Not only this, but the game tracks these automatically and tells you what position you are in, making it much easier to determine the rankings of players

Overall the Anki Overdrive Starter Kit is a great present for kids or adults and enough comes with the game to keep you occupied for quite some time. Plus we can only hope that they implement new game modes later on.