Overtake X

Summary

Let’s face it, there’s no shortage of highway traffic browser racers out there, but each brings its own quirks and benefits, and Overtake X is no exception.

You get six varied game modes, from the fairly relaxed One-Way where the traffic all drives in the same direction, to the chaotic Two-Way mode that puts you head-on against oncoming cars for bigger potential payouts (and considerably more anxiety!).

On top of that, there’s also unique Daily Bonus and Police Chase modes, with the latter taking the intensity up (yet) another notch. If that’s still not enough, there’s a traffic density slider that lets you go up to 100. And… Yeah, all I’ll say is good luck with that! It makes the morning commute look peaceful in comparison.

The combo system is chilled enough that it lets you miss a car or two without panicking about losing your streak, which is a relief when you’ve not had any to pass for a few seconds (which is often a common complaint in other traffic games).

Once you start racking in the cash, there’s a generous roster of 39 cars waiting in the showroom, and it’s surprisingly Euro-heavy. You’ll initially unlock VW Beetles, Vauxhalls, and Peugeots before moving on to a selection of JDM legends. Eventually (if you’ve got the patience), you’ll get the opportunity to unlock Lambos and even a Bugatti Veyron (for a cool million!).

Some of the bigger and more unique vehicles like the semi-truck and Range Rover provide you with an extra life in Endless mode, which you’ll undoubtedly need since weaving a semi through rush-hour traffic is a little different from a hot hatch!

Features

• Release date – February 27, 2025
• Difficulty – Beginner/Intermediate
• Levels – 6 locations
• Number of vehicles – 39
• Vehicle customization/upgrades – Yes
• Multiplayer – No
• Mobile – Yes
• Developer – AZ Games

Physics

The handling is tight and grippy with no drifting whatsoever, which you’ll be grateful for when you’re threading through tiny gaps at 100+ km/h since you can count on confidently knowing exactly where the car is gonna go.

There’s a bit of realistic body roll when you swerve between the lanes (especially on cars/pickups with softer suspension), and you can use a little countersteering to squeeze through tighter spaces.

The body roll aspect goes yet another step further in Crazy Traffic Racer, with unpredictable suspension wobble and a twitchy rear that keeps you guessing and requires careful inputs.

If you’re after something with a looser rear end, the rarely-seen curved highway roads in Traffic Racing let the back step out for drift bonuses alongside the near-miss scoring. It’s a welcome switch-up when you want a traffic racer with a bit of smoke and tail-happy action!

Graphics

The visuals are decent for a browser traffic game, and your car models look great, especially in the photo mode found in the garage (which is worth checking out). The other cars on the road aren’t quite so polished, though.

Each new location brings varied weather such as snow and rain, as well as a nighttime mode. You’re not gonna be admiring the scenery much here, though, since your eyes are glued to the traffic ahead. For that reason, I recommend focusing on unlocking your favorite cars first, and maybe opting for a new location later when you’ve got some spare cash lying around.

Controls

PC/laptop/Chromebook

• W/Up arrow – Accelerate
• S/Down arrow – Brake/reverse
• A/Left arrow – Steer left
• D/Right arrow – Steer right
• E – Horn/flash lights

Mobile/tablet (iOS/Android)

• On-screen touch controls

How to Play Overtake X

Initial Setup

The settings menu lets you adjust music and sound volume, plus toggle between manual and auto acceleration. Stick with manual even from the start unless you’re completely new to driving games. It gives you much more control when you need to lift off the throttle in a hurry.

Once you click ‘Play’, you’ll be in the garage. Four tabs sit across the top for paint, wheels, upgrades, and decals. 

You can use the left and right arrows to scroll through the full car list and check what you’re working towards. We’ll cover all of these aspects below, but for now just pick a color and set of rims you like from the free options and get out on the open road. 

Getting Started

The starter pickup truck takes a while to get there, but once you pass 100 km/h, you’ll start earning the high-speed bonus, alongside extra combo points for every car you overtake with a near miss. That 100 km/h threshold is a huge help when it comes to earnings, so try to stay above it whenever you can.

