Street Racing: Moto Drift

Summary

If you’ve got a couple of minutes to burn and fancy a quick and super easy bike game, Street Racing: Moto Drift is about as simple as it gets. Your bike steers itself around futuristic floating roads, and you only need to think about managing the throttle and lifting off before you end up flying (or getting hit) over the edge.

Those of you old enough to know what Scalextric is (just me?), the on/off throttle in this one will remind you of that. You need enough gas to stay ahead of your rivals (and kick the back end out of course!), but you also need to lift at the right moment or the car (or bike, in this case) will go flying off the track. It’s the same concept here, but leaving the track means falling into the abyss instead!

There’s not an awful lot to it, and it’s not trying to pretend otherwise. It’s a bright, forgiving racer that feels made for kids and beginners, with over 40 short levels and ten riders with increasingly funky bikes to unlock.

Experienced drifters and bike-game fans will probably see everything it has to offer within a few minutes (and fly through the levels), but as one of the simplest arcade games we’ve got, it’s a fun lil’ blast while it lasts.

Features

• Release date – February 19, 2024
• Difficulty – Beginner
• Levels/environments – Over 40 levels
• Number of vehicles – 10
• Vehicle customization/upgrades – No
• Multiplayer – No
• Mobile – Yes
• Developer – Eccentric Games Studio

Physics

The drifting happens automatically, and it all comes down to entry speed and mid-corner throttle. Attack the corner with enough momentum and the back end kicks out, but if you’re going too fast, you’ll drift straight off the edge. Shallow corners can often be taken with the throttle pinned, while the tighter ones need a brief lift to stay on the track.

If you do fall off, don’t worry, as it barely matters here. You’re put back on the track almost immediately, and the catch-up effect is generous enough that you can quickly make a comeback from last place.

As a drifting lesson, it teaches the absolute basics of where you might wanna lift, and that’s about it. There’s no counter-steering or weight transfer to think about.

If you fancy a bit more control of the sideways action, Slippery Drift Racing is an ideal next step (with similar cartoon-y graphics), since the tail-happy cars need guiding around the touge tracks.

Once you’re ready to take things up another notch, Drift Hunters MAX (or the old-school OG Drift Hunters) make much more sense. Our guide on how to drift in Drift Hunters MAX offers the perfect introduction.

Once you’ve got the drifting bug, we’ve got free how to drift tutorials, where legends like Keiichi Tsuchiya walks you through the Drift Bible, to guidance from modern Formula Drift icons like Chelsea DeNofa.

Graphics

You’ll slide (and smash) across a variety of brightly colored floating roads that hang in the sky with cartoony, futuristic scenery all around them, and tire smoke pours off your bike (and the police cars you’ll soon encounter) when sliding. It’s simple but well-refined, and everything plays smoothly, although you’ll soon start revisiting familiar-looking places.

You can’t change the camera view. If you’re playing with a mouse, the speedometer appears wherever your cursor is, so you can drag it out of the way while you’re holding the throttle, which is pretty neat.

Controls

PC/laptop/Chromebook

• Hold left mouse button/Space bar – Accelerate
• Release left mouse button/Space bar – Slow down

Mobile (iOS/Android)

• Press and hold the touchscreen – Accelerate
• Release the touchscreen – Slow down

Steering is automated, so there’s nothing more to think about. The one-button layout is perfect on a phone, and you’ll find plenty more like it in our mobile games section.

How to Play Street Racing: Moto Drift

Initial Setup

There’s nothing to set up or think about. You’re thrown straight onto the first level, where a settings cog on the left toggles the sound (and nothing else). You can click the rider/bike button in the bottom right to see your character and ride, but the rest of them are hidden for now.

You can only play the first level until it’s completed. So, when you’re ready, press the play button, and you’ll get a three, two, one countdown, and it’s go time!

Getting Started

Level 1 shows a finger telling you to press, and it’s basically the tutorial. I say tutorial, it doesn’t really tell you much, but that’s because there’s not much to understand. At first, you can pretty much hold the throttle down constantly (without worrying about going off-track), and watch the chaos unfold.

After the intro, you’ll be back on the starting line against your rivals, and the proper races begin. The aim is simply to reach the finish without sliding off the edges. The early courses are super short, sometimes just a couple of corners, so they’re a good chance to learn when you need to lift before the later ones get longer, faster, twistier, and more competitive.

