Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart XSX Review 6.5/10 "A Simple Racer, Perfect For Hatchlings" 🦖 @3DClouds @Outright_Games #IndieGames #GameDev

Based on the French educational TV series Gigantosaurus, Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart puts the main characters of Rocky, Bill, Tiny, and Mazu – along with a  host of their friends – into various pre-historic kart-type vehicles and sets them speeding around their world through 15 different tracks, avoiding hazards such as steam blasts, chasms, rockslides and, of course – Giganto himself!

Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart is a game aimed at very young children, as is its TV show counterpart. So straight off the bat, it’s worth getting out of the way that this title – even on its hardest difficulty setting – isn’t going to be a challenge for those adult karting veterans out there.

That said, the way in which Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart caters to the younger demographic is impressive and made it possible for even my two-year-old to have enormous fun joining in the races.

Featuring colourful visuals and a simple controller setup, the game offers a handful of modes for up to 4 players, the main slice of which is the ‘Adventure’ mode, which allows you to unlock the different tracks and characters.

Diving into the action, the music is light and completely on-point for the target demographic here, as are the characters’ voices - although they can get repetitive pretty quickly, especially the couple of joyous yells that each dinosaur screams out as they hit a jump or a boost.

The tracks themselves are breezy, with many large dinosaurs stomping around in the background, along with enormous flora – and of course, the main man Gigantosaurus often cropping up, and stamping all over the track, acting as a moving hazard.

The environments are all as varied as they can be with jungle-themed areas, wintry tracks and stages with a  more open-plain feel. Each has many moving backgrounds and is short and punchy, so the racing doesn’t feel too static, although as mentioned earlier in this review – none are overtly challenging.

To be honest, simplicity aside – the one major issue I had with Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart was a consistent screen-tearing issue that I couldn’t find a way around in the menu, it was the one aspect that was a constant irritation.

The aspect that I was most impressed by was the auto-drive ability on the easy mode, it meant that my son could hold down / tap the accelerate button and handle the item usage with a couple of buttons as the game handled the….well, handling. It was a real father/son moment to see him laughing out loud as his chosen character – Archie – squawked with excitement each time he trundled over a boost, my son genuinely laughed so much at this game that he gave himself hiccups at one point, so hopefully the young ‘uns in your home will love it as much as mine does!

SUMMARY

In summary, Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart is an accessible pick-up and play-karting title that uses its licensing well.

It’s one of the most simplistic racers I’ve played – in a good way – that will appeal to the younger generation, although the screen-tearing issue, handful of modes and an overall lack of challenge may affect the longevity and appeal to older children.