One nice thing is the combo counter is more forgiving than a lot of similar games. You get a decent window between cars before the combo drops off, so don’t panic if there’s a gap in the traffic.

If you’re familiar with other highway traffic games, Highway Traffic is similar (but the graphics definitely win here). That one has the same near-miss combo system but throws in weather effects that change how the car handles mid-run, plus nitrous for when you wanna push your luck, which is surprisingly a feature you don’t get here.

When it comes to your first purchase, putting some early cash into upgrading the truck’s stats is a decent idea since the cheaper cars aren’t that exciting. That said, picking up something smaller like the Civic makes getting up to speed and fitting through tighter gaps way easier (and the better handling usually means you’ll earn money faster anyway).

Game Modes

Endless One-Way

The most straightforward mode and the ideal place to get to grips with the basics. All the traffic faces the same direction, so you’re just focused on weaving and building up combos.

Endless Two-Way

This is where the real money lives, but only once you’re able to put in a decent run.

You’ll earn additional opposing-lane bonuses for driving on the wrong side of the road, but be warned that the cars appear outta nowhere if you’re going super fast. If your handling or brakes aren’t upgraded enough, you’re probably not gonna be able to react in time. It’s worth it once you’ve got an upgraded ride and you’re feeling more confident, though.

If you want the Two-Way aspect along with online multiplayer, check out Highway Racer, where you also get a Speed Bomb mode with a bomb-loaded truck. For an even deeper multiplayer option, Racing Limits pairs the live online racing aspect with an impressive 80-level career and proper suspension tuning.

Time Trial

Think of this as One-Way mode, but with a 100-second timer. Crashing doesn’t end your run here – your car just resets at a standstill, so you lose momentum (and the bonuses that come with it) but not the whole session.

This is arguably the best mode to earn money, especially early on. You get a guaranteed 100 seconds regardless of how many mistakes you make, and you don’t need to keep going through the game screens.

Free Ride

Think of this as practice mode, with a traffic density slider that goes from 0 to 100. Crank it to max, and the highway turns into absolute carnage. The catch is you don’t earn any cash here, so it’s purely for refining your skills.

Police Chase

This one only unlocks once you’ve bought the police car from the garage (and it’ll take a fair bit of grinding to get there).

If you don’t wanna save for the cop car just to try a chase mode, Police Traffic is a highway racer that puts you behind the wheel of Camaro- and Viper-style cruisers across a variety of game modes. We’ve also got a whole page of police-focused driving games if that’s your thing.

Daily Bonus

You can play this every 12 hours (not once a day, despite the name). You get a vehicle that’s not in the normal roster, like an ambulance, and a set time to rack up as many near-miss overtakes as you can with an instant payout for each.

Car List

You start with a pickup truck and work your way through 39 vehicles. The early lineup is packed with lesser-seen European cars, with the first few being a classic VW Beetle (1,500), an old-school Citroen (2,000), and a Lada (2,500), followed by a Ford Transit Connect, Peugeot 206, Vauxhall Astra, and a VW Golf. Certainly not your usual browser finds!

Thankfully, the JDM crowd puts those to shame among the mid-range offerings, with an 180SX (or 240SX?) Silvia, BMW E30 M3, Subaru BRZ, Honda S2K, Impreza, alongside a couple of Civics.

Once the prices start climbing past 50,000, you get the real weaponry, such as the Supra at 60k, the ‘Godzilla’ R32 GT-R at 80k, and a semi-truck (no trailer, unfortunately) at 95,000 that comes with an extra life in Endless mode (you’ll want it, since navigating that thing through traffic is properly difficult). A few other bigger options like the Range Rover Sport and BMW X5 also provide extra life for the same reason.

The top end offers the likes of a Porsche 911, a Ferrari, an R35 GT-R, a Lambo (as always!), and the holy grail Bugatti Veyron at a cool 1,000,000.

Upgrades don’t carry over between cars, so every new vehicle starts from scratch. This means you’ll need to factor in upgrade costs when deciding whether to save for the next car or max out the one you’ve got.

