Trackday Manager – by Eivmoe
Genre: Racing Management Sim
Developer: Arctic Hazard Game Studio a/s
Publisher: Arctic Hazard Game Studio a/s
Release Date: Mar 31, 2016
Trackday Manager is a racing simulator that focuses on managing and strategy. Both from fully customizing your car, to managing everything on the race; when to speed up, overtake, tail, block or do your pit stops. Run on an empty engine or be a heavy car with a always full tank. It is a game published and developed by Arctic Hazard Game Studio a/s.
While the car is a major focus, it is not the only thing that matters. From driver, to pit stop crew, all the way down to marketing manager, these are all essential members of your crew. You will need to train them up much like you upgrade your car. There are multiple cars to pick from in the game, as of writing this there are six, all with their own stats and car parts. While it is grand in its array of selections, it is quickly and easily overwhelming, and can seem like a grind since the money and experience you earn is rather slow. There is no clear line between what is offline and online in Trackday Manager, be it the races themselves or the stats gained when winning them.
Graphics are well done for a unity game, while it is not stunningly beautiful, they are pretty enough that they won’t bother you or distract you during the race. The car graphics are extremely well done in the garage, only to be disappointed when you start up the races to be met with a rather bland overview of the previously awesome looking cars. However, the background in the races are nice and overall well detailed.
Controls are keyboard only and not controller supported, I tested with ps4/ps3 controllers, however the “controls” are easy to use in a race. While unresponsive at times, they are simple enough to pick the game up once in awhile and still remember them. Most are self explanatory after having first learned them, such as space being a boost, P is pitstop and number keys navigate the directions.
The price is $20 USD, and is it worth it at the time being? You are given 6 tracks, 6 cars, over 60 car parts for each car, a giant menu for customizing the cars however you want, all currency is in-game and earned as “money” or “experience points” so if you want to unlock most off the game be prepared to put a lot of time into the game like most games. Real time pit stops, offline and online leaderboards, day and night cycles with their own dynamic weather system so a race is rarely the same.
In conclusion, know what you are getting. The game has a lot of content in a little package, meaning the game focuses on it’s managing while the overall game is small. I do, however, feel the asking price is a bit too steep in today’s market. However! If you are a person who enjoys managing a team, a roster, and being the leader of a racing team, this is the best game that offers that to the reviewers experience, and to fans of that genre it is definitely worth picking up even with its faults.
+Multiplayer and offline
+Loads of customizing
+Racing strategy
+Dynamic weather
~AI leaves much to be desired
~Wonky controls
~Matchmaking balance puts the newest car manager up against the very last most tweaked out cars which almost doubles your max speed making it almost impossible to win without many hours in the game
-Features not implemented for a fully released game is something never should happen
-Not able to change cars depending on the track makes it harder than it should be as certain cars are better at different tracks
-Very bullying AI that feels like it is deliberately crashing into you, which seems counterproductive
-They have an oval map
Final verdict. I recommend it to people who enjoys managing games and know they will be getting a rather small game in terms of pure content to do and not every feature is released yet.
Eivmoe gives Trackday Manager a Drastik Measure decent 6.3 out of 10 (63).