As you progress, you’ll smash through barrels, boxes, traffic cones, and bollards early on, before tankers (which leak oil when hit), swinging logs, and massive wrecking balls hanging from cranes start showing up. Trains appear later too, but don’t panic when you see one, since you can just keep the throttle pinned and smash through the carriages.

Oil spills slow you down and make the bike slippery, and the other riders will sometimes hit something first and leave the wreckage in your path.

Your rider handles the stunts for you, poppin’ wheelies and throwing in a backflip when you hit the jumps with enough speed. If the jumps turn out to be your favorite part, Stunt Bike Extreme provides the ultimate browser-based trials bike experience, with huge ramps and explosive hazards across 270 stages.

After a while, police vehicles randomly join in on certain levels. Don’t worry, it’s not a proper pursuit where you need to worry about getting caught. They’re just massive and smash into everyone, which suits the illegal street-racing idea and adds plenty of chaos and carnage.

If you fancy a game with more chasing, Moto Road Rash 3D 2 has escape missions where the cops try to ram you off the road, and we’ve got an entire category dedicated to pursuits in our police games section.

Game Modes

There’s one mode, which are numbered races you work through in order. Finishing a level unlocks the next one (even if you don’t win) and previews a bit more of the next rider you’ll get to unlock in the post-race teaser.

Your position doesn’t matter too much. Come last and you’ll get exactly the same progress as the winner, so you might as well just have a blast and enjoy it along the way!

It’s great for jumping straight in and having a bit of fun, but some of you will likely run out of reasons to keep playing unless you want to try the new bikes. Racing Pop is the closest match if you fancy trying another hold-and-lift racing game, since it has the same self-steering, slot-car-style feel, but you get 19 cars to work toward along with repairs, boosts, and customization.

Tap Drift is another popular alternative, which uses a similar press-and-hold style (more like Guitar Hero) to control the slides along a futuristic road, and the global leaderboards give you more to work towards.

If it’s the bikes you’re here for, Traffic Road is the most popular motorcycle game at Drifted, with Career, Endless, Time Trial, and Free Ride modes and upgrades to earn as you dodge the high-speed highway traffic.

Riders & Bikes

There’s ten riders, each with their own bike, and you’ve got just one unlocked at the start. As you complete the levels, you’ll get a better preview of the next unlock, and the level menu at the top shows an award icon when they’ll eventually unlock. It soon becomes a little gotta-collect-them-all thing!

Once you reach the required level, you’ll still need to watch an ad to unlock the new pairing. It was a little buggy when I played, and sometimes I had to refresh the page before it’d work. If that doesn’t work, check whether you’ve got an ad blocker enabled, since the unlock needs the ad to load. They’re not our ads, and we appreciate it’s not ideal!

There’s no details or stats to compare each bike/rider, but they do genuinely handle differently. You’ll unlock superbike-style machines, longer-wheelbase bikes, chopper-looking ones, and some super futuristic stuff. They generally get funkier and faster as you go.

There’s even one rider who looks suspiciously like Spider-Man, with a super-long bike that’s hilariously drifty and requires a little more thought when navigating the twisties.

Once you’ve collected them all, Moto Boss is another simple bike drifter where you’ll skid across narrow floating tracks, except the bike accelerates by itself and your click does the steering. There’s more to it, though, with coins, power-ups, and more bikes to unlock.

Advanced Tips & Tricks

Release the throttle if your bike isn’t pointing straight out of a corner

If the bike exits a corner at an angle, it’ll often just carry on in that direction and drive itself off the track. When you see it happening, a quick lift usually corrects it.

Lift before tighter corners, and earlier still on a freshly unlocked bike

For the tight stuff, lift before you get there rather than when you’re halfway round, because it’ll likely be too late by then. Most of the new bikes get increasingly quicker down the straights, so expect to lift a little sooner for a race or two until you’ve got a feel for it.

Have fun pushing the limits once you’re comfortable

Falling off costs you so little that it’s good fun seeing how far the physics will go. You’ll still get to unlock the next level. 

Play around with kickin’ the back end out into barriers and signs, (see how close you can get to wall runs!). Sometimes they’ll slow you down and keep you on the track (just) and it’s fun to play around and see what you can get away with.

Street Racing: Moto Drift FAQ