izigame.me

This is what happens when you sacrifice fun gameplay for mediocre humor.

On the surface, WHAT THE CAR? is a game similar to its predecessor, WHAT THE GOLF?: a light-hearted game with simple levels and fun humor. Unfortunately, this game does not at all live up to the quality of its predecessor and has various flaws riddled throughout that ruin the experience.
Gameplay
The most glaring flaw of WHAT THE CAR? is the gameplay, and specifically, the control scheme. Every level uses tank controls, only allowing the player to move left and right along with some miscellaneous action like jumping or boosting. One of the later levels in the game sees collectible projectiles falling from the ceiling while a target moves up and down. The game allows the player to move side to side, jump, and shoot a projectile after collecting one. The problem is that shooting and jumping are bound to the same button. I guess Triband wanted their game to be playable on an Atari joystick rather than allowing the player to have other buttons.
In addition, the turning on most levels is so sluggish that you might as well be controlling an 18-wheeler. Most of the traditional levels might as well be ice levels, since momentum doesn't turn when the player does, and turning isn't fast enough to allow for quick adjustment. When the levels finally let up and give you faster rotation, you might as well be controlling a bar of soap, since the slightest tap nets an extremely wide turn as the car slides and wobbles (which can also be very sickening to watch). The timer and leaderboards accentuate the problems with the controls, because the controls never allow for any skill expression and are too unreliable for most strategies to be remotely consistent.
You may have noticed from the trailer that some levels vary the way your car plays, and that would make the game more interesting if the variants were at all enjoyable to play. Over half of the different variants of gameplay are miserable to play, since the level of control you have over each variant is usually in the gutter. Easily the biggest offender is the "car with wheels but giraffes." This variant turns your wheels into giraffe necks, which is an odd idea, and doesn't work well at all. The awful turning speed makes these levels unbelievably annoying to play, since you can hardly control where the car goes apart from forward. The wheels also syncopate, which can cause any number of problems. The frustration the variants caused me make me question if this game was ever play-tested. Surely if this game was actually play-tested, then someone at Triband would've played these levels and saw how miserable they were to control, right? I refuse to believe levels that control this terribly would pass through play-testers without raising any red flags.
Level Design
If the controls didn't deter you from this game, the level design makes everything even worse. The lack of accommodation the levels provide the player is astounding. Some levels will completely misunderstand how the player interacts with the environment and encourage the player to follow paths that are too difficult to stay on either because the path itself is poorly made, or because the player doesn't interact with the terrain or objects the way the developer intended.
During a skull levels in world 5, I was trying to obtain a gold crown (rewarded for fast completion), which required me to take a side path. Using this path required taking three ramps. You can see a clip of this level here (warning: this clip may cause motion sickness). I could almost always fly off the first ramp correctly. The second ramp was very inconsistent due to the unreliable launches I would get when turning off the ramp and landing on the road after the ramp was also inconsistent, due to the amount I would have to turn and the varying heights the ramp would give me. The third ramp was always impossible for me to launch off. Every time I tried, my car would bump into it and pop up like a wall jump in Mario Kart 64. The ramp never gave me enough height or speed to properly launch. Clearly, as said before, this game has not had enough testing and needed to be more rigorously tested before release.
In each level of the game, there is a card that upon collection and completion of the level will award a snapshot of the completion screen to you. These cards are often placed in areas the player wouldn't normally visit during the level, but aren't too difficult to get to. Sometimes you'll find a card placed in an area that either isn't visible to the player at any point, or is so convoluted to get to that it's barely worth grabbing. Occasionally, the path for these cards is just the fastest route of the level and the only way to obtain a golden crown for said level, which seems counter-intuitive. The worst part is when the cards are placed in a spot that inconveniences the player. In the same level I showed a clip of above, the card is on the underside of the road you drive on, meaning you have to maneuver your way onto the other side of the road and back, which is only barely possible and highly inconsistent thanks to the bad controls.
Humor
Naturally, the appeal of this game is its absurdity and wacky comedy. If you're like me and expect that this game have a similar level of hilarity to WHAT THE GOLF?, you will be disappointed to know that this game has no such hilarity. Most of this game's jokes are boring, forced, and/or nonsensical puns like "Shar-Car-Nado" or "C.A.R. Phone Home." With every new level I asked "is that supposed to be funny?" while simultaneously questioning my existence. The jokes in this game make me feel like I've been gaslit my whole life about what jokes even are since they all feel awkward, forced, and unfunny.
A lot of the game's humor hinges on the thought that the variants are wacky enough to make you laugh at their absurdity, but as stated earlier, the fact that they are not fun to play ruins any comedic appeal to them. They are also thrown at you for no rhyme or reason, leaving the player confused why they're playing the variant and why the variant controls so terribly rather than laughing at the absurdity of the variant.
A big part of why WHAT THE GOLF? had such great humor is because it infused references to films or other games into its levels. There are no references to be found in WHAT THE CAR? other than in the forced puns you have to sit through. Another reason why WHAT THE GOLF? had such a great appeal to me is because the sound the game made when you failed a level was pretty funny. A crowd of people come together to shout "wuahhh" whenever you fail in WHAT THE GOLF?, whereas this game has an unenthused, limp, and slightly patronizing "no" as the words "Oh no!" pop up, as if the game is mocking the player for failing (which is made worse by how frustrating the controls are).
Speaking of sound effects, the music in WHAT THE CAR? is infinitely worse than that of its predecessor. The music in WHAT THE GOLF? ties into the references and generally has a far larger presence in the game than the music here. The music in WHAT THE CAR? always seems to sound like the same low-energy song with how little conviction the instruments have and the constant whistling in every song.
Conclusion (tl;dr)
This is an immensely disappointing game, and you're better off not playing it. The controls are consistently annoying and never allow for interesting or enjoyable gameplay. The level design compounds this problem by repeatedly subjecting the player to levels that force the player to feel the inconsistencies of the controls. The humor constantly makes little-to-no sense and repeatedly misses the mark. If you've never played WHAT THE GOLF?, you're better off buying that game than this underwhelming slop.

My Glitchwave review: https://glitchwave.com/game/what-the-car/review/Zassafras/89183443/