➤ Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks Edition, the review 🎮

We can only start this review di Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks Edition - available from 27 August - with a premise on the relationship between racing game and Nintendo console. Despite the presence of Mario Kart, often the best-selling racing game of the various generations (including this one), it certainly cannot be said that by itself it can satisfy the appetites of those who love racing game realistic (simulation or arcade that they are).

Nintendo consoles are historically lacking in this context, and have never offered titles at the level of the excellence of others. There is a big difference, however, between not achieving a certain quality and not covering a genre at all. On Nintendo Switch, had it not been for the Gear.Club presence, it would have remained the only Burnout Paradise Remastered (however a conversion of an old game) to represent the category.

Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks Edition, the review

In addition to this particular situation, before continuing with the actual analysis of the game, the legacy of Gear.Club must be explained. The game developers, Eden Games (they are French, from Lyon), they specialize in the creation of racing games: in the past they have created excellent works, in particular V-Rally and Test Drive Unlimited, one of the first - and among the most successful - open world racing games. Gear.Club was born as mobile game, and in that context it is among the best in circulation: the download is free, the controls appreciable, technically commendable, especially as regards the variety and complexity of the polygonal models of the cars. At the end of 2017 Eden Games converted his work, adapting it, on Nintendo Switch. A few months later they made a sequel, Gear.Club Unlimited 2; this one we're talking about is the (probably) definitive edition of that game, with five new tracks, including the historic Le Mans, as well as new cars, such as the Ford GT40 MK I.

Da mobile a Switch

Apart from the interesting introductions of this particular edition, which enrich and expand the offer of the game, what we want to illustrate - since we had not reviewed it at the time - is the actual quality of the title. Which, in essence, is the definitive version of the sequel to an adaptation of a mobile racing game: if in 2017 it was normal that Gear.Club still showed a strong link with the original edition - still available for free - from the sequel we would have expected a deepening of certain mechanics, the abandonment of others and, more generally, a total adaptation to the needs of the console market. It didn't happen like that, we tell you right away; at the same time, it's not such a devastating problem.

As we have already said, as a mobile title Gear.Club is well done, from any point of view. Despite the many (optional) in-game purchases and facilitations to the control system, is not - conceptually - a simplistic racing game, but rather the mobile version of a complex racing game. In short, it is a hybrid of the two worlds; and it is also on Nintendo Switch. Starting to run, the first thing you notice is the big ones facilities granted to driving: what you need to worry about most is to guess the direction of the curve, because the CPU takes care of braking and slowing down adequately. Acceleration is not automatic - basically - but you can insert it if you want. On the other hand, fortunately, it is possible to remove all these aids.

In all there are three guidance systems: the automated one, the professional one and a cross between the two. Of course, in case of purchase, we advise you to start immediately with the most complex and difficult one, the only one able to guarantee a rather profound experience.

Guide and modalities

In general the feeling We liked the game, both tactile and visual. The sensation of speed it gives is good and, by disabling all the facilities, it offers a guide that turns out to be an excellent compromise between simulation and arcade. The sensations that more or less powerful cars give are well diversified, and you have to progressively increase your ability at the wheel to keep up with your opponents. While this is undoubtedly a positive factor, it cannot be denied that the collisions and the interaction with the ground are rather superficial. The difference between a snowy, dirt or asphalted circuit is not as pervasive as it should have been, and collisions, rather than sending off the track or marking the end of a race, are even advisable in some cases. They are not here failures to the cars, after an accident (which in reality would have been fatal) it goes smoothly, and the impacts with the adversaries can sometimes guarantee an advantage if done at the right time. In addition, to help the player even more, if you want you can pause the race and send it back a few seconds, so as to correct errors without having to restart the race.

The main mode of the game is the career and, despite Eden Games' curriculum, it is not open world. You access the various events from a map (quite clumsy), and the process is always the same: the more races you win, the more money you make, the more you can buy and improve cars, the harder and faster the competitions become. The development of the car it does not require the slightest engineering understanding, in essence it is not possible to err in the evolution of the machine: it is only necessary to improve certain aspects at the appropriate time, increasing its quality. We wrote "must" because it is not direct experience that stimulates the desire for upgrades: they are really necessary to enter certain competitions. Between tipi in corsa more frequent are the timed challenges, the derbies ("normal" races with cars, all present on the track) and the elimination ones, with a timer that occasionally excludes the last placed from the race, up to isolate the first classified.

From the point of view graphic there is a big disparity between the excellent quality of the cars and that of the landscape; disparity that becomes even more evident when playing on the television. Despite this, using the dock is absolutely preferable: not only for reasons of engagement, but also to enjoy the experience with a stable frame rate. Inside the Gear.Club dock travels to 30 FPS stable, while in portability we noticed some slight clicks which, of course, in a racing game is very annoying.

Il multiplayer it is possible both from the same console (in split screen), both locally with multiple Nintendo Switches, and online, after joining or forming a car club: unfortunately, given the momentary absence of opponents, we were not able to test this last mode.

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Had it been released on another console, we would have immediately advised against the purchase of Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks Edition. It is a simulation racing game with many openings to the arcade world, with a good control system, which however does not even come close to the peaks of the genre. However we are talking about Nintendo Switch: a console that, in this field, is practically not covered. If you were so weird as to love simulation racing games and only own this platform, the purchase of Gear.Club Unlimited 2 is worth considering. There is a free mobile version, with much less content than this and with various simplifications, which however can suggest what you would find in this title which, on the contrary, costs 49,99 euros.