Drift Challenge Turbo Racer

Summary

Having three buttons couldn’t sound much simpler until your first initiation sends your ride slamming into the scenery…

Drift Challenge Turbo Racer is a lightweight top-down time-based browser drifter with automatic acceleration, tricky handling, and a handbrake that lets you throw in a sick backie or fail miserably. Needless to say, you’ll soon see why most of the challenge in this one comes from learning the “quirky” physics.

There’s a Career mode where you’ll gradually unlock six vehicles and nine events, alongside Time Trial, which lets you chase a better result (or practice your skills).

It’s fun for a quick blast, but it’s certainly not the most detailed Career. Only five layouts are genuinely unique (four return, but in reverse), and you won’t find opponents to knock on doors with, or any way to tune or upgrade your rides.

Treat it as a quick, entertaining (yet scruffy) arcade game rather than expecting to learn how to drift, and it’ll be much easier to enjoy. The fast restarts (which you’ll need) are ideal, and the big-angle boost will leave you seeing how much you can push it (before it all goes wrong).

If you’re after convincing weight transfer or a garage worth gradually upgrading and saving for, you’ll want to check out some of our more in-depth drifting games, with Drift Hunters MAX being the most popular offering.

Features

• Release date – November 29, 2023
• Difficulty – Beginner/Intermediate
• Levels/environments – 9 (5 locations with 4 reverse layouts)
• Number of vehicles – 6
• Vehicle customization/upgrades – No
• Multiplayer – No
• Mobile – Yes
• Developer – Rising Pixel

Physics

The handling works best when you appreciate it’s never gonna be totally smooth and instead try to work with what you’ve got. Unlike most drifting games, it doesn’t settle nicely into a slide with natural weight transfer. It rotates in what can only be described as kinda clunky “clicks”.

Just when you feel like you’ve got the hang of it, trying to catch the angle on the next corner (more often than not) turns into a trip off-track. Countersteering becomes a matter of learning the timing and watching closely at how the car’s rotating.

Initially, opting for slower left and right inputs will bring the rear around more predictably without dealing with the sudden snap of the e-brake. This gives you time to feel where the car wants to straighten, and you’ll need to let it do its thing.

Once the steering starts to make sense (and it will do if you’re patient enough), a quick handbrake tap can help you quickly adjust the angle or scrub off a bit of speed if need be. Hold it longer, and the rear kicks out much harder, letting you start throwing down backwards entries eventually (if you wish!).

Once you exit the slide, bigger angles are rewarded with a (sometimes surprisingly unwelcome) sudden burst of acceleration. The extra speed can be useful when there’s room to catch it, but it’ll also send you slamming into the tires if you’re facing the wrong angle.

Boost pickups on the track (which appear to be spray paint cans, weirdly?) also launch you into the final red section on the speed gauge, but again, you’ll want to make sure you’re prepared for it.

For those of you who like the top-down vibe, but fancy something a little more predictable where you can tandem and battle it out against other drivers, Arcade Car Drift is a perfect alternative.

Graphics

The chunky cars, fixed top-down view, and tricky, twisty little courses might remind you of Micro Machines (if you’re old enough).

You’ll venture to desert, snow, forest, and circuit scenery as you progress. But don’t worry, even though Snowdrift Sprint looks super slippery, it doesn’t make the handling any harder than it already is (they seem to have got the snow ploughs out for you!)

When you’re in the game, the visuals are nice and simple. The speed gauge lets you monitor your speed, and the cones (which are a similar size to your car) get whacked off track after a hit, only slowing you down slightly. Your skid marks also (satisfyingly) remain for your next laps, so you can see your previous lines.

Controls

Acceleration is automatic, so you’ll only need to manage the steering and handbrake.

PC/laptop/Chromebook

• Left arrow – Steer left
• Right arrow – Steer right
• Space bar – Handbrake/drift

Mobile (iOS/Android)

• On-screen left arrow – Steer left
• On-screen right arrow – Steer right
• Handbrake/e-brake button – Drift

The mobile buttons sit awkwardly close to the middle. They work, but they make the already-fussy corrections even more awkward on a small screen.

How to Play Drift Challenge Turbo Racer

Initial Setup

Start with Career Mode. Time Trial only includes the tracks you’ve already unlocked in Career mode, so ‘Welcome Rally’ is initially your only choice.

