Retro Grid

Standard race controls. Touch, keyboard, or gamepad. Cup-style progression unlocks new cars and tracks. Local two-player splits the screen vertically.

Retro Grid is a deliberately retro-styled top-down racer in the 16-bit aesthetic. Pixel cars on pixel tracks. The visual style is committed but the gameplay underneath is competent rather than inspired.

What works is the retro feel. The sprite-based cars have correct 16-bit proportions. The tracks are drawn as small detailed maps, and the audio is chiptune-flavoured to suit the visual style. Anyone who grew up with games like Super Cars (Amiga, 1990) will feel the right kind of nostalgia.

Where the game falls short is the lack of any unique gameplay mechanic. Standard racing controls and standard AI on a standard upgrade tree. The format is a competent retro tribute, but tribute alone is not enough to justify a game over the many better browser racers.

Twenty-five tracks across five championships. Cup-style progression through escalating difficulty. The track design is fine but does not stand out. Players will struggle to remember individual tracks after the campaign.

Tested over three Barcelona Sants sessions. Touch with virtual stick is fine. Keyboard works. Gamepad is the most natural fit. None of the inputs is significantly better than the others.

Where the design tries hardest is the local two-player split-screen mode. This is the kind of feature that retro racers benefit from, because the era they emulate had local multiplayer as standard. The split-screen is implemented well.

Where I would push back is the absence of online multiplayer. A nostalgic racer that does not include online play is missing the obvious extension. Local-only multiplayer is fine for couch sessions but limits broader appeal.

Three stars. Functional retro racer with strong aesthetic but unremarkable gameplay. Skippable unless you specifically want the 16-bit racing aesthetic and have no other options.