BAFL – Brakes Are For Losers is a fun game to play, especially with friends, but the simplicity of the game leaves me wanting something more.
The gimmick of the game is right in the name – there are no brakes. As such you have to shift your entire way of racing as you can’t slow down in tight corners and are forced to take the turns with more precision to avoid slamming into the walls. You’ll take damage from bumping obstacles in the race, including the guard rails and other cars. You also take damage from weaponized items.
If you take too much damage and run out of energy on the race course your car is wrecked. You’ll sit idle and will slowly restore energy up to half and can continue racing.
You can go in the pit to fully repair your race car. This also restores your boost gauge to full. When you enter the pit your car is automatically pulled you into a spot and starts the repair. Of course since none of the cars have brakes, any other cars that enter the pit can bump you out.
While the game is a pretty accurate representation of old-school arcade racers, there are a few modern things that I would like to have seen included. In the regular championship and default race modes you are on the track with seven other racers. At times it can be a bit chaotic. I would have loved the ability, when playing the game in single player mode, to have the view zoomed in a little bit with my car as the central focus.
BAFL has multiple tracks through the different modes, each of which has a specific theme. Tracks have various themes like the Moon, Vegas, or Pirates, each of which have unique elements including different disruptive elements. For example in the Vegas track there are elements of traffic on the racetrack and in the Pirate track there are pirate ships which fire cannonballs onto the track.
There aren’t a ton of tracks to choose from in the game, but each of the tracks can be raced in either direction. Races can also take place during the day or night which can make one track playable four different ways. Oddly enough you can’t select a specific track to race. Even when you choose a quick race, there is no course select and you play whatever track the game loads for you.
With the arcade action of the game, similar to games like Mario Kart, items pop up on the track during races. These items, when you race over them, disrupt other players. These items activate right away. There are also positive items which help you out refill your boost gauge or repair your vehicle.
After a few quick games and runs around the track there isn’t much left to do. A lack of a story mode or any real goals in the game leaves something to be desired. There is a time attack mode where you race to beat goals for race times. There is also challenge goals to remain undamaged for certain distance, which is admittedly difficult without the ability to brake. But that’s all you really have to go after in the way of a goal for the game.
The game has 8 different cars to choose from, but you can’t customize any of them. Being able to change the paint job or horn sound of any of the cars would have been something to make the game a little more personal. You can briefly upgrade various stats of your cars after each race during the championship mode, but those changes don’t hold over afterwards.
The ability to unlock more cars beyond the original eight cars, such as ones that are themed similarly to the various race tracks, would have been something else that would have given the game more purpose. Perhaps even having individual profiles, save slots, and the ability to earn experience for the races that in which you take part, could be used to pursue this customization.
These are pretty much staples in the racing genre of games, so it’s a little disappointing that none of these elements are in the game. They would definitely help the longevity of the game and give the gamer a reason to come back again and again.
Actually one of the highlights of the game was actually the championship showcase after completing a tournament. The cars are all shown in an arena like setting after the event. After the places are shown, all of the cars are let loose to drive (again, with no brakes) around the arena. You drive thru the left exit to quit and through the right to replay the tournament. Driving around in circles, boosting and slamming into the other cars was a heck of a lot of fun, especially when playing multiplayer. This demolition derby style event would have been fun to have been included and fleshed out more.
BAFL – Brakes Are For Losers definitely has an interesting gimmick and is pretty fun to play, but the classic simplicity doesn’t have holding power in the single player experience.
