Race After 1977 Review

Race After 1977 is a post-apocalyptic racer that fails to win, place or show.

Race After 1977 is a game about racing in a post-apocalyptic world. Think Mad Max, but taking place in the 70’s. There’s really nothing about the game that screams 70’s, except of course the title. Racing across the charred landscape of a destroyed world can be a lot of fun, but it’s a crowded genre to be sure. Does Race After 1977 have what it takes to survive?

Race After 1977 puts you into a post-apocalyptic world where people are racing to find the last hospitable place on Earth. The tournament winner will be given the GPS coordinates to this supposed paradise. It’s a threadbare plot, but is enough to get you into the game and working your way through the 5 different circuits. You can quick race if you just want a one run game, but the meat is in the story mode where you’ll race different tracks and need to place high enough in order to move on.

Winning races earns you points and money, though I can’t find anything to use the money on. There’s no weapons or power ups to speak of, just you and the other racers on the track. There’s no upgrade system for the cars themselves either. In this type of setting you would have thought they’d strap some kind of weapon to themselves to. Given the game world it kind of feels missing to not have some sort of weapon system.

The game’s default control scheme uses tilt to steer, which is just… terrible. Unusably terrible. Luckily there’s an option to have left and right buttons on the side of screen which help immensely. The game auto accelerates and you just tap the screen when you want to brake (though that doesn’t happen too often).

One of the bigger complaints to be had about Race After 1977 is that the cars bounce around too much. They feel much less like big metal 70’s muscle cars and more like R/C toys. If the game were marketed as an R/C game I’d say the controls were spot on when you go spinning out or flipping over after hitting a bump, but those things don’t really belong with what they’re selling. There’s no bumping and trading paint here, usually lightly touching another car sends someone spinning all over the place.

But you know what Race After 1977‘s biggest problem is? Death Rally, the vastly superior post-apocalyptic racer from Remedy that came out about 2 weeks before it. On any list of points that you could come up with to compare the two games, Death Rally comes out ahead every time. It’s not that Race After 1977 is a bad game, because it isn’t. The problem is it’s just merely ok, and going up against a highly polished more enjoyable game just makes you look… weak.

Had I played Race After 1977 a few months ago I would’ve given it a hearty “meh.” It’s really below average to average at best. But when placed up against other similar titles it just gets the pants beat off it. I can’t in good conscience give you any reason to own this game, especially with such better options on the market.

The good

The bad

50 out of 100

Dan Zuccarelli