While you can set up local matches with the AI, itвЂ™s clear that Micro Machines is gunning more for the position of вЂbeloved modest multiplayer standbyвЂ™, and though IвЂ™m not one to hold a grudge against a game for forcing me to play with the other kids in the schoolyard, the least it could do is let me be a bit more choosy. You can probably deduce from this that my hopes of a substantial single-player mode have gone up in exhaust fumes, and youвЂ™d be bang on. It all feels just a little too familiar, although without the looming presence of microtransactions, the system seems to be largely in place just to provide some semblance of a progression structure.

Playing online matches lets you level up, levelling up gets you loot boxes, and loot boxes get you four randomly selected cosmetics each, with in-game currency as compensation for duplicates. Many of your choices of wheels are decidedly exotic-a dump truck, a snowcat, a hovercraft, a knock-off Bond-esque Aston Martin-but for the purposes of racing, their differences are more or less skin-deep. Rather than everyone racing recoloured versions of the same vehicle around an appropriately themed track, thereвЂ™s now a roster of a dozen distinct characters, each with their own personal transportation, tiered skins, taunts, and international accents of, uhвЂ¦ variable convincingness. ThatвЂ™s maybe jumping the gun a bit, but it certainly gives you an idea of where a lot of the modern design conventions in this new instalment probably came from.

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