Cruis'n Blast

Crusin’ Blast is a new take on an old classic that doesn’t abandon its roots and will introduce itself to a new audience of young gamers, who I think will love it.

When the legendary authors of the classic arcade games completely ignore reality for the sake of crazy, over the top entertainment, we get something really extraordinary.

Cruis'n Blast is a wild time from top to bottom, and what it might lack in quantity, it makes up for in quality and replayability. If you like arcade racing, don't let this pass you by. It truly is a blast! [Issue #56 – November/December 2021, p. 73]

The racing in Cruis’n Blast truly reflects the game’s arcade roots, focusing on fun over-the-top thrills over any sort of realism. As long as you are okay with that, you’ll likely have as a good of a time with this Switch version as I did. I do wish there was support for online multiplayer as not everyone is going to have willing players in their vicinity, but I guess if a casual player was going to join in on any racing game without Mario in it, it might be this one. It’s colorful, silly, fast, and stylish. Raw Thrills did just about everything it could to make this home version the ultimate way to go Cruis’n, and it certainly does a good job of scratching an itch.

Cruis'n Blast is a very pleasant surprise for those who crave arcade racing over the simulation style. It nails the speed and the ease with which anyone can pick it up and play, thanks to a simplified control scheme and the easy AI difficulty in the early stages. Although the variety is superficial, there's a good variety of tracks here and plenty of oddball vehicles for players to unlock. One can argue that the game isn't deep, and dedicated players can get almost everything done in a day, but with pure arcade racing being gone for so long, you tend to forgive all of that when you're enjoying every moment.

Cruis’n Blast is an excellent return for the series and genre as a whole. The lack of online multiplayer hurts but there is a lot to enjoy for solo players and those who can play locally. Fantastic visuals and track set-pieces make this an engaging, fun time.

Cruis’n Blast is the most thrilling racing experience on Switch and the best arcade racer in years. It plays like a dream and offers up more control options than most arcade racers on the console. Its diverse lineup of vehicles, tracks and various track-related setpieces are tremendous and keep the player engaged from beginning to end. Other than the lack of online multiplayer, it’s hard to find something missing from the overall presentation given what the game is trying to be. The sound design is fantastic as well — with a fun soundtrack that’s breezy and easy on the ears.

If you’ve played previous Cruis’n games before, you know what you’re getting into. I had an absolute blast playing Cruis’n Blast and highly recommend it for any speed junkies that need a quick, fun fix on their Switch.

Cruis’n Blast is as arcade-y as an arcade racer can be. It has the high thrills and high stakes that are so over the top, but that’s the charm of the Cruis’n series. It doesn’t require so much setup to just get a few races in. If you are itching for wild thrills and quick rides, this is the perfect pickup.

Cruis’n Blast is a fantastic trip back to the past with some modern luxuries to round out the package. This is not a game for everyone. It can be maxed out in a day and the replay comes from the enjoyment of the races and tracks themselves. If you are into that though, you will be hard-pressed to find a more polished version of an arcade racing game to date. You can feel the love from Raw Thrills past work poured into this game and I hope it eventually makes its way onto other platforms at some point. Everyone should get a chance to experience the thrill of arcade racing in its finest form.

As long as you're willing to put up with some performance hits and the fact that there's no online multiplayer, Cruis'n Blast is a hugely entertaining arcade style racer with incredible set-pieces that has us crossing every possible body part in the hope that it's successful enough to encourage more of the same somewhere down the line.

In a way, Cruis’n Blast is a rollercoaster. It’s fast, fun and it also ends way too quickly.Its spirit is firmly planted in a bygone era for games, which still does its best to entertain people - regardless of their age.

Cruis’n Blast is great at what it does. However, there’s not much here beyond straightforward, arcade racing. While this was generally great for me, how much mileage someone will get out of it depends on how much they enjoy this relatively simple genre.

A completely crazy arcade game, ideal for those who want tightrope walkers, negligible for everyone else.

The arcade racing subgenre isn’t as buoyant as it once was with new examples few and far between so it’s always exciting when one does drift into view and delivers thrills in high doses. Cruis’n Blast is a truly wild ride of a game packed with plenty of fun and equally wild extras. It’s simple but electrifying and during a time where games are vying to offer season passes, realistic physics and always online experiences it’s truly welcome and refreshing to come across a game that just wants to be an old-school great time.

Cruis’n Blast is an endearingly earnest arcade racing time capsule, but it's also a very lean package that struggles to disguise its origins as a wafer-thin 2017 arcade cabinet.

Cruis’n Blast shoves players kicking and screaming to the time when the Dreamcast was king, racing was purely about things blowing up for no reason, and unicorns had great engine noises. And I love it for that.

