#Drive [Switch] Review – Road To Nowhere

Some games work better on mobile than on console – even if that console is the Switch. #Drive is one such title. It simply doesn’t offer enough thrills to make you want to take anything more than a test drive.   …

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Some games work better on mobile than on console – even if that console is the Switch.

#Drive is one such title. It simply doesn’t offer enough thrills to make you want to take anything more than a test drive.  

Originally released on mobile back in 2019, #Drive is an endless runner – but instead of running, you’re driving through a range of locations ranging from the snowy (surely that should be rainy?) United Kingdom and the dustbowl deep south of the USA.

You’re asked to keep driving through these locales repeatedly while achieving certain objectives – such as racing a certain distance without crashing or collecting a specific number of bottle caps – so you can gain postcards to unlock new tracks, off which there are nine. New cars can be unlocked by gathering the aforementioned bottle caps.

The game is lovely to look at, with crisp and clear visuals helping each location to evoke a different mood. There’s a relaxed feeling to the whole experience, and the music works well in tandem with this.

In terms of the driving itself, the controls are a little twitchy but that helps keep things tense once you’ve gained significant speed. What’s a real problem is that there isn’t enough variation between locations.

They’re the same thing underneath the lovely window dressing, with few location specific obstacles to avoid.

This means that playing the game for any length of time beyond a few minutes gets dull fast. #Drive may be inspired by road movies from the 70s and 80s, but the best examples in that genre were never this repetitive.

What also isn’t welcome is that the game occasionally refuses to make simple things clear. There are a range of power-ups for example, but not once is it ever explained what each one does.

Even worse are some of the menus, namely the car selection screen – which is possibly one of the most needlessly confusing things we’ve ever had the displeasure of navigating. It doesn’t allow you to simply see the vehicles you’ve unlocked, and you have to scroll through a misnumbered list to find what you want.

The overly repetitive tracks and gameplay definitely works fine on mobile, but for a console experience – and one with a moderately high price-tag – this isn’t a motor that you’ll be taking out for a drive that often.

The good

  • Enjoyable presentation
  • Loads of cars to unlock

The bad

  • No real difference between tracks
  • Not a satisfying enough gameplay loop to keep you playing
  • Several unexplained elements
60 out of 100
Simon has been playing portable games since his Game Boy Pocket and a very worn out copy of Donkey Kong Land 2, and he has no intention of stopping anytime soon. Playing Donkey Kong Land 2 that is. And games in general we suppose.