The Police car is available immediately, while the other five vehicles can be earned by continuing through Career.

Every locked vehicle also offers the option to watch a quick ad for an instant unlock (not our fault, promise!). Although it doesn’t make it clear (it looks like you can only get them through ads), you’ll also unlock all of them as you progress with the post-run rewards.

Getting Started

It sure takes some getting used to initially. Each finish tells you your final time and rewards you with up to three stars. One star is enough to unlock the next event.

Early events are just one lap, and the later ones are three. Time Trial stores your best total time and star rating for every Career-unlocked course, if you’re keen to beat it.

Unfortunately, you haven’t got any opponents or ghost cars to go up against. You can improve by remembering where it went wrong last lap (which is easy, thanks to the tire marks).

Once you’ve unlocked everything in Career mode, trying to bag three stars and personal bests on each level will be the only remaining challenge.

Track List

• Welcome Rally
• Welcome Rally REV
• Drift Ring
• Duneslide
• Snowdrift Sprint
• Timber Trail
• Duneslide REV
• Snowdrift Sprint REV
• Timber Trail REV

The nine choices provide five unique tracks, with four reverse layouts. Welcome Rally appears in both directions, Drift Ring is essentially a circle, and the desert, winter, and forest courses each return as a REV (reverse) event. It makes sense they left out Drift Ring, since you’re just going around on a NASCAR-style oval.

You’ll get to enjoy completely different scenery, and the increasingly challenging layouts will give you plenty of opportunities to practice nailing the backies!

Unlike the wheel-to-wheel action in most racing games, every event here is just a solo run against the clock. You won’t need to manji down the straight for imaginary judges. Just maintain as much speed as you can, try not to go off-track, and use the boosters when it’s safe to do so.

Car List

• Police
• Taxi
• Van
• Interceptor
• Street Surfer

• Nomad

Rather than truly unique cars and detailed performance specs, the cars all feel pretty similar.

They’re all your typical “blocky”-style cars, with Van and Nomad being slightly bigger, and Interceptor looks like the cops upgraded (or downgraded?) to a Cybertruck. Thankfully, the funky paint jobs keep things entertaining, even if there is a bit of a lack of variety overall.

When it comes to which car to choose, just pick the one you like the look of most, and you can’t really go wrong. If you’re after something with a much better selection, we’ve got a huge catalog of car games to check out. Sky Car Drift offers an insane roster of over 200 (wildly varied) vehicles.

Madalin Stunt Cars 3 also offers over 60, all of which are free to unlock the moment you load the game, and you can even enjoy the stunt-based chaos with your friends in the online multiplayer mode.

Advanced Tips & Tricks

Build up your drifting confidence before using the handbrake

Initially, drift a few corners using only the left and right controls (carefully). The rear will still rotate slightly, but you’ll have much more time to understand the point where you need to stop steering, or maybe even start countersteering to correct the angle.

Once it starts to make sense, add short handbrake taps and get a feel for that. You’ll likely notice a sudden burst of speed after a while, and that’s the bonus for a well-executed slide. (Although it can also be an unwelcome one at times!)

Make sure you’re ready for the next corner

A large drift angle can suddenly launch you on exit, and the turbo pickups (paint cans) can help you achieve max speed. However, neither reward is helpful if the next bend arrives before you’ve got the car settled.

Sometimes, it’s sensible not to go for the most aggressive drift angle if you’ve got another corner coming up immediately after, and you can also consider just swerving the boost pickup entirely if it’s not gonna be useful. Since the clock only cares about your finish time, clean speed sometimes beats sending it (even if it’s not as fun!).

Let the first lap teach you the track

Dropping even just one wheel off track causes you to slow down rapidly, while hitting a cone isn’t quite so punishing, so you can knock a couple over instead of making a desperate swerve around every (amusingly oversized) obstacle.

On the later laps, remember where the cones (assuming you haven’t hit them all) and pickups sit, and use your previous lap skid marks to judge where things went wrong last time. The powerups return each lap, giving you another chance to plan for maximum boost.

When you’ve had enough of the basic drifting in this one, Drift Hunters is a better beginner route into learning throttle control, the basics of car setup, and more predictable physics. Alternatively, Drift King adds mountain roads alongside the racetracks, along with plenty of tuning and upgrades, and online multiplayer where you can tandem with the homies.

Drift Challenge Turbo Racer FAQ