For all its faults, Cruis'n Blast does a great job of capturing the style of its '90s predecessors. Throughout its various cups and in multiplayer, there's a lot of arcade fun that's a welcome break for anyone tired of Mario Kart 8. It's easy to wish that more time went into having a variety of modes rather than tracks that can feel too similar to stand out, and the graphics certainly aren't hiding the fact that this game was first released five years ago. Still, anyone looking to relive the days of Cruis'n USA will find a lot to like by taking a whirlwind tour of what Blast has to offer.

In short bursts, Cruis'n Blast is a solid racing entry that you'll likely have a lot of fun with, but its simplicity and lack of track variety reflect that these games are better intended for the arcade than as a home release. If you're looking for a more substantial racing experience, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.

I absolutely do miss those days. I can’t get on with realistic racing games, so I crave a steady diet of the stuff that Cruis’n Blast gives. At the same time, I normally rented racing games on the N64 and rarely bought them. The same would have held true for Cruis’n Blast. It’s too fleeting to really grab hold of my grey matter and make a home there. I had a lot of fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to return to the beige, carefully curated modernity.

There’s no doubt that Cruis’n Blast is going to serve a relatively niche audience, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sheer spectacle on display combined with vast opportunity for technical skill makes for an incredibly engaging arcade racing game that focuses on letting the player have pure, unfiltered fun. It’s a shame that there isn’t any form of online functionality to provide a little extra meaning to the experience, since that little extra motivation could’ve elevated Cruis’n Blast from a good game to a great game.

Cruis'n Blast is a fun game in the short term, but lacks the depth of many other arcade racers and doesn’t offer a particularly exciting multiplayer, with just a few local 4-players modes.

If you miss old-school arcade racing games, this one is a real blast from the past that will keep those memories alive.

Arcade racers should be better represented on console and PC, with Cruis’n Blast ticking a lot of boxes for those who love this genre and wish that it wasn’t almost solely confined to arcade cabinets. There are few games that will pitch a unicorn in a race against a UFO, and such possibilities in Cruis’n Blast should be celebrated appropriately. However, performance problems, the absence of online multiplayer, and the lack of things to do for the solo player make for an altogether disappointing port, that nonetheless just about offers enough to warrant the attention of arcade racing fans.

Cruis'n Blast presents an arcade racing formula that's exciting at first but quickly wears thin due to its lack of challenge or need for skill. That being said, it can still be enjoyable for a few rounds of old-school racing entertainment with friends.

As with any rollercoaster, you can never quite recapture the giddy pleasure of that first ride. [Issue#367, p.121]

Cruis'n Blast for Nintendo Switch has been developed by a very small team, and for what it has achieved it is very admirable. It is an incredibly fun title for the first couple of hours, but it is lacking in any real depth to make it anything more than a fun weekend. Grabbing friends locally for a few races can be an absolute blast, but lacking any online modes whatsoever somewhat dampens the mood. The lack of modes is one thing, but the course variety is also another issue with most tracks being direct derivatives of the original five arcade ones. However, if a simple, easy to handle racer that has some astounding set pieces and outlandish vehicle choices is your type of thing, then Cruis'n Blast will definitely satisfy the urge.

I certainly had fun times in Cruisn’ Blast, particularly when my inner child was at the wheel, but my brain (which was never completely turned off) kept telling me that there are better racing games now. Cruisn’ Blast is full of nostalgia for a series that prefers the absurd above innovation or quality. There will be some voluntary and involuntary laughs here and there, as long as you are not bothered by short experiences full of Déjà vus and poor graphics.

All things considered, it took me a little over an hour or so to see just about everything that Cruis’n Blast has to offer. The Nintendo Switch racing scene has been dominated by Mario Kart and I feel like Cruis’n Blast had a chance to make a real case for bringing other classic Nintendo racers back into the scene. But if lackluster graphics and mediocre racing mechanics are all we’d get it might be better to leave our precious memories in the past. Cruis’n Blast isn’t unplayable though and would probably make an enjoyable experience for someone with kids or younger siblings. Everyone else should probably head to the arcade and hope they have a much more enjoyable arcade experience available to try out.

Cruis’n Blast focuses on style over substance, making the end result feel a bit hollow. Navigating a careening ferris wheel is the stuff action movies are made of, but there’s just not enough content here to justify picking up this home release over sinking a few bucks into the arcade version.

Overall, Cruis’n Blast is a simple and light-hearted arcade racer that, had it not been for the heavily scripted AI, would be a ton of fun to play. Unfortunately, this overrules all features in the game and leaves it feeling unfair and frustrating.

If you have friends to play with regularly, Cruis’n Blast can provide light arcade-style thrills. With over-the-top courses, a catchy soundtrack, and simple gameplay, there’s fun to be had. There’s just not enough content to justify it for anyone else, though, especially when basic features expected of the genre are missing.