Cruis’n Blast is uncut medical grade nostalgia and it need to be regulated by the FDA. It’s almost unbelievable that this thing actually exists. It’s an honest to goodness arcade port to home console of a venerable series and it plays like an N64 game while looking like a souped up Dreamcast title but it’s…good? It feels like falling down some kind of time hole into the bargain bin section of a Gamestop circa 2001 when they were blowing out their Dreamcast games and finding a port of an N64 title you’d never heard of before. This is a game out of time, a relic of another era, something I never thought I’d see again, at least as a genuine new 2021 release.
Cruis’n Blast is the latest game in the Cruis’n series, and unlock many modern fresh entries in old series it was actually made by industry legend Eugene Jarvis and some of the OG Cruis’n team at his company Raw Thrills. Originally a 2017 arcade only release it has the bright neon color and blaring music that you need for the modern arcade scene, where your machine can expect to take up resident in a cacophonous Dave ‘N Busters or other similar joint and jostle for tokens with everything from classic games to skee ball. This game was clearly made on a budget and while the graphics are bright and appealing they are simple and low poly even for the Switch, let alone for a game that’s competing with the 9th Gen Xbox Series and PS5 consoles. The gameplay is simple too. You pick a circuit, there are 6 of them, or you can race single races or time trials on any of the tracks you’ve unlocked. Local multiplayer is also available and Eugene Jarvis has said that the team intends to patch in online at some point in the future. There’s progression in the form of vehicle unlocks and leveling up individual vehicles through racing XP, but beyond that there’s not a lot to it. No attempt at story or any kind of career mode or anything like that. This is an actual arcade racer, not an open world/simcade hybrid like Forza Horizon 5 or a story focused racing game like The Crew.
It also plays like a true arcade racer. If you’re not flooring the gas at basically all times you’re falling behind. There are two boost buttons, one that you can use to powerslide or do various stunts like wheelies and flips off jumps and one that allows you to use a limited number of nitro boosts (you get 3 per race but can buy additional boosts with in game race winnings, though you only get them for the one race or circuit not as permanent upgrades) to rocket ahead. Liberal use of both of these boosts is necessary if you want to get to the front of the pack and finish first, or at least they were for me. The racing is frantic and intense, involving lots of jostling for position with the AI cars and even Burnout style takedowns as you wreck the opponents in front of you in your desperate quest to get ahead. This is not a game where you draft and pick your moment to pass. This is a game where you powerslide and boost into the rear of the guy ahead of you and hope he explodes. It makes for simple and flashy fun but not a whole lot of depth.
Also not showing a whole lot of depth is the track list. There are nominally 29 different tracks but in actuality it’s more like 5, which is the number that the original arcade machine had. All the other tracks are just reskins of those 5, changing the theme from dinosaurs to UFOs or whatever, and while there might be slight gameplay differences from, for example, adding police interceptors that try to knock you off course, you quickly adapt and can tell that there’s just not a lot of meat on this bone. The tracks themselves are fine, with some obstacles and optional shortcuts, but even in 1997 this would have been seen as a content lite game.
The thing is, I’m not sure it matters. Back in 1997 there were a lot fewer games to play and the audience was mostly kids and if a game wanted to be worth the money (especially on the N64 where carts cost more than the PlayStation’s CDs and a lot more than current games if you account for inflation) it had to be something you could play for a long time. For a small subset of players Cruis’n Blast will be something they can play for a long time as they try to hone their times and master the higher difficulty levels (there really should have been online leaderboards and those need to be added) but for most of us the thrill will burn bright but short. Do I want to invest dozens of hours into a simple arcade racer in 2021, when I have an enormous backlog and I’ve already put 30-40 hours into Forza Horizon 5 with its enormous map and virtually endless supply of content (especially if you include user created stuff)? Not really. I want to get in, remember what it felt like to play Beetle Adventure Racing on my N64 and San Francisco Rush 2049 on my Dreamcast and move on, maybe occasionally booting it up again for a couple races and some of that sweet nostalgia. For those purposes Cruis’n Blast is perfect. I got it for $25 and it’s been as low as $20 as of my writing this, and for that price it’s a good value for someone who misses these kinds of arcade racers. I’ve played other throwback racers like Horizon Chase Turbo and Hotshot racing and while they have their charms (Horizon Chase Turbo is legitimately quite a good game) they don’t quite capture the arcade madness that Cruis’n Blast does. Part of this is its higher budget that allows it to throw lots of spectacle on the screen (dinosaurs, aliens, tracks that break away and send your vehicle dropping hundreds of feet through the air) and part of it is that those games are carefully balanced racing experiences and Cruis’ Blast is not. Your car can clip through all sorts of things, is barely slowed by obstacles, and is not at all bound by the laws of physics. One of the best ways to pass opponents is to jump over them via a boost ramp and then let them slam you from behind, sending you rocketing forward. This goes well beyond rubbin’ is racin’ and at times verges on car combat. It’s the kind of dumb, not fully baked but still functional, racing that we saw a lot of back in the day and that’s hard to replicate without the constraints of old technology and business concerns that led to these 85% finished games being released in the state they were.
Raw Thrills knew what they were doing though. Given some additional budget to convert the game for home console they decided to spend the time and funds adding collectable keys and a cash reward system to allow you unlock zany vehicles like a unicorn that makes car engine noises and crazy graphical effects rather than trying to ‘fix’ a driving system whose very jankiness adds to the game’s wacky appeal. It’s fast, things explode, what more do you want? This game is unapologetically intended to suck a few dollars in an arcade, and the home version is just meant to bring that experience home with enough bells and whistles that people who want to spend more time with the game can. By sticking to the old design ethos they avoided making something that captured the form of the old thing but not the soul. This has the soul of a Naomi title brought home to the Dreamcast.
And that’s what made me enjoy Cruis’n Blast. From the moment that 90s as hell theme song hits I legitimately felt I was back at college checking out a new Dreamcast game after my last class on Friday. Those old emotions were stirred, those nostalgia glands contracted and I felt things I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t know if people who didn’t live through that period will feel the same, but for me this was a perfect throwback. I played it for 3-4 hours, unlocked the things I wanted, leveled up the cars I wanted to level up, and I’m done for now, but I had a lot of fun and was reminded of a lot of rose-colored memories. $25 is a fair amount to pay for a short janky racing game but it’s a damned good price for a time machine.
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