Cyber Clutch: Hot Import Nights is a racing game. Because of the fact that this is an arcade racing game, there isn’t a means of a story.
Now I have played my fair share of arcade racing games that had some really good story lines. The likes of games like most of the Need For Speed Series, even All Star Fruit Racing had a good story line. Combat racing games like Twisted Metal also had some really good story lines, of which I feel this game gets some inspiration from.
Because these games have stories to them and actual backgrounds to the participants and the races themselves, I would have liked to have seen a story for each of the racers behind each car. Instead what we get is a bunch of nameless racers behind each car, or even just one racer that is racing all of the cars.
As great a story mode or back story for the racers would have been, given it’s a racing game, there really isn’t a reason for there to be a story mode and doesn’t detract from the game itself .
Cyber Clutch: Hot Import Nights is an arcade racing game with some cart racing elements sprinkled in. The game has you racing either through a set of Grand Prix races on regular or expert difficulty, with the option to race quick races if you would like.
The Grand Prix has you racing in five cups and each cup has three tracks back to back. Each track is three laps long when it comes to the regular Grand Prix. If you can manage to make it through each cup of races in at least third place, you can not only move onto the next cup, but the fifth and final cup will unlock for you to race on.
Once you pick a track to race on, you’re pitted against seven other racers and start each race in eighth place, regardless of how you did in the previous race. Once the race starts the weapons you’re given are in a cool down for several seconds and then can be used.
Each car has their own special weapon, standard gun weapon, and the third weapon could be either a weapon you pick up or an item that can help you during the race. Each track has these weapon or item pickups around the track, not unlike what you find in a game of Mario Kart. In addition to weapon or item pickups, there are shields you can pick up and collect much like restoring health. Both the health and armor are used to help defend your car and keep it racing down the track while being bombarded by weapons from fellow racers.
In addition to pickups, there are also tune-up pads and boost pads along the track. The tune-up pads act as health regeneration that restore a little bit of health. The boost pads act as a speed boost, kind of like a nitro boost to help get that edge over the racer just ahead of you.
Once you pick a cup to race on, you then get to pick a car from a couple of cars made available based on the track and cup you’re racing. Each car has their own stats and their own weapons or abilities, also are in a set weight class. The weight classes of heavy, medium, and light will play a part in their stats and how they handle on the track.
The other game mode that is available aside from Grand Prix which is a single player only mode, there is the Online Multiplayer mode. This mode is kind of a fake mode. What I mean by this is that when you join a server, you’re paired up with players that are playing at the time. But in my many hours with this game, I have never found an online game with real players. When you setup an online game, if the game can’t find players to put you in a game with, you’re left playing with the same NPCs from the Grand Prix mode.
I would have liked to have the game say that there is no one available to play with instead of giving you a mock online game. I appreciate the attempt, but it shouldn’t have been made a thing in my opinion.
Speaking of NPCs, the game’s AI is totally unfair. So more often than not, you have to master the track in order to get one up on your computer competition. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of sheer luck that you manage to finish the race in at least third place so you can continue going through all of the cups.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the game offered a difficulty level selection. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a difficulty selection to adjust the racing AI. Or even give difficulty options that would adjust the number of racers.
The last thing I wanted to mention when it comes to the modes and you really can’t count this as a mode, but I am referring to the “mode” called Garage. In this mode, you can purchase upgrades for your car as well as paint the car your chosen colors. The only issue I have with this is that despite there being tech specs listed when assigning parts, they seem to be purely cosmetic. There wasn’t a part I was able to install that made any adjustments at all to the cars stats. I am not sure if it’s because I haven’t had the patience (yes I said patience) to unlock the various parts by earning the points and currency necessary to unlock them and be able to find the parts that could potentially have an impact on the car stats.
Though I won’t count purely cosmetic upgrades against the game, I would have liked to see all of or at least the majority of upgradeable parts have some semblance of impact to the overall stats of the car you’re applying the upgrade to.
Now despite my issues with the overall gameplay, the graphics in this game are amazing. I mean they were a lot better than I initially thought they were going to be. I mean you have huge open city scapes that are at some point in the future that just look really good. All the track environments have a ton of detail to them. From portions being under construction, to branching paths, it’s just all a really neat experience and fun to look at. The textures in the environment feel like they were ripped right out of the real world around you. I mean obviously you can tell it’s a game and it’s not quite uncanny valley territory, but you can tell that they tried the best they could to go for realism.
The cars all have a metallic look to them and light bounces off of car bodies in a rather realistic and convincing way. Regardless if it’s neon lights you have on the car or environmental light, it all looks phenomenal and rather natural, all things considered.
When it comes to the realistic graphics and lighting, I thought at first that it kind of felt out of place for an arcade racer, but this game goes to show you that you can be an arcade racing game and still be gorgeous to look at.
So the graphics are nice, but how do all the pretty graphics and lighting translate to performance? Well being played on an Xbox Series X, there is no surprise as to how the game performs. The game does a great job of giving you the sense of speed. Cars move really fast, there are weapons flying everywhere, you’re constantly moving around the beautiful environments and yet…with all of this speed and fast movement, the console doesn’t bat an eye.
To me it’s like the Xbox Series X port of this game is so well optimized that it could play the game to it’s potential while in hibernation mode. Ok, not really, but all this to say that there are no issues with performance when it comes to playing the actual game and racing. Where the issue in performance comes in is in the load times. Now to be fair, the load times aren’t all that long, but they are a tad bit too frequent. There is a loading screen going in and out of pretty much all menus and when going between races, even race tracks during the current cup you’re racing.
I will give the devs credit as the game doesn’t load nearly as long between races, but I would like to see slightly improved optimization. I would like to see either having the load times be shorter, or have longer load times with fewer of them to sit through.
Cyber Clutch Hot Import Nights is an arcade racing game. The music is where this game shines. I mean the music is a fast tempo techno that fits the neon landscape perfectly. There is something about racing down the track, taking that first place spot, just as the music hits and drives the overtake victory home!
As much as I really love the music in the game, there isn’t much in the way of sound effects. I mean yeah you have the sounds of the weapons, but there aren’t any car sounds. You really don’t hear the rev of the engine, or the change in pitch as you brake or downshift as you drift around the corner. I mean you don’t even hear the squealing of tires around a corner that you happen to be drifting around.
I am not sure if this is because the music just drowns it all out, or they just never bothered to include it. I mean sure it’s an arcade racer, but even games like Cruis’N USA had engine sounds. Maybe when they optimize the load times, they can look at adding in car sound effects, that would be great.
Cyber Clutch Hot Import Nights is one of those games that you will either love or you will hate. I am in the love camp. I mean yeah it has some poor optimization at times, zero car sound effects, and racing AI that puts even Metropolis Street Racer to shame, but it has really everything else going for it! So if you’re up for a touch as nails arcade racing experience, I would highly recommend picking up this game!
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
Reviewed on Xbox Series X. Also available on PC and PlayStation 5
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.