I would like to firstly illiterate, this is very much a kid’s game, and while I wasn’t stoked to review it, I will look at it through that lense because I can’t imagine any grown arse adult wanting to own this.

‘Race with Ryan’ is just like the title suggests, a racing game with internet celebrity and now, world famous, Ryan, from Ryan’s World. Feeling very much like a scuffed Mario Kart knock-off aimed at about 5 to 10 year olds, Race with Ryan requires you to dominate the toy-laced race tracks, smashing rivals with skills from mystery eggs on the track and cross that line to be the one victorious Ryan in his wicked world full of toys.

This game has a surprising range of modes for a kid’s game, a good thing as an adult, perhaps confusing for the smaller children. Single player has Quick Race to get stuck in straight away, while Career Mode enables you to enter cups to unlock extra racers and tracks. Random Race is just that, a random track and cart. Now, while there are different modes each act and feel the same, with the same tracks re-rinsed over each, making it boring task even for kids to unlock stuff. No surprises here.

Split Screen Mode enables you to join with up to 4 players locally to have a fast, random or career race. It was good to see you can get assistance in Career mode, to help unlock items for the littlies. For once, the exclusion of online play was actually a relief, as I don’t really see a place for young children and the toxicity that is most online servers.

The racing itself is quite bland even with the 3 levels of difficulty, it isn’t hard to pants every AI, in every race. They try to spice it up with the product placement of mystery eggs, which give you weapons and shields, such as slime, burger bombs and glue, each with unique ways of preventing people passing or to slow down competitors in front. None of these items are interesting in the slightest and I forgot I had them to use half the time, they aren’t no blue shell after after all.

The graphics are basic 3D models, that are actually quite charming. Younglings are going to eat up the bold colours, shapes and fun designs of the characters and cute background environmental details. In saying this though, I myself, find the tracks quite simple and bland, but hey this ain’t no Forza, and will admit it doesn’t attempt to hide the fact that is is a shameless plug for everything Ryan has to offer his adoring little fans.

There is a lot of cringe worthy cut scenes, interjections and cartoon clips, and while I watched a few, I did skip them everytime after the first hour, which I can see kids even doing too. Ryan also narrates everything, mute inducing but they are good learning opportunities for word and sound correlation for kids, so that is a plus. The irritatingly upbeat, generic music rounds out the explosion of happiness and good vibes, that is this title.

Overall, even as a kid’s game, there doesn’t seem to be much real substance. It is a cute and vibrant shell with not alot going on inside with its boring, repetitive races. While it will be entertaining for small children, older children will find no challenge from it, and it will quickly be a forgotten cash grab title.

Written by: Stacey