If this all sounds like too much grinding, Madalin Stunt Cars 3 provides the opposite approach, with all 60+ supercars unlocked the moment you open the game, along with online lobbies and open stunt maps to cause chaos with your friends.

Or, if you fancy something on two wheels instead, the same publisher’s hugely popular Traffic Road game swaps out the car roster for 30 bikes along with a two-island career mode and a wheelie mechanic that you (obviously) don’t get here! There are loads more in our motorcycle games collection, too.

Locations

You get six highways to choose from. Suburb and Desert are free from the start, then Autumn (7,500), Snowy (15,000), Rainy (30,000), and City Night (50,000). They add some visual variety with snowy, rainy, and neon-lit highways.

If all the traffic intensity has you craving the opposite approach, Slow Roads strips it all away. You’ve got no traffic, timer, or scoring systems to worry about, and you can just cruise through endless British countryside in a variety of vehicles.

Upgrades & Customization

Upgrades

There’s four stats to upgrade – speed, acceleration, handling, and braking. A blue bar shows your current level, and the red line defines the maximum potential for your car once fully upgraded.

Each stat gets upgraded individually, and the Stage 1 upgrades cost 500 each and add five percent. Then, the price doubles at each stage (500, 1,000, 2,000), despite remaining the same increase. This is where it’s worth questioning whether you’re better off just upgrading your ride (unless you’ve got the Veyron, of course!)

The stat upgrades do the job, but if you want the opportunity to play around with adjustable gears and camber angles instead of stat bars, Traffic Rally offers way more tweaking across its 22-car lineup, along with an 80-level career.

If it’s the car count that hooked you, Drift Hunters MAX matches the 39-car roster exactly but lets you drive them across 13 tracks with much more in the way of tuning and upgrades, and a Drift Attack mode where clipping points mirror real-world Formula Drift judging. It’s a completely different style of driving game, but it’s by far our most popular for good reason.

Customization

The paint tab gives you three free colors and four locked ones (green at 500, purple at 1,000, black and grey at 2,000 each). Your best bet is the color slider, though, where any custom color only costs 500 regardless of what you pick.

Wheels are where this game quietly flexes. There are 30 aftermarket options to choose from (yes, thirty!), with four free from the start. One of the free sets is a dead ringer for Enkei RPF1s, which is a nice touch, with the rest ranging from 1,500 up to 7,000.

Decals round it out with a massive selection of vinyls, from graffiti tags to dragons (if that’s your thing… we won’t judge!).

Advanced Tips & Tricks

Use the barriers to your advantage

The barriers on both sides of the highway have no penalty at all. You can slam into them at any speed or angle, and nothing happens apart from maybe losing a bit of momentum (and paint!). So, if you need to cut across three lanes in a hurry, just bounce off the barrier to make sure you have enough space, instead of trying to thread the needle.

Smaller cars can earn money faster

The pickup is fine to start with, but once you’ve saved up for something like the Civic, the difference is obvious. Smaller cars accelerate faster (for the high-speed bonus) and slip through gaps the truck can’t. The cherry on the top is that the improved handling also means fewer crashes and longer combos.

Don’t be afraid to brake, even if it means losing your combo

Losing the high-speed bonus for a few seconds is always better than crashing. A long run at moderate speed will always outpay a fast run that ends at the first (failed) overtake.

Tap the brakes, keep your combo alive, and get back above 100 km/h as soon as it’s safe.

Bigger vehicles will often need more room than you think

You’ll soon get comfortable slipping past cars in a straight line, but the larger vehicles are noticeably wider. You’ll need to give them extra space and plan your lane changes earlier.

If you wanna put your millimeter-gap threading skills to good use, Polytrack requires the same precision but on a huge selection of low-poly racetracks instead of a highway. It looks basic, but the physics are among the most brutal, intense, and unforgiving of any driving game out there.

Don’t underestimate the earnings potential on Time Trial

You get a flat 100 seconds regardless of how many crashes you have.

When you do total your ride, it simply resets instead of ending the run, so you can practice risky moves and still walk away with decent cash. Once you’re confident enough for Two-Way, the payouts can get bigger, but Time Trial is the safest bet early on.

Overtake X FAQ