Start your engines!
Kart Racer is one of three games in the Cocoto franchise, the others being Fishing Master and Platform Jumper, and which are all loosely connected by their gameworlds, rather than their gameplay. As you might expect from the title, this one is a kart racing game, in a similar vein to Mario Kart with a little bit of Power Drift and World Quest Magical Racing Tour. It's not a particularly great game though, so you might be better off with one of the other myriad racers out there. There's a bit of a strange storyline to this one, involving a threat to a magical kingdom and which can somehow be saved if a number of strange creatures take part in a racing competition to claim a mysterious cauldron. What follows is a typical karting game, where you choose one of twelve characters and then participate in a series of races through differently themed tracks and which include Atlantis Jungle, Paradise, and Abyss. There are various powerups to collect while racing and you have a handful of modes to try out, including championship, time attack and multiplayer. Kart Racer is certainly not an original take on the racing genre but this could easily be forgiven if it was much fun to play. Sadly, it's not that good. It's obviously a low budget affair and if you're standards are pretty low, you might get some amusement out of it. However, when you get down to it, the track design isn't overly impressive, the controls are a little awkward and there's just not the right sense of fun and thrills as there should be. Easilt avoided.
