Racing simulators always need to find that blend of providing a realistic experience with offering the necessities to be categorized as a video game. Motorsport Games has taken the Steam early-access title, KartKraft, and has released the full version of this karting simulator. Go-karts are normally where racers tend to start their careers whether it be on asphault or dirt. There are some stark physics involved when racing a powerful kart that require precision for car control. While this can be engineered into a simulation for use at home, having enough content to keep players engaged is also important and unfortunately KartKraft is missing this.
What stands out the most about KartKraft is the racing itself. This is no doubt an excellent simulation of karting with its handling model. While a controller is supported for the game, it’s rather unplayable as the experience is designed to work with a racing wheel setup. Balancing grip and monitoring tyre temperature is the focus all while maintaining speed, and it’s just as addicting as it is in real life. There are multiple classes of karts in KartKraft with twenty different officially-licensed kart manufacturers. The option to upgrade different parts on the karts is there and this includes the ability to build a kart from the ground up. Money is earned to buy various karts and parts to make sure you have the best equipment out there, but the question is what are you working towards with these karts?
Kartkraft is rather shallow game in terms of content. Even with ten officially-licensed tracks including the Atlanta Motorsports Park and offering laser-scanned realism to each circuit, the main focus of this game will involve purely just doing laps to experience the physics. There are no championship modes, but rather single player offline races against a dull A.I. that tends to predeterminely separate into 1-2 car packs that never actually pass each other and have no idea that you’re on the track. Building and upgrading karts for the sake of running stagnant races gets redundant fast.
While my local karting places has racers aiming for the fastest one lap time, there should be more options here than doing that. The only option for racing online is posting a hot lap with others on the track in a time frame. There’s no actual racing and while modding will be available for the game, the fact that the single player and multiplayer options are the only modes makes it still feel like it’s in early access.
The visuals and performance of KartKraft is well optimized. The laser-scanned tracks look good, but the environments aren’t mindblowing. The game runs well and I’ve experienced any drops in frames and it was rock solid across the board. The karts and player models are colorful and have solid reflections and are the standout parts. There were no issues with connection drops or lag during online racing, either, so the base of the game is functional. The karts sound like the karts should, but other sound effects and the lack of any type of atmosphere hurts. Collisions with other A.I. karts doesn’t feel natural, but the actual physics and control of the karts is what makes KartKraft work.
Wrestling the karts are a pure joy, though, if you’re looking to take turns with friends to set lap times. Getting these things to scoot around corners and power slide is almost as enjoyable as doing it in real life. The karts have a tendency to kick back hard, so counter steering and having arm strength to handle the force feedback from the wheel is important. While you may not physically feel the g-forces like you would at a track, playing this game is still a workout if doing multiple laps for an extended period of time. Keeping the tyre temperatures up is key as well as learning each circuit and finding the breaking points for corners. This is what the game does best.
Closing Comments:
Motorsport Games have invested a lot into racing games in hopes of offering plenty of options for racers. Unfortunately, some of these early efforts have faltered. Black Delta was the original developer for KartKraft and it almost seems like after the acquisition that Motorsport simply wanted the game at a full version. While it seems to do an excellent job as a racing simulation for purely go-karts, it lacks in the video game department. This is almost better as a tool for those that do actual karting at these tracks with these actual karts rather than calling this a game. KartKraft works best if you’re trying to hone your racing kraft rather than attempting to be in a virtual competitive space. What makes the gaming aspect of this release worse is that it retails for $39.99, and there just isn’t a lot here to justify that price. While modding may be available, it remains to be seen if there will be enough of an audience to crank out additions, because that also tends to show that Motorsport Games may not being doing too much with the title going forward. The current roadmap for the game shows wet weather and rental cars are coming, but there’s no date for these